Your game theoretic model is wrong because it assumes a two-player game. This isn’t a two-player game. For Putin, the most important thing is his domestic political power.
A lot of his reasons for deciding to start the war in 2022 the way he did was also bad intelligence. He didn’t expect the current scenario to appear and as such our predicted behavior in the current situation had little significance for his decision back then.
If Russia were concerned with protecting the rights of minorities [...]
This is like saying that if the United States would care about human rights, they wouldn’t have tortured people in Abu Graib.
Wars tend to be ugly in ways that those that support waging those wars don’t want. Part of why wars are fought is that they are popular with the population. If you understand the reasons why they are popular, that is part of understanding the decision to start the war. In the case of Ukraine, the plight of the Russian minority does play a significant role.
So does not invading other countries.
I would certainly prefer if Russia wouldn’t invade other countries but optimizes for peace, but that’s not the world we live in. We have to choose our policy based on the choices we are facing.
There is no reason to think the people in the stolen territories want to be annexed, and as the Russian army invaded Ukraine, they murdered and raped their way through civilians.
That sounds to me like you spent no energy investigating the question of what people in Crimea want. “No reason” does sound like willful ignorance.
You’re being vague about what exactly the “negotiated ceasefire agreement” would be, and what that’s analyzed in the non-vague decision-theoretic sense, I see no reason to think it would be a good idea.
MINSC II point 5 says:
Constitutional reform in Ukraine, with a new constitution to come into effect by the end of 2015, the key element of which is decentralisation (taking into account peculiarities of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, agreed with representatives of these districts), and also approval of permanent legislation on the special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in accordance with the measures spelt out in the attached footnote,[note 1] by the end of 2015.
That’s the explicit promise of decentralization that was made. No constitutional reform happened.
Taking away minority rights through the central government is the opposite of that.
Your game theoretic model is wrong because it assumes a two-player game. This isn’t a two-player game. For Putin, the most important thing is his domestic political power.
A lot of his reasons for deciding to start the war in 2022 the way he did was also bad intelligence. He didn’t expect the current scenario to appear and as such our predicted behavior in the current situation had little significance for his decision back then.
You’re right, and I didn’t realize that. But that still doesn’t matter. Because the annexation of the four other regions, and the decision to keep Crimea, was made by Putin already knowing he wasn’t able to win easily (if ever). So we can now only look at the utility of Russia getting/keeping those 5 regions. For being the sort of people who allow him to do it, the expected utility is:
U1=p⋅(−16)+(1−p)⋅0, for being the ones who don’t, it is
U2=p⋅0+(1−p)⋅(−1000). It’s better for us to be the ones who don’t allow him to do it iff U2>U1, which is equivalent to p>98.4%.
This is like saying that if the United States would care about human rights, they wouldn’t have tortured people in Abu Graib.
From what I just found, those were prisoners, and I would definitely say it’s very strong evidence the people in charge of that happening don’t care about the rights of prisoners, and evidence they don’t care about human rights.
That sounds to me like you spent no energy investigating the question of what people in Crimea want.
It’s not only about Crimea, but also about the other 4 regions. About Crimea, according to Wikipedia, prior to the 2014 occupation, the support for joining Russia was at 23%. After that, it very significantly grew, but that could easily be explained as people being too scared to share their real feelings. It may well be that unless Russia leaves, the true beliefs of the people will be unknowable.
MINSC II point 5 says:
Sorry, I realized afterwards you meant the old agreement and not the new suggestion. My bad. Yeah, I think that it is, indeed, suboptimal to obey agreements made to the invaders under duress. Under some specific circumstances it could be strategically wise, but it’s still morally suboptimal (under these circumstances, at least), and pointing that out feels like victim blaming.
Because the annexation of the four other regions, and the decision to keep Crimea, was made by Putin already knowing he wasn’t able to win easily (if ever).
What alternative choices do you see for Putin? It’s either continuing to fight or making a peace deal. If we aren’t the kind of people with whom you can make a peace deal, it makes sense to focus all efforts on fighting the war.
I don’t think that the domestic political reality would allow him to just withdraw all troops.
