Speaking from ignorance: this prediction failure seems (from my ignorant perspective) similar to forecasting failures in Brexit and in the Trump 2016 election, in that it’s a case where some force whose motives are unlike Western academia/elites was surprising to them/us. If so, the moral might be to study the perspectives, motives, and capabilities of forces outside the Western elite on their own terms / by cobbling together an inside view from primary sources, rather than looking via Western experts/media (though this is much harder).
To what extent are there people who visibly made good predictions here beforehand? It seems worth compiling them. I appreciate cmessinger’s comment.
In this vein, here’s someone calling the situation we’re seeing shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Basic premise being that great power competition is alive and well, and the US and European leaders trying to tell themselves it’s dead are consistently confused. Title aside I would not describe his talk as assigning blame—more that the US had a great hand after the collapse of the USSR and has played it poorly. I found a few talks from this guy, and they’ve all aged remarkably well.
Speaking from ignorance: this prediction failure seems (from my ignorant perspective) similar to forecasting failures in Brexit and in the Trump 2016 election, in that it’s a case where some force whose motives are unlike Western academia/elites was surprising to them/us. If so, the moral might be to study the perspectives, motives, and capabilities of forces outside the Western elite on their own terms / by cobbling together an inside view from primary sources, rather than looking via Western experts/media (though this is much harder).
To what extent are there people who visibly made good predictions here beforehand? It seems worth compiling them. I appreciate cmessinger’s comment.
In this vein, here’s someone calling the situation we’re seeing shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Basic premise being that great power competition is alive and well, and the US and European leaders trying to tell themselves it’s dead are consistently confused. Title aside I would not describe his talk as assigning blame—more that the US had a great hand after the collapse of the USSR and has played it poorly. I found a few talks from this guy, and they’ve all aged remarkably well.
A LW post predicted a Feb invasion back in Dec: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QEsqKFabffwKXAPso/
Years ago, many politicians and professors of international relations predicted a strong Russian response to talk of admitting Ukraine into NATO: https://nitter.net/RnaudBertrand/status/1498491107902062592#m