A couple of additional considerations that I wish people would bring up in posts on this topic:
Humans have a tendency/bias to think one’s own side is good and only giving proportional/fair responses, and the other side is evil and always escalating, making overall escalation much more likely than game theory (that assume rational actors) would suggest.
Chinese leadership may seem mostly rational today, but what about tomorrow? Putin seemed fairly rational just a few months ago. Maybe “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is right after all?
Given these considerations, “deterring the next war” is harder than it otherwise appears, and we should plan accordingly. (I’m not sure what concrete conclusions to make yet.)
I think both Putin and Xi Jinping are extremely rational—more so, in fact, that our Macron or Biden. Their goals are very different, which makes their action difficult to understand for us (at least on an emotional level—wants to bring back the Glory of the empire is a motive I can understand but not really emphatise with). And they can also make mistakes—I think Putin underestimated the strength of our answer to his invasion (tbf this strength surprised everybody, including our own gouvernement). But misevaluating something does not makes you irrational.
From what I’ve read, Putin surrounded himself with yes men who lied to him (or were afraid to tell him the truth) about the preparedness and morale of the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, and the likely response of the Ukrainian government and people to a Russian invasion. That doesn’t seem rational to me, or if it’s somehow not irrational on an individual level, makes it a bad idea to model Russia as a rational actor as a whole.
That doesn’t seem rational to me, or if it’s somehow not irrational on an individual level, makes it a bad idea to model Russia as a rational actor as a whole.
Absent honest, safe, free speech, leadership’s map diverges more and more from the territory and then comes crashing back to reality when they drive off a cliff they thought was a highway.
A group of individuals behaving in their own rational self-interest can make very irrational, self-destructive group-level decisions, if the incentives the members have are perverse enough. I guess the idea itself is as old as the book(Moloch style religious arguments have existed since forever) but I somehow never thought about it from the lens of predictability, of being a part of the same consensus reality.
Everyone around Putin was shocked that he went to full war, because they all knew they were lying to him and it would be a disaster. He alone lived in a hall of mirrors. I assume he’s smashing a bunch of them as we speak.
Tbh I have a well documented bias toward overestimating opponents capacities. I think Putin’s actions makes a lot of sense considering the results of his previous wars and the general lack of (serious) responce from the West, but I agree his most recent speeches and actions do not strikes me as perfectly rational.
If he is to be believed as genuine, as interviewed by Oliver Stone in 2017 (see: The Putin Interviews), then his stated goals are prosperity and security for Russia. But he somewhat betrays another goal of his that he doesn’t explicitly state: He is concerned about his and his family’s prosperity and security, particularly after he leaves office. I do get the sense his stated goals are genuine but his unstated goals would override them if necessary. Not exactly revelatory nor a great insight to say that a politician is primarily concerned with saving their own skin but Russian politics strike me as even more dangerous and cut-throat than Western politics. The risks for him are likely much higher.
I think you should update, regarding Putin’s rationality.
His recent miscalculations are not just unpredictable mistakes that anyone can do. They are part of systemic issues rooted in the way he was running the country for 20 years. Optimizing loyalty instead of competence, enabling corruption, getting rid of independent public institutions, propagating informational war epistemology and as a result disregarding any critique as fake news and falling for your own propaganda.
A rational agent who just wanted to be a successful cleptocrat could have behaved mostly the way Putin did until now. They would still not fall for their own propaganda and know that all the talk about restoring Russia’s former glory is just a narrative to cheaply assert the support of their core demographic. A rational agent who actually wanted to restore Russia to its former glory would have been behaving completely different through out these 20 years. A rational agent who somehow wanted both would have at least made really sure to have the military being capable.
You may be right that deterring the next war is harder than it appears. I’m pretty sure you’re right that escalation is more likely in reality than in theory. That doesn’t change the fact that the world still needs to deter the next war. And taking the problem seriously and thinking about how to find a solution is a necessary first step.
A couple of additional considerations that I wish people would bring up in posts on this topic:
Humans have a tendency/bias to think one’s own side is good and only giving proportional/fair responses, and the other side is evil and always escalating, making overall escalation much more likely than game theory (that assume rational actors) would suggest.
Chinese leadership may seem mostly rational today, but what about tomorrow? Putin seemed fairly rational just a few months ago. Maybe “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is right after all?
Given these considerations, “deterring the next war” is harder than it otherwise appears, and we should plan accordingly. (I’m not sure what concrete conclusions to make yet.)
I think both Putin and Xi Jinping are extremely rational—more so, in fact, that our Macron or Biden. Their goals are very different, which makes their action difficult to understand for us (at least on an emotional level—wants to bring back the Glory of the empire is a motive I can understand but not really emphatise with). And they can also make mistakes—I think Putin underestimated the strength of our answer to his invasion (tbf this strength surprised everybody, including our own gouvernement). But misevaluating something does not makes you irrational.
From what I’ve read, Putin surrounded himself with yes men who lied to him (or were afraid to tell him the truth) about the preparedness and morale of the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, and the likely response of the Ukrainian government and people to a Russian invasion. That doesn’t seem rational to me, or if it’s somehow not irrational on an individual level, makes it a bad idea to model Russia as a rational actor as a whole.
Absent honest, safe, free speech, leadership’s map diverges more and more from the territory and then comes crashing back to reality when they drive off a cliff they thought was a highway.
A group of individuals behaving in their own rational self-interest can make very irrational, self-destructive group-level decisions, if the incentives the members have are perverse enough. I guess the idea itself is as old as the book(Moloch style religious arguments have existed since forever) but I somehow never thought about it from the lens of predictability, of being a part of the same consensus reality.
Everyone around Putin was shocked that he went to full war, because they all knew they were lying to him and it would be a disaster. He alone lived in a hall of mirrors. I assume he’s smashing a bunch of them as we speak.
Tbh I have a well documented bias toward overestimating opponents capacities. I think Putin’s actions makes a lot of sense considering the results of his previous wars and the general lack of (serious) responce from the West, but I agree his most recent speeches and actions do not strikes me as perfectly rational.
What’s he maximising? Population? Hectares? GDP? Respect?
The feeling you get when you manage to change history with your own country at Europa Universalis 4 ?
Is he a gamer?
The point is that anything maximises something , for an arbitrary something.
Games have well defined but arbitrary winning conditions. Life had a poorly defined but non arbitrary winning condition.
If he is to be believed as genuine, as interviewed by Oliver Stone in 2017 (see: The Putin Interviews), then his stated goals are prosperity and security for Russia. But he somewhat betrays another goal of his that he doesn’t explicitly state: He is concerned about his and his family’s prosperity and security, particularly after he leaves office. I do get the sense his stated goals are genuine but his unstated goals would override them if necessary. Not exactly revelatory nor a great insight to say that a politician is primarily concerned with saving their own skin but Russian politics strike me as even more dangerous and cut-throat than Western politics. The risks for him are likely much higher.
I think you should update, regarding Putin’s rationality.
His recent miscalculations are not just unpredictable mistakes that anyone can do. They are part of systemic issues rooted in the way he was running the country for 20 years. Optimizing loyalty instead of competence, enabling corruption, getting rid of independent public institutions, propagating informational war epistemology and as a result disregarding any critique as fake news and falling for your own propaganda.
A rational agent who just wanted to be a successful cleptocrat could have behaved mostly the way Putin did until now. They would still not fall for their own propaganda and know that all the talk about restoring Russia’s former glory is just a narrative to cheaply assert the support