About Crimea, according to Wikipedia, prior to the 2014 occupation, the support for joining Russia was at 23%. After that, it very significantly grew, but that could easily be explained as people being too scared to share their real feelings.
In 2013 Ukraine had a pro-Russian president, so the Russian minority had no need to fear an infringement of their liberties. In 2014, Kiev’s police decided to stop protecting the parliament and under the potential threat of violence, the parliament voted to remove the pro-Russian president.
Russia invited OSCE observers for the referendum. If Western powers would have expect that a fair election would lead to a vote against Russia, they would likely have been happy to send observers to make sure that this result will be the one of the election.
Edit: Sorry, I don’t think my link is about that referendum.
Edit2: I found a better link.
What alternative choices do you see for Putin? It’s either continuing to fight or making a peace deal.
That depends on whether he’s a causal decision theorist or not. If I was Putin and had his utility function, I might either accept some political change (without changing the territory), or use a tactical nuke (assuming I’d be unable to take over the relevant parts of the Ukraine with pure military force).
If we aren’t the kind of people with whom you can make a peace deal, it makes sense to focus all efforts on fighting the war.
That’s unfortunate, but now the world needs to resist (one-box) to make this timeline as unlikely as possible (if we cooperate (two-box), it becomes retroactively much more likely).
In 2013 Ukraine had a pro-Russian president, so the Russian minority had no need to fear an infringement of their liberties. In 2014, Kiev’s police decided to stop protecting the parliament and under the potential threat of violence, the parliament voted to remove the pro-Russian president.
I see, I didn’t know the timeline, thanks. Still, what I wrote about it being unknowable until Russia leaves stands.
If Western powers would have expect that a fair election would lead to a vote against Russia, they would likely have been happy to send observers to make sure that this result will be the one of the election.
That’s not necessarily true. It’s possible they didn’t want to give an appearance of legitimizing the referendum (I think most likely), or they didn’t think they could enforce a fair referendum, or they didn’t think the people voting against felt safe enough to vote.
That depends on whether he’s a causal decision theorist or not.
I don’t think we have any reason to believe that Putin is a causal decision theorist and modeling as such is therefore an error.
I might either accept some political change (without changing the territory)
What kind of political change do you think he could accept? If he would order a complete withdrawal from Ukraine including Crimea, he would likely be disposed of quickly and anyone who replaces him at the top has the incentive to investigate his corruption to remove his remaining power.
I see, I didn’t know the timeline, thanks
That’s surprising. If you can read this much about the topic without being exposed to the basics of how the conflict in 2014 started that suggests that your information sources are either severely biased or you somehow have a bias that prevents you from picking up inconvenient facts.
Is it also surprising to you?
That’s unfortunate, but now the world needs to resist (one-box) to make this timeline as unlikely as possible (if we cooperate (two-box), it becomes retroactively much more likely).
It seems to me like this completely ignores the political reality and how decisions to wage war are made in the real world.
Cooperation is necessary for peace. If you have a policy of precommit against cooperation it’s very likely that people who are badly informed about the world will act in a way that produces a cascade that ends in WW3.
It’s possible they didn’t want to give an appearance of legitimizing the referendum (I think most likely)
If you would expect the referendum to result in a rejection, it wouldn’t be a problem to legitimize it.
In June 2014, a Gallup poll with the Broadcasting Board of Governors asked Crimeans if the results in the March 16, 2014 referendum to secede reflected the views of the people. A total of 82.8% of Crimeans said yes. When broken down by ethnicity, 93.6% of ethnic Russians said they believed the vote to secede was legitimate, while 68.4% of Ukrainians felt so. Moreover, when asked if joining Russia will ultimately make life better for them and their family, 73.9% said yes while 5.5% said no.
In February 2015, a poll by German polling firm GfK revealed that attitudes have not changed. When asked “Do you endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea?”, a total of 82% of the respondents answered “yes, definitely,” and another 11% answered “yes, for the most part.” Only 2% said they didn’t know, and another 2% said no. Three percent did not specify their position.
