This is, without competition, the best counter-argument to Tegmarks post in its enterity, and it’s borderline dishonest that he does not even touch on it. Anything other than a thoughtful answer would reduce his original post to a theoretical game with no connection to reality.
It’s not a counter-argument to the post in its entirety, though—it’s a counter-argument to the recommendation that we de-escalate, from the Twitter post, no? Specifically, it’s not a counter-argument to the odds of nuclear war if we don’t de-escalate.
Two things can be true at once:
Not seeking a complete Russian defeat runs a 1-in-6 chance of Nuclear War—or say 1-in-N for the general case.
Not seeking a complete Russian defeat means that we’ve responded partially to blackmail in a game-theoretically nonoptimal fashion, which means we have M% increased odds of nuclear proliferation in the future and correspondingly O% increased odds of nuclear war in a 50-year time horizon.
But like—these can both be true! Doing the game-theoretic thing where you don’t respond to blackmail means that you might suffer the consequences of not responding to blackmail, especially if your opponent is feeling vindictive, or did not anticipate your not responding to his blackmail, or feels the need to show his resolution for further iterations of his blackmail game.
It’s possible for you to not respond to blackmail because you have a general principle of not doing so and then for nuclear war to happen as a result.
Important clarification: Neither here nor in the twitter post did I advocate appeasement or giving in to blackmail. In the Venn diagram of possible actions, there’s certainly a non-empty intersection of “de-escalation” and “appeasement”, but they’re not the same set, and there are de-escalation strategies that don’t involve appeasement but might nonetheless reduce nuclear war risk. I’m curious: do you agree that halting (and condemning) the following strategies can reduce escalation and help cool things down without giving in to blackmail?
infrastructure attacks lacking military value (e.g. Nordstream sabotage)
shelling the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant
disparaging de-escalation supporters as unpatriotic
I think it would reduce nuclear war risk if the international community strongly condemned 1-7 regardless of which side did it, and I’d like to see this type of de-escalation immediately.
I’m curious: do you agree that halting (and condemning) the following strategies can reduce escalation and help cool things down without giving in to blackmail?
All 1. to 7. have been condemned by some or all of the Western countries in multiple forms on multiple forums.
Strong words unsupported by actions will not change the situation. To be more precise, I think there is ~0% chance that condemnation form Western countries would reduce my prediction of 10% chance that Russia may use nuclear weapons to 5% or less. This is excluding all situations where weapons supply to Ukraine are significantly limited. (I’m ranked 18th on Metaculus and I really mean that ~0%)
This also follows from your model where “David winning” is a first step towards nuclear use. According to that model we need to reduce Ukraine chances of winning in order to reduce chances of nuclear use. Condemnations are not affecting Ukraine chances of winning. Western weapons supplies are.
Crushing vote for Russia in UN General Assembly on resolution A/ES-11/L.1 “Aggression against Ukraine” did not change anything. The only countries opposed to that resolution were Russian Federation, Belarus, Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, Syrian Arab Republic and Eritrea.
In fact, recent questions and very weak condemnation from India and China were followed by escalation from Russia.
We understand your questions and concern about this. - Vladimir Putin addressing Xi Jinping, 15 September 2022
I know that today’s era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this—Narendra Modi addressing Vladimir Putin, 16 September 2022
Russia annexed the Southern and Eastern territories of Ukraine two weeks later.
This war is a war of choice and a war of conquest. Blanket condemnation would be equivalent to condemning all Germans, Soviets and Poles for the Second World War or blaming Germans and Jews for Holocaust.
Specific instances where Ukrainians are believed to be going too far like killing of Darya Dugina are reprimanded. Truth be told, if Ukrainians were responsible it was a war crime. Instances where perpetrator can not be yet established like Nordstreams are condemned. Shelling the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant is condemned too. But there are unequivocal facts on the ground like the fact that Russia attacked this nuclear plant in the first place and that Russia is hosting their army there. Ukraine itself has fired people like Lyudmila Denisova for false atrocity propaganda. Ukraine is the biggest contributor to the nuclear nonproliferation by voluntarily giving up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal and can not make nuclear threats as it does not posses nuclear weapons anymore. Other countries did not threatened Russia with nuclear weapons since the start of the war.
What specific condemnation do you or Tegemark expect?
If you take the 7 points, “assassinations lacking military value” is something that Ukraine did in Moscow.
“disparaging de-escalation supporters as unpatriotic” if you look at the reaction to Elon Musk’s de-escalation proposal that’s something that Ukraine seems to be guilty of.
“misleading atrocity propaganda” is something where it’s hard to know the ground truth given the fog of war, but it seems that Ukraine does engage in some misleading propaganda.
