Thanks for this analysis. This part is the part that seems least convincing to me:
A nuclear war between Russia and Ukraine is rather possible from a long-term perspective, no matter how the current escalation will end. Unless the current war ends with the complete occupation of Ukraine.
I don’t see much reason to think nuclear war with Ukraine is significantly more likely than with North Korea, or Iran, or the USA, or the PRC, or India, or any of various other nuclear-armed states. OK sure there are border conflicts with Ukraine so maybe there are more likely to be local clashes that could blow up into nuclear war via brinksmanship… but (a) if Russia retreated from Crimea and the Donbass, I think it would be extremely unlikely that Ukraine would attack Russia, and (b) if Russia’s main concern is national security but they still want to keep Crimea and the Donbass, why don’t they offer the following deal: Ukraine and NATO recognize Crimea and Donbass as officially and legitimately part of Russia, and also Ukraine permanently banned from NATO, but Ukraine gets to have nukes? I feel like this deal would be acceptable to all parties on the model of the world that you are presenting. Under this deal all parties should feel pretty secure, existentially speaking. Sure Ukraine loses some territory they’ve already lost, but they get nukes & with nukes comes ridiculous levels of protection against invasion (see North Korea). As for Russia, with Ukraine barred from NATO and officially recognizing Crimea etc. it seems pretty darn unlikely to me that Ukraine would later get aggressive and start attacking Russia.
(My alternate hypothesis, which seems more plausible, is that Russia/Putin have other major goals besides avoiding a future nuclear war with Ukraine, goals such as annexing Ukraine or at least the Donbass and Crimea regions)
I have no experience or expertise in these topics so I’m probably wrong in a bunch of ways… what am I missing?
What I said above was my attempt to reconstruct the line of thoughts of Putin based on game-theoretical considerations and published documents. His real thoughts may be different and there are other goals as well, first of all, the desire to “resurrect” USSR.
Retreating from Crimea or nuclear Ukraine is unacceptable for their worldview. However, they really want some kind of international agreement which will ensure Russia safety without these two things. I don’t think that such agreement is viable as previous agreement of this type was thrown under a bus—the Budapest memorandum.
If the deal included Ukraine guaranteeing its own protection with nuclear weapons again, the failure case of third-parties deciding they can’t be bothered to protect Ukraine isn’t a problem.
Thanks for this analysis. This part is the part that seems least convincing to me:
I don’t see much reason to think nuclear war with Ukraine is significantly more likely than with North Korea, or Iran, or the USA, or the PRC, or India, or any of various other nuclear-armed states. OK sure there are border conflicts with Ukraine so maybe there are more likely to be local clashes that could blow up into nuclear war via brinksmanship… but (a) if Russia retreated from Crimea and the Donbass, I think it would be extremely unlikely that Ukraine would attack Russia, and (b) if Russia’s main concern is national security but they still want to keep Crimea and the Donbass, why don’t they offer the following deal: Ukraine and NATO recognize Crimea and Donbass as officially and legitimately part of Russia, and also Ukraine permanently banned from NATO, but Ukraine gets to have nukes? I feel like this deal would be acceptable to all parties on the model of the world that you are presenting. Under this deal all parties should feel pretty secure, existentially speaking. Sure Ukraine loses some territory they’ve already lost, but they get nukes & with nukes comes ridiculous levels of protection against invasion (see North Korea). As for Russia, with Ukraine barred from NATO and officially recognizing Crimea etc. it seems pretty darn unlikely to me that Ukraine would later get aggressive and start attacking Russia.
(My alternate hypothesis, which seems more plausible, is that Russia/Putin have other major goals besides avoiding a future nuclear war with Ukraine, goals such as annexing Ukraine or at least the Donbass and Crimea regions)
I have no experience or expertise in these topics so I’m probably wrong in a bunch of ways… what am I missing?
What I said above was my attempt to reconstruct the line of thoughts of Putin based on game-theoretical considerations and published documents. His real thoughts may be different and there are other goals as well, first of all, the desire to “resurrect” USSR.
Retreating from Crimea or nuclear Ukraine is unacceptable for their worldview. However, they really want some kind of international agreement which will ensure Russia safety without these two things. I don’t think that such agreement is viable as previous agreement of this type was thrown under a bus—the Budapest memorandum.
If the deal included Ukraine guaranteeing its own protection with nuclear weapons again, the failure case of third-parties deciding they can’t be bothered to protect Ukraine isn’t a problem.