Interestingly enough, despite Russia’s involvement in the separatist movement in eastern Ukraine, only 35.7% of people polled there said they viewed Russia’s involvement as mostly positive while 71.3% of Crimeans were more in line with Russia’s world view, according to the year old poll from Gallup.
If Russian activity would prevent people from telling the truth when polled you would expect that have similar results in Crimea and the separatist regions.
I don’t think we have any reason to believe that Putin is a causal decision theorist and modeling as such is therefore an error.
What decision theory do you think he uses? Or are you agnostic about that?
Do you suggest any particular improvements to my model?
What kind of political change do you think he could accept?
A compromise between pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine politicians in the affected regions (while Crimea keeps belonging to Russia and the other 4 regions go back to Ukraine), maybe.
without being exposed to the basics of how the conflict in 2014 started
I did know it started after a coup in Ukraine. I didn’t know it increased the possibility of the Crimean citizens wanting to join Russia (and I’m still not sure about that).
(I also recall Putin Freudian-slip about why they really invaded Crimea, but I can’t find it anymore.)
Cooperation is necessary for peace. If you have a policy of precommit against cooperation it’s very likely that people who are badly informed about the world will act in a way that produces a cascade that ends in WW3.
Neither statement implies unconditional absence of precommitment against cooperation of a specific kind (otherwise, bad actors will take advantage of that). Are you familiar with the general concept of choosing timelessly, rather than what CDT says is best in a specific situation?
If Russian activity would prevent people from telling the truth when polled you would expect that have similar results in Crimea and the separatist regions.
Perhaps, if Russia someday stops punishing people for publicly disagreeing, I might consider these hypotheses.
What decision theory do you think he uses? Or are you agnostic about that?
I don’t think he uses decision theory. Most people don’t. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita wrote about how he does computer modeling of geopolitical decisions. It involves not just focusing on the person at the head of the hierarchy but also on various other people in the environment.
(I also recall Putin Freudian-slip about why they really invaded Crimea, but I can’t find it anymore.)
Putin invaded Crimea because it predictably gave him +15% approval at home and politicians like doing things that give them +15% approval rating. You don’t need much more than that to explain the decision.
If you would go with the kind of approach that Bruce Bueno de Mesquita favors you would look at what makes invading Crimea a +15% approval rating move.
While of course there’s also an ideological justification for the invasion, I think you misunderstand politics if you think the ideology of the leader trumps the internal politics of the country.
Neither statement implies unconditional absence of precommitment against cooperation of a specific kind (otherwise, bad actors will take advantage of that). Are you familiar with the general concept of choosing timelessly, rather than what CDT says is best in a specific situation?
Yes. But choosing timelessly a strategy that will result in various conflicts escalating into nuclear war is a bad decision.
A good timeless strategy isn’t just “if you challenge us militarily, we will escalate as strongly as possible”. It’s rather to orient yourself after a bunch of shared values. The sanctity of borders was one of those values but it died in Kosovo. At the time you could have said, that for timeless reasons we should not give Kosovo independence to uphold the principle but that was not the decision made.
The UN charter of human rights provides a bunch of timeless principles for peace to coordinate around. It gives us the self-determination of people. It suggests giving minorities in multi-ethnic countries strong minority rights.
To the extent that what Russia is asking for is giving our minority rights and allowing self-determination of people, it’s valid to give them those in a peace deal even if we don’t like the means of using violence.
From a timeless question to what extend we should respect coup is also questionable. If we think that a coup doesn’t change who’s president, Russia was invited to Ukraine by the legitimate president of Ukraine.
Perhaps, if Russia someday stops punishing people for publicly disagreeing
You need to do more than just publically disagree in Russia to get punished. Russia isn’t yet North Korea. Is you disagreed with the war you weren’t allowed to call it a war but mere disagreement was not ground for punishment.
I don’t think he uses decision theory. Most people don’t.
How do you make any decision without a decision theory? Shouldn’t it always be in the background, explicit or implicit?
While of course there’s also an ideological justification for the invasion, I think you misunderstand politics if you think the ideology of the leader trumps the internal politics of the country.
I mean that I recall him Freundian-slip about the real reason. But maybe I’m confusing it with something else.