Specific instances where Ukrainians are believed to be going too far like killing of Darya Dugina are reprimanded. Truth be told, if Ukrainians were responsible it was a war crime.
That’s not the language Western media uses to speak about it. Western government and media could also condemn it more clearly and say “don’t do that again or there will be consequences”.
Apart from those points, there’s also the issue of minority rights. If you look at what the EU expects Ukraine to do before Ukraine can be accepted as a member of the EU it’s to stop violating the minority rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine. It would be possible to speak in the media about the details of the EU demands but that currently doesn’t happen. Minority rights violations don’t justify the war but they do matter.
When discussing Crimea, it would be worthwhile for Western media to look at the desires of the Crimean population instead of ignoring them.
“disparaging de-escalation supporters as unpatriotic” if you look at the reaction to Elon Musk’s de-escalation proposal that’s something that Ukraine seems to be guilty of.
Do you mean that Ukraine claims that proposals to leave a part of Ukraine to Russia are unpatriotic?
Oh, I see. Those proposals are, in fact, unpatriotic. But yes, it makes them seem less acceptable (which, I assume, is the goal).
A problem is that once the invader attacks your country and declares he’ll willing to end the invasion if you give him x% of the land, this sets a precedent (it already happened once in 2014, and now it’s happening again—except that this time, Putin attempted to take over Ukraine proper). The invader (who, temporarily, accepted peace) now knows you will give him x% of your country when he attacks, just to make him stop. This is, quite plausibly, decision-theoretically suboptimal (like not paying in Parfit’s hitchhiker), wholly apart from the moral dimension (which makes it feel like victim blaming to me).
The option to have those regions vote can’t be realized unless it’s free, which Russian control (which they’d like to exercise over that vote) precludes, since it’s common knowledge that voting in Russia isn’t voting, so a post-takeover vote can’t be trusted.
Once those areas are fully under Ukrainian control, and the safety of the vote is secure, then I could see people make a case for them voluntarily joining Russia.
There might well be other factors—offhand I can think of setting a precedent for “negotiating” after an invasion, and gaining a stable advantage from having the territory (so the loss of the army during the invasion will have been worth it).
Depends on what’s on that 1% of the territory, and whether it allows me to take over the entire country in the future, for example. (I do hope Putin will lose 90% of his army at some point.)
What’s in the interest of Ukraine and what’s in the interest of the United States or other Western countries are not the same. If you grant a significant chance of WWIII, there are strong incentives for the United States to prevent that. The United States has an interest to push for peace.
The invader (who, temporarily, accepted peace) now knows you will give him x% of your country when he attacks, just to make him stop.
Russia accepted peace under conditions that include decentralization of power in Ukraine in 2014/2015. The stated justification for that is that centralized power is a threat to the minority rights of the Russian population. In 2017 Ukraine decided to take away the minority rights to have Russian children be educated in Russian. While they can have Russian classes they can’t have their math classes in Russian anymore. This is seen by the Venice commission as an illegitimate infringement of minority rights. Part of the conditions of the EU for Ukraine to join the EU is that Ukraine fixes the issues that the Venice commission pointed out.
Instead of passing laws toward decentralization they essentially did the opposite and passed laws taking away minority rights which the decentralization of power was supposed to prevent. While Russia certainly isn’t blameless, Ukraine didn’t try to de-escalate either.
The option to have those regions vote can’t be realized unless it’s free, which Russian control (which they’d like to exercise over that vote) precludes, since it’s common knowledge that voting in Russia isn’t voting, so a post-takeover vote can’t be trusted.
Elon Musk suggested the UN organize a vote, if Russia would agree to that, it would be a trustworthy solution.
What’s in the interest of Ukraine and what’s in the interest of the United States or other Western countries are not the same. If you grant a significant chance of WWIII, there are strong incentives for the United States to prevent that.
Given Putin’s ability to predict other states’ reactions and the utilities of various options, leaving him (even a part of) Ukraine could be like two-boxing on Newcomb’s problem because Omega already left and now we have to do what’s in our interest.
This is seen by the Venice commission as an illegitimate infringement of minority rights.
Morally, I don’t see why [minority] children of any country should have a right for a subject at school in their own language. Even if they don’t or can’t learn the official language of the country they live in, is the country obligated to teach them in their own language?
The problem of “trying to deescalate” (by fulfilling the demands of the invaders) is that it’s probably decision-theoretically, and definitely morally suboptimal.
Elon Musk suggested the UN organize a vote, if Russia would agree to that, it would be a trustworthy solution.
Until the Russian army is out of the territories, people there might not feel safe enough to vote freely.