Yes. But choosing timelessly a strategy that will result in various conflicts escalating into nuclear war is a bad decision.
That’s not necessarily true.
The sanctity of borders was one of those values but it died in Kosovo. At the time you could have said, that for timeless reasons we should not give Kosovo independence to uphold the principle but that was not the decision made.
Perhaps the time has come to timelessly resurrect the part about stealing the territory of another country (this is conceptually different from a part of a country splitting apart into its own country, which could be argued separately).
From a timeless question to what extent we should respect coup is also questionable. If we think that a coup doesn’t change who’s president, Russia was invited to Ukraine by the legitimate president of Ukraine.
There is a question to ask about the moral legitimacy of the coup. But there is also a question to ask about how taking over Ukraine by shooting through civilian apartments and civilians helps it, and a question to ask about how suspicious it is, to try to annex Ukraine to protect the legitimacy of the president.
Putin’s actions, to the extent they could be modeled as someone trying to do what is right, are extremely weird, and to the extent they can’t be modeled that way, they shouldn’t be attempted to be justified by anyone, because it would be too much of a coincidence if he, despite not trying to do what is right, managed to do so.
If you disagreed with the war you weren’t allowed to call it a war but mere disagreement was not ground for punishment.
It’s actually worse than you think—people can get arrested in Russia for holding up a blank piece of paper, or for merely pretending to hold a sign, etc. (Maybe now, when he’s running out of cannon fodder, Putin relaxed that rule, but it used to be that bad.)
Putin’s actions, to the extent they could be modeled as someone trying to do what is right, are extremely weird
You can say that about many politicians. That doesn’t mean that principles are irrelevant to how you can get compromises with them.
Trevor recommended the Schelling book and I just started reading it. It’s likely quite good in giving a model of how Western think about the issues about what happened to be red lines that call for a military response.
Western leaders have been quite clear that the line is the NATO borders and that they are not giving Ukraine any security guarantees.
Arguing that we should uphold security guarantees that we didn’t promise for timeless reasons is bad because that means it’s very unclear what we will do and what we don’t do. To compel someone to do something you actually need to be clear about what you are asking.
It’s actually worse than you think—people can get arrested in Russia for holding up a blank piece of paper, or for merely pretending to hold a sign, etc.
Holding up a blank piece of paper to protest is protesting. Protesting is more than just voicing disagreement. Protesting generally gets more punishment in totalitarian states than just disagreement.
Arguing that we should uphold security guarantees that we didn’t promise for timeless reasons is bad because that means it’s very unclear what we will do and what we don’t do. To compel someone to do something you actually need to be clear about what you are asking.
Your game theoretic model is wrong because it assumes a two-player game. This isn’t a two-player game. For Putin, the most important thing is his domestic political power.
A lot of his reasons for deciding to start the war in 2022 the way he did was also bad intelligence. He didn’t expect the current scenario to appear and as such our predicted behavior in the current situation had little significance for his decision back then.
This is like saying that if the United States would care about human rights, they wouldn’t have tortured people in Abu Graib.
Wars tend to be ugly in ways that those that support waging those wars don’t want. Part of why wars are fought is that they are popular with the population. If you understand the reasons why they are popular, that is part of understanding the decision to start the war. In the case of Ukraine, the plight of the Russian minority does play a significant role.
I would certainly prefer if Russia wouldn’t invade other countries but optimizes for peace, but that’s not the world we live in. We have to choose our policy based on the choices we are facing.
That sounds to me like you spent no energy investigating the question of what people in Crimea want. “No reason” does sound like willful ignorance.
MINSC II point 5 says:
That’s the explicit promise of decentralization that was made. No constitutional reform happened.
Taking away minority rights through the central government is the opposite of that.
You’re right, and I didn’t realize that. But that still doesn’t matter. Because the annexation of the four other regions, and the decision to keep Crimea, was made by Putin already knowing he wasn’t able to win easily (if ever). So we can now only look at the utility of Russia getting/keeping those 5 regions. For being the sort of people who allow him to do it, the expected utility is:
U1=p⋅(−16)+(1−p)⋅0, for being the ones who don’t, it is
U2=p⋅0+(1−p)⋅(−1000). It’s better for us to be the ones who don’t allow him to do it iff U2>U1, which is equivalent to p>98.4%.
From what I just found, those were prisoners, and I would definitely say it’s very strong evidence the people in charge of that happening don’t care about the rights of prisoners, and evidence they don’t care about human rights.
It’s not only about Crimea, but also about the other 4 regions. About Crimea, according to Wikipedia, prior to the 2014 occupation, the support for joining Russia was at 23%. After that, it very significantly grew, but that could easily be explained as people being too scared to share their real feelings. It may well be that unless Russia leaves, the true beliefs of the people will be unknowable.
Sorry, I realized afterwards you meant the old agreement and not the new suggestion. My bad. Yeah, I think that it is, indeed, suboptimal to obey agreements made to the invaders under duress. Under some specific circumstances it could be strategically wise, but it’s still morally suboptimal (under these circumstances, at least), and pointing that out feels like victim blaming.
What alternative choices do you see for Putin? It’s either continuing to fight or making a peace deal. If we aren’t the kind of people with whom you can make a peace deal, it makes sense to focus all efforts on fighting the war.
I don’t think that the domestic political reality would allow him to just withdraw all troops.
In 2013 Ukraine had a pro-Russian president, so the Russian minority had no need to fear an infringement of their liberties. In 2014, Kiev’s police decided to stop protecting the parliament and under the potential threat of violence, the parliament voted to remove the pro-Russian president.
Russia invited OSCE observers for the referendum. If Western powers would have expect that a fair election would lead to a vote against Russia, they would likely have been happy to send observers to make sure that this result will be the one of the election.
Edit: Sorry, I don’t think my link is about that referendum.
Edit2: I found a better link.
That depends on whether he’s a causal decision theorist or not. If I was Putin and had his utility function, I might either accept some political change (without changing the territory), or use a tactical nuke (assuming I’d be unable to take over the relevant parts of the Ukraine with pure military force).
That’s unfortunate, but now the world needs to resist (one-box) to make this timeline as unlikely as possible (if we cooperate (two-box), it becomes retroactively much more likely).
I see, I didn’t know the timeline, thanks. Still, what I wrote about it being unknowable until Russia leaves stands.
Sounds like it wasn’t their idea though.It looks like it was mostly about not wanting to legitimize it.That’s not necessarily true. It’s possible they didn’t want to give an appearance of legitimizing the referendum (I think most likely), or they didn’t think they could enforce a fair referendum, or they didn’t think the people voting against felt safe enough to vote.
I don’t think we have any reason to believe that Putin is a causal decision theorist and modeling as such is therefore an error.
What kind of political change do you think he could accept? If he would order a complete withdrawal from Ukraine including Crimea, he would likely be disposed of quickly and anyone who replaces him at the top has the incentive to investigate his corruption to remove his remaining power.
That’s surprising. If you can read this much about the topic without being exposed to the basics of how the conflict in 2014 started that suggests that your information sources are either severely biased or you somehow have a bias that prevents you from picking up inconvenient facts.
Is it also surprising to you?
It seems to me like this completely ignores the political reality and how decisions to wage war are made in the real world.
Cooperation is necessary for peace. If you have a policy of precommit against cooperation it’s very likely that people who are badly informed about the world will act in a way that produces a cascade that ends in WW3.
If you would expect the referendum to result in a rejection, it wouldn’t be a problem to legitimize it.
While searching I found that there are actually more polls than I thought. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/ is a Western media article. This is a topic in which the intelligence establishment has a strong interest. If they would think that those polls are misleading they would make that case.
If Russian activity would prevent people from telling the truth when polled you would expect that have similar results in Crimea and the separatist regions.
What decision theory do you think he uses? Or are you agnostic about that?
Do you suggest any particular improvements to my model?
A compromise between pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine politicians in the affected regions (while Crimea keeps belonging to Russia and the other 4 regions go back to Ukraine), maybe.