Given Putin’s ability to predict other states’ reactions and the utilities of various options, leaving him (even a part of) Ukraine could be like two-boxing on Newcomb’s problem because Omega already left and now we have to do what’s in our interest.
Putin is no omniscient actor.
Choosing to die in a nuclear war is a huge cost. Precommiting to die in a nuclear war for the principle of Crimeans who don’t want to be forced to speak Ukrainian to have to live under Ukrainian governance because you believe in the sanctity of borders seems to me like an insane position, especially for any Western actor who doesn’t really care about Ukrainian nationalism.
Being good at decision theory means ending up in peace and not dying in a nuclear war. Never make any concessions is not a good strategy from a decision-theoretic place.
Morally, I don’t see why [minority] children of any country should have a right for a subject at school in their own language.
We live in Europe according to certain values we have found conducive to keeping peace and currently have no separatist movements blowing things up in Ireland or the Basque country. If Great Britain would suddenly decide to forbid schools in Northern Ireland from teaching subjects in Irish or Spain would decide to forbid Basque children from being taught in Basque that would produce a lot of conflicts.
Minority rights keep the peace.
The decision about how the children are taught is not made by the federal government but by the state/region in which they live.
Even if they don’t or can’t learn the official language of the country they live in, is the country obligated to teach them in their own language?
Speaking about whether Spain is obligated to teach Basque children in Basque or Great Britain is obligated to teach Irish children in Northern Ireland in Irish seems to me like it misunderstands the structures of education and the role of the federal government.
The problem of “trying to deescalate” (by fulfilling the demands of the invaders) is that it’s probably decision-theoretically, and definitely morally suboptimal.
It seems that your position is that it’s decision-theoretically and/or morally suboptimal to act in the spirit of the negotiated ceasefire agreement. That seems strange to me.
Being clear about giving Russian in Ukraine their minority rights gives the inhabitants of the occupied areas a motivation to act in the interest of the Ukrainian government. Support that the war receives in Russia because Russians in Russia believe that protecting the minority rights of Russians within Ukraine would be weaker. Support from the EU would be higher.
Decision theory is about taking paths that are actually leading to good outcomes and this isn’t.
To simplify it, let’s say Putin can predict our decision with probability p, we value the WWIII at −1000 units of utility, the invasion at −8 units of utility and the annexation of those five regions of Ukraine Putin is attempting to steal at −16 units of utility, and let’s say we value Putin doing nothing at 0 units of utility.
If we’re the sort of people who allow him to do that, we’ll gain
U1=p⋅(−8)+p⋅(−16)+(1−p)⋅0 expected utility, but if we’re not, we’ll gain
U2=p⋅0+(1−p)⋅(−1000) expected utility. Not being the sort of people who allow him to steal a part of Ukraine brings us more expected utility iff
p⋅(−8)+p⋅(−16)<(1−p)⋅(−1000), in other words, for p>97.7%. That seems like he’d need to be an unrealistically good predictor. But other people might have their balance of utilities different, and looking locally (i.e. for the next causally best step) is decision-theoretically suboptimal in both local/global sense, and in the causal/timeless sense. I can see your reasoning here, but you’re doing a decision-theoretic mistake.
because you believe in the sanctity of borders
It’s not about sanctity of borders. 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. There are extremely negative collateral effects from not “believing in the sanctity of borders.” Even now, the Russian army bombs civilian buildings and shoots civilian targets as we speak.
Minority rights keep the peace.
So does not invading other countries. Giving people stuff to keep them from being violent is sometimes wise, and sometimes not.
If Russia were concerned with protecting the rights of minorities, they wouldn’t have tried to take over the entire Ukraine, they wouldn’t attack civilians, they wouldn’t fake the results of the referendums and force the people to vote at a gunpoint (unless you’d like to dispute that), etc. (Not that being concerned with the rights of minorities would justify their actions.)
It seems that your position is that it’s decision-theoretically and/or morally suboptimal to act in the spirit of the negotiated ceasefire agreement.
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.
Edit 5 hours later: Sorry, I just realized you mean the previous ceasefire agreement. I’ll respond tomorrow.
here’s a game theory dude who has been making good game theory videos. here he analyzes the nuclear threat from the current situation. it’s better on 2x speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ2z2Qg_o0w
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.
I agree, finding a balance between Russian speaking minority rights and promotion of Ukrainian language is the right thing to do.
It was a right thing to do before this year invasion and it is a right thing right now too. The fact that Russia makes nuclear threats should not make otherwise desirable policy suddenly undesirable.
But we also have to accept the cruel irony that Russia is doing the most damage to the Ukrainian regions with the biggest Russian speaking minority. In cities like Mariupol.
The facts are that Russians are not concerned with well being of the Russian speaking minorities. Finding further balance is not something that will deescalate this war, but it is worthwhile regardless. It is also exceedingly unlikely that Russians would be willing to reciprocate with regard to Ukrainian rights on the occupied territories or in Russia.
The situation is Mariupol is quite weird. Ukraine blames Russia for the destroying a lot of homes and Russia blames Ukraine for destroying the homes. It doesn’t really make sense for either party to destroy the homes expect to blame the other party. Given fog of war it’s hard to know without access to classified intelligence what really happened.
Finding further balance is not something that will deescalate this war, but it is worthwhile regardless.
The current Ukrainian position is that they won’t stop the war till they recapture all their territory including Crimea.
The only way to end the war before that point is to put pressure on Ukraine to accept something else. Talking about the desires and interests of the Crimean people who don’t want to live under the rule of Ukraine is a way to do so.
The situation is Mariupol is quite weird. Ukraine blames Russia for the destroying a lot of homes and Russia blames Ukraine for destroying the homes. It doesn’t really make sense for either party to destroy the homes expect to blame the other party.
There is very clear cause and effect here. In a counterfactual world were Russia did not attack Ukraine Mariupol would have been a well functioning city. We know this for a fact because Russia gathered invasion forces around Ukraine before. They withdrew and nothing bad happened.
It’s like blaming Poles for destruction of Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising.
And it’s not just homes. Defenders of Mariupol have sheltered in Azovstal after the city was under siege for a long time. There was no Ukrainian units capable of attacking Azovstal form outside. Yet, Azovstal got obliterated.
And it’s not just Mariupol. Covering ground with artillery fire is a modus operandi of Russian army. Have you seen Grozny after the Second Chechen war? The same happened to Volnovakha, Rubizhne, Popasna, Lyman and Sievierodonetsk. Independent journalists had pretty good access to Kharkiv. And again the same situation.
And you can just listen to the Russians themselves. There was talk in Russian propaganda for a long time about destroying Ukrainian civilian infrastructure—electric plants and heating plants. Russia carried out this attack few days ago as officially confirmed by Russian ministry of defense and judged by the effects on Ukrainian infrastructure.
The only reason to attack electric and heating plants is to terrorize Ukrainians.
Russian logic is the same as a man raping and beating his wife. You must love and obey me and if you don’t I will make you. This attitude goes from the very top. As an example, Putin quoted a song during press conference with Emmanuel Macron in early February about Ukraine:
“Whether you like it or don’t like it, bear with it, my beauty.”
The full quote from “Sleeping beauty in a coffin” song by Red Mold would be:
> Sleeping beauty in a coffin, I crept up and fucked her. Like it, or dislike it, sleep my beauty.
Putin was casually quoting songs about necrophilia with regard to Ukraine when he was still planning the war.
The current Ukrainian position is that they won’t stop the war till they recapture all their territory including Crimea.
There are millions of refugees from these territories. People want to go back to their homes and live normal lives. And there are still Ukrainians living there. They do not want to live under Russian occupation.
Ukrainians also do not believe in peace with Russia. Most likely any peace agreement will be just a time for Russia to rearm and attack again. And as a Pole, I very much understand them. Poland has been under one or another form of Russian occupation for the past 200 years.
Have you seen Grozny after the Second Chechen war?
I think there are multiple factors at work in the Chechen war. One of them is that the Chechen population is largely Muslim and not Christian. That makes it politically easier to cause them hardship. The also repeatidly rebeled against Russian governance.
There are multiple groups. Ukrainians who identify primarily as Ukrainians, Ukrainians who identify as Russians, and Ukrainians who identify as something else. I will call the Ukrainians who identify as Russian ethnic Russians for the following comment.
Defenders of Mariupol have sheltered in Azovstal after the city was under siege for a long time.
I think that attacking the military forces in Azostal, can be explained by military motivations that are not about punishing the ethnic Russians of the region. It is qualitatively different than destroying a lot of the homes in the city.
When it comes to the Ukrainians who do identify as Russians there’s public pressure in Russia to engage in actions to protect them. There’s the US cable from 2008 that describes that choice:
Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face.
From Russia’s perspective, the events in 2013 and 2014 did force Russia to make a choice about whether or not to intervene. Putin decided to intervene in 2014 and as a result, massively increased his domestic approval.
From the Russian perspective, I don’t think that the ethnic-Russian community in Ukraine did anything wrong that’s worth punishing. On the other hand, under the maximalist claim that Ukraine is a fake country and those people who identify as Ukrainian are actually Russian and those do deserve some punishment for resisting Russia.
Russia carried out this attack few days ago as officially confirmed by Russian ministry of defense and judged by the effects on Ukrainian infrastructure.
As far as I understand they did that in retaliation for the bombing of the bridge and in territories where the majority is ethnic Ukrainians. They didn’t do that in the areas they annexed.
Ukrainians also do not believe in peace with Russia. Most likely any peace agreement will be just a time for Russia to rearm and attack again.
To the extent that this is true, taking Moscow would be the only way to end the current war. The West seems pretty clear that it’s not willing to support Ukraine that far. That’s partly why the West doesn’t give them missiles that are able to hit targets 300 kilometers away.
Europe is going to want peace sooner or later. Even when the US would in principle be okay with longer fighting, they don’t want to fund the war indefinitely either.
To the extent that there’s a decent chance for a new war in the future, it would be good to have a peace deal that makes future wars less likely instead of more likely. Peace after Ukraine retakes Crimea would leave Russia with a lot more pressure to start a new war than peace where Russia keeps Crimea.
This is, without competition, the best counter-argument to Tegmarks post in its enterity, and it’s borderline dishonest that he does not even touch on it. Anything other than a thoughtful answer would reduce his original post to a theoretical game with no connection to reality.
It’s not a counter-argument to the post in its entirety, though—it’s a counter-argument to the recommendation that we de-escalate, from the Twitter post, no? Specifically, it’s not a counter-argument to the odds of nuclear war if we don’t de-escalate.
Two things can be true at once:
Not seeking a complete Russian defeat runs a 1-in-6 chance of Nuclear War—or say 1-in-N for the general case.
Not seeking a complete Russian defeat means that we’ve responded partially to blackmail in a game-theoretically nonoptimal fashion, which means we have M% increased odds of nuclear proliferation in the future and correspondingly O% increased odds of nuclear war in a 50-year time horizon.
But like—these can both be true! Doing the game-theoretic thing where you don’t respond to blackmail means that you might suffer the consequences of not responding to blackmail, especially if your opponent is feeling vindictive, or did not anticipate your not responding to his blackmail, or feels the need to show his resolution for further iterations of his blackmail game.
It’s possible for you to not respond to blackmail because you have a general principle of not doing so and then for nuclear war to happen as a result.
Important clarification: Neither here nor in the twitter post did I advocate appeasement or giving in to blackmail. In the Venn diagram of possible actions, there’s certainly a non-empty intersection of “de-escalation” and “appeasement”, but they’re not the same set, and there are de-escalation strategies that don’t involve appeasement but might nonetheless reduce nuclear war risk. I’m curious: do you agree that halting (and condemning) the following strategies can reduce escalation and help cool things down without giving in to blackmail?
nuclear threats
atrocities
misleading atrocity propaganda
assassinations lacking military value
infrastructure attacks lacking military value (e.g. Nordstream sabotage)
shelling the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant
disparaging de-escalation supporters as unpatriotic
I think it would reduce nuclear war risk if the international community strongly condemned 1-7 regardless of which side did it, and I’d like to see this type of de-escalation immediately.
All 1. to 7. have been condemned by some or all of the Western countries in multiple forms on multiple forums.
Strong words unsupported by actions will not change the situation. To be more precise, I think there is ~0% chance that condemnation form Western countries would reduce my prediction of 10% chance that Russia may use nuclear weapons to 5% or less. This is excluding all situations where weapons supply to Ukraine are significantly limited. (I’m ranked 18th on Metaculus and I really mean that ~0%)
This also follows from your model where “David winning” is a first step towards nuclear use. According to that model we need to reduce Ukraine chances of winning in order to reduce chances of nuclear use. Condemnations are not affecting Ukraine chances of winning. Western weapons supplies are.
Crushing vote for Russia in UN General Assembly on resolution A/ES-11/L.1 “Aggression against Ukraine” did not change anything. The only countries opposed to that resolution were Russian Federation, Belarus, Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea, Syrian Arab Republic and Eritrea.
In fact, recent questions and very weak condemnation from India and China were followed by escalation from Russia.
Russia annexed the Southern and Eastern territories of Ukraine two weeks later.
Western media condemnation is pretty one-sided. Tegmark’s suggestion would be condemnations that are not one-sided.
My point stands regardless.
But there are facts and objective reality exists.
This war is a war of choice and a war of conquest. Blanket condemnation would be equivalent to condemning all Germans, Soviets and Poles for the Second World War or blaming Germans and Jews for Holocaust.
Specific instances where Ukrainians are believed to be going too far like killing of Darya Dugina are reprimanded. Truth be told, if Ukrainians were responsible it was a war crime. Instances where perpetrator can not be yet established like Nordstreams are condemned. Shelling the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant is condemned too. But there are unequivocal facts on the ground like the fact that Russia attacked this nuclear plant in the first place and that Russia is hosting their army there. Ukraine itself has fired people like Lyudmila Denisova for false atrocity propaganda. Ukraine is the biggest contributor to the nuclear nonproliferation by voluntarily giving up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal and can not make nuclear threats as it does not posses nuclear weapons anymore. Other countries did not threatened Russia with nuclear weapons since the start of the war.
What specific condemnation do you or Tegemark expect?
If you take the 7 points, “assassinations lacking military value” is something that Ukraine did in Moscow.
“disparaging de-escalation supporters as unpatriotic” if you look at the reaction to Elon Musk’s de-escalation proposal that’s something that Ukraine seems to be guilty of.
“misleading atrocity propaganda” is something where it’s hard to know the ground truth given the fog of war, but it seems that Ukraine does engage in some misleading propaganda.
That’s not the language Western media uses to speak about it. Western government and media could also condemn it more clearly and say “don’t do that again or there will be consequences”.
Apart from those points, there’s also the issue of minority rights. If you look at what the EU expects Ukraine to do before Ukraine can be accepted as a member of the EU it’s to stop violating the minority rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine. It would be possible to speak in the media about the details of the EU demands but that currently doesn’t happen. Minority rights violations don’t justify the war but they do matter.
When discussing Crimea, it would be worthwhile for Western media to look at the desires of the Crimean population instead of ignoring them.
Do you mean that Ukraine claims that proposals to leave a part of Ukraine to Russia are unpatriotic?
Yes. And that makes it hard to negotiate anything that could end the war.
Oh, I see. Those proposals are, in fact, unpatriotic. But yes, it makes them seem less acceptable (which, I assume, is the goal).
A problem is that once the invader attacks your country and declares he’ll willing to end the invasion if you give him x% of the land, this sets a precedent (it already happened once in 2014, and now it’s happening again—except that this time, Putin attempted to take over Ukraine proper). The invader (who, temporarily, accepted peace) now knows you will give him x% of your country when he attacks, just to make him stop. This is, quite plausibly, decision-theoretically suboptimal (like not paying in Parfit’s hitchhiker), wholly apart from the moral dimension (which makes it feel like victim blaming to me).
The option to have those regions vote can’t be realized unless it’s free, which Russian control (which they’d like to exercise over that vote) precludes, since it’s common knowledge that voting in Russia isn’t voting, so a post-takeover vote can’t be trusted.
Once those areas are fully under Ukrainian control, and the safety of the vote is secure, then I could see people make a case for them voluntarily joining Russia.
If the percentage of land the invaders get for each attack is low, and the cost of an attack is high, you are not encouraging them that much.
There might well be other factors—offhand I can think of setting a precedent for “negotiating” after an invasion, and gaining a stable advantage from having the territory (so the loss of the army during the invasion will have been worth it).
Numbers matter. Losing 90% of your army to gain 1% territory does not seem worth it.
Depends on what’s on that 1% of the territory, and whether it allows me to take over the entire country in the future, for example. (I do hope Putin will lose 90% of his army at some point.)
What’s in the interest of Ukraine and what’s in the interest of the United States or other Western countries are not the same. If you grant a significant chance of WWIII, there are strong incentives for the United States to prevent that. The United States has an interest to push for peace.
Russia accepted peace under conditions that include decentralization of power in Ukraine in 2014/2015. The stated justification for that is that centralized power is a threat to the minority rights of the Russian population. In 2017 Ukraine decided to take away the minority rights to have Russian children be educated in Russian. While they can have Russian classes they can’t have their math classes in Russian anymore. This is seen by the Venice commission as an illegitimate infringement of minority rights. Part of the conditions of the EU for Ukraine to join the EU is that Ukraine fixes the issues that the Venice commission pointed out.
Instead of passing laws toward decentralization they essentially did the opposite and passed laws taking away minority rights which the decentralization of power was supposed to prevent. While Russia certainly isn’t blameless, Ukraine didn’t try to de-escalate either.
Elon Musk suggested the UN organize a vote, if Russia would agree to that, it would be a trustworthy solution.
Given Putin’s ability to predict other states’ reactions and the utilities of various options, leaving him (even a part of) Ukraine could be like two-boxing on Newcomb’s problem because Omega already left and now we have to do what’s in our interest.
Is it this commission?
Morally, I don’t see why [minority] children of any country should have a right for a subject at school in their own language. Even if they don’t or can’t learn the official language of the country they live in, is the country obligated to teach them in their own language?
The problem of “trying to deescalate” (by fulfilling the demands of the invaders) is that it’s probably decision-theoretically, and definitely morally suboptimal.
Until the Russian army is out of the territories, people there might not feel safe enough to vote freely.
Putin is no omniscient actor.
Choosing to die in a nuclear war is a huge cost. Precommiting to die in a nuclear war for the principle of Crimeans who don’t want to be forced to speak Ukrainian to have to live under Ukrainian governance because you believe in the sanctity of borders seems to me like an insane position, especially for any Western actor who doesn’t really care about Ukrainian nationalism.
Being good at decision theory means ending up in peace and not dying in a nuclear war. Never make any concessions is not a good strategy from a decision-theoretic place.
We live in Europe according to certain values we have found conducive to keeping peace and currently have no separatist movements blowing things up in Ireland or the Basque country. If Great Britain would suddenly decide to forbid schools in Northern Ireland from teaching subjects in Irish or Spain would decide to forbid Basque children from being taught in Basque that would produce a lot of conflicts.
Minority rights keep the peace.
The decision about how the children are taught is not made by the federal government but by the state/region in which they live.
Speaking about whether Spain is obligated to teach Basque children in Basque or Great Britain is obligated to teach Irish children in Northern Ireland in Irish seems to me like it misunderstands the structures of education and the role of the federal government.
It seems that your position is that it’s decision-theoretically and/or morally suboptimal to act in the spirit of the negotiated ceasefire agreement. That seems strange to me.
Being clear about giving Russian in Ukraine their minority rights gives the inhabitants of the occupied areas a motivation to act in the interest of the Ukrainian government. Support that the war receives in Russia because Russians in Russia believe that protecting the minority rights of Russians within Ukraine would be weaker. Support from the EU would be higher.
Decision theory is about taking paths that are actually leading to good outcomes and this isn’t.
That doesn’t matter.
To simplify it, let’s say Putin can predict our decision with probability p, we value the WWIII at −1000 units of utility, the invasion at −8 units of utility and the annexation of those five regions of Ukraine Putin is attempting to steal at −16 units of utility, and let’s say we value Putin doing nothing at 0 units of utility.
If we’re the sort of people who allow him to do that, we’ll gain
U1=p⋅(−8)+p⋅(−16)+(1−p)⋅0 expected utility, but if we’re not, we’ll gain
U2=p⋅0+(1−p)⋅(−1000) expected utility. Not being the sort of people who allow him to steal a part of Ukraine brings us more expected utility iff
p⋅(−8)+p⋅(−16)<(1−p)⋅(−1000), in other words, for p>97.7%. That seems like he’d need to be an unrealistically good predictor. But other people might have their balance of utilities different, and looking locally (i.e. for the next causally best step) is decision-theoretically suboptimal in both local/global sense, and in the causal/timeless sense. I can see your reasoning here, but you’re doing a decision-theoretic mistake.
It’s not about sanctity of borders. 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. There are extremely negative collateral effects from not “believing in the sanctity of borders.” Even now, the Russian army bombs civilian buildings and shoots civilian targets as we speak.
So does not invading other countries. Giving people stuff to keep them from being violent is sometimes wise, and sometimes not.
If Russia were concerned with protecting the rights of minorities, they wouldn’t have tried to take over the entire Ukraine, they wouldn’t attack civilians, they wouldn’t fake the results of the referendums and force the people to vote at a gunpoint (unless you’d like to dispute that), etc. (Not that being concerned with the rights of minorities would justify their actions.)
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.
Edit 5 hours later: Sorry, I just realized you mean the previous ceasefire agreement. I’ll respond tomorrow.
here’s a game theory dude who has been making good game theory videos. here he analyzes the nuclear threat from the current situation. it’s better on 2x speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ2z2Qg_o0w
Thanks, that was interesting. That does sound like one of ways in which Putin could escalate.
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.
I agree, finding a balance between Russian speaking minority rights and promotion of Ukrainian language is the right thing to do.
It was a right thing to do before this year invasion and it is a right thing right now too. The fact that Russia makes nuclear threats should not make otherwise desirable policy suddenly undesirable.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PEACE) voted to support Resolution 2189 “The new Ukrainian law on education: a major impediment to the teaching of national minorities’ mother tongues”. Only Ukrainian voters and one UK voter objected. It is the same body that yesterday unanimously called to “declare the current Russian regime as a terrorist one”.
But we also have to accept the cruel irony that Russia is doing the most damage to the Ukrainian regions with the biggest Russian speaking minority. In cities like Mariupol.
The facts are that Russians are not concerned with well being of the Russian speaking minorities. Finding further balance is not something that will deescalate this war, but it is worthwhile regardless. It is also exceedingly unlikely that Russians would be willing to reciprocate with regard to Ukrainian rights on the occupied territories or in Russia.
The situation is Mariupol is quite weird. Ukraine blames Russia for the destroying a lot of homes and Russia blames Ukraine for destroying the homes. It doesn’t really make sense for either party to destroy the homes expect to blame the other party. Given fog of war it’s hard to know without access to classified intelligence what really happened.
The current Ukrainian position is that they won’t stop the war till they recapture all their territory including Crimea.
The only way to end the war before that point is to put pressure on Ukraine to accept something else. Talking about the desires and interests of the Crimean people who don’t want to live under the rule of Ukraine is a way to do so.
There is very clear cause and effect here. In a counterfactual world were Russia did not attack Ukraine Mariupol would have been a well functioning city. We know this for a fact because Russia gathered invasion forces around Ukraine before. They withdrew and nothing bad happened.
It’s like blaming Poles for destruction of Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising.
And it’s not just homes. Defenders of Mariupol have sheltered in Azovstal after the city was under siege for a long time. There was no Ukrainian units capable of attacking Azovstal form outside. Yet, Azovstal got obliterated.
And it’s not just Mariupol. Covering ground with artillery fire is a modus operandi of Russian army. Have you seen Grozny after the Second Chechen war? The same happened to Volnovakha, Rubizhne, Popasna, Lyman and Sievierodonetsk. Independent journalists had pretty good access to Kharkiv. And again the same situation.
And you can just listen to the Russians themselves. There was talk in Russian propaganda for a long time about destroying Ukrainian civilian infrastructure—electric plants and heating plants. Russia carried out this attack few days ago as officially confirmed by Russian ministry of defense and judged by the effects on Ukrainian infrastructure.
The only reason to attack electric and heating plants is to terrorize Ukrainians.
Russian logic is the same as a man raping and beating his wife. You must love and obey me and if you don’t I will make you. This attitude goes from the very top. As an example, Putin quoted a song during press conference with Emmanuel Macron in early February about Ukraine:
“Whether you like it or don’t like it, bear with it, my beauty.”
The full quote from “Sleeping beauty in a coffin” song by Red Mold would be:
> Sleeping beauty in a coffin, I crept up and fucked her. Like it, or dislike it, sleep my beauty.
Putin was casually quoting songs about necrophilia with regard to Ukraine when he was still planning the war.
There are millions of refugees from these territories. People want to go back to their homes and live normal lives. And there are still Ukrainians living there. They do not want to live under Russian occupation.
Ukrainians also do not believe in peace with Russia. Most likely any peace agreement will be just a time for Russia to rearm and attack again. And as a Pole, I very much understand them. Poland has been under one or another form of Russian occupation for the past 200 years.
I think there are multiple factors at work in the Chechen war. One of them is that the Chechen population is largely Muslim and not Christian. That makes it politically easier to cause them hardship. The also repeatidly rebeled against Russian governance.
There are multiple groups. Ukrainians who identify primarily as Ukrainians, Ukrainians who identify as Russians, and Ukrainians who identify as something else. I will call the Ukrainians who identify as Russian ethnic Russians for the following comment.
I think that attacking the military forces in Azostal, can be explained by military motivations that are not about punishing the ethnic Russians of the region. It is qualitatively different than destroying a lot of the homes in the city.
When it comes to the Ukrainians who do identify as Russians there’s public pressure in Russia to engage in actions to protect them. There’s the US cable from 2008 that describes that choice:
From Russia’s perspective, the events in 2013 and 2014 did force Russia to make a choice about whether or not to intervene. Putin decided to intervene in 2014 and as a result, massively increased his domestic approval.
From the Russian perspective, I don’t think that the ethnic-Russian community in Ukraine did anything wrong that’s worth punishing. On the other hand, under the maximalist claim that Ukraine is a fake country and those people who identify as Ukrainian are actually Russian and those do deserve some punishment for resisting Russia.
As far as I understand they did that in retaliation for the bombing of the bridge and in territories where the majority is ethnic Ukrainians. They didn’t do that in the areas they annexed.
To the extent that this is true, taking Moscow would be the only way to end the current war. The West seems pretty clear that it’s not willing to support Ukraine that far. That’s partly why the West doesn’t give them missiles that are able to hit targets 300 kilometers away.
Europe is going to want peace sooner or later. Even when the US would in principle be okay with longer fighting, they don’t want to fund the war indefinitely either.
To the extent that there’s a decent chance for a new war in the future, it would be good to have a peace deal that makes future wars less likely instead of more likely. Peace after Ukraine retakes Crimea would leave Russia with a lot more pressure to start a new war than peace where Russia keeps Crimea.