I did know it started after a coup in Ukraine. I didn’t know it increased the possibility of the Crimean citizens wanting to join Russia (and I’m still not sure about that).
(I also recall Putin Freudian-slip about why they really invaded Crimea, but I can’t find it anymore.)
Neither statement implies unconditional absence of precommitment against cooperation of a specific kind (otherwise, bad actors will take advantage of that). Are you familiar with the general concept of choosing timelessly, rather than what CDT says is best in a specific situation?
Perhaps, if Russia someday stops punishing people for publicly disagreeing, I might consider these hypotheses.
I don’t think he uses decision theory. Most people don’t. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita wrote about how he does computer modeling of geopolitical decisions. It involves not just focusing on the person at the head of the hierarchy but also on various other people in the environment.
Putin invaded Crimea because it predictably gave him +15% approval at home and politicians like doing things that give them +15% approval rating. You don’t need much more than that to explain the decision.
If you would go with the kind of approach that Bruce Bueno de Mesquita favors you would look at what makes invading Crimea a +15% approval rating move.
While of course there’s also an ideological justification for the invasion, I think you misunderstand politics if you think the ideology of the leader trumps the internal politics of the country.
Yes. But choosing timelessly a strategy that will result in various conflicts escalating into nuclear war is a bad decision.
A good timeless strategy isn’t just “if you challenge us militarily, we will escalate as strongly as possible”. It’s rather to orient yourself after a bunch of shared values. The sanctity of borders was one of those values but it died in Kosovo. At the time you could have said, that for timeless reasons we should not give Kosovo independence to uphold the principle but that was not the decision made.
The UN charter of human rights provides a bunch of timeless principles for peace to coordinate around. It gives us the self-determination of people. It suggests giving minorities in multi-ethnic countries strong minority rights.
To the extent that what Russia is asking for is giving our minority rights and allowing self-determination of people, it’s valid to give them those in a peace deal even if we don’t like the means of using violence.
From a timeless question to what extend we should respect coup is also questionable. If we think that a coup doesn’t change who’s president, Russia was invited to Ukraine by the legitimate president of Ukraine.
You need to do more than just publically disagree in Russia to get punished. Russia isn’t yet North Korea. Is you disagreed with the war you weren’t allowed to call it a war but mere disagreement was not ground for punishment.
How do you make any decision without a decision theory? Shouldn’t it always be in the background, explicit or implicit?
I mean that I recall him Freundian-slip about the real reason. But maybe I’m confusing it with something else.
That’s not necessarily true.
Perhaps the time has come to timelessly resurrect the part about stealing the territory of another country (this is conceptually different from a part of a country splitting apart into its own country, which could be argued separately).
There is a question to ask about the moral legitimacy of the coup. But there is also a question to ask about how taking over Ukraine by shooting through civilian apartments and civilians helps it, and a question to ask about how suspicious it is, to try to annex Ukraine to protect the legitimacy of the president.
Putin’s actions, to the extent they could be modeled as someone trying to do what is right, are extremely weird, and to the extent they can’t be modeled that way, they shouldn’t be attempted to be justified by anyone, because it would be too much of a coincidence if he, despite not trying to do what is right, managed to do so.
It’s actually worse than you think—people can get arrested in Russia for holding up a blank piece of paper, or for merely pretending to hold a sign, etc. (Maybe now, when he’s running out of cannon fodder, Putin relaxed that rule, but it used to be that bad.)
You can say that about many politicians. That doesn’t mean that principles are irrelevant to how you can get compromises with them.
Trevor recommended the Schelling book and I just started reading it. It’s likely quite good in giving a model of how Western think about the issues about what happened to be red lines that call for a military response.
Western leaders have been quite clear that the line is the NATO borders and that they are not giving Ukraine any security guarantees.
Arguing that we should uphold security guarantees that we didn’t promise for timeless reasons is bad because that means it’s very unclear what we will do and what we don’t do. To compel someone to do something you actually need to be clear about what you are asking.
Holding up a blank piece of paper to protest is protesting. Protesting is more than just voicing disagreement. Protesting generally gets more punishment in totalitarian states than just disagreement.
I don’t see why it couldn’t be made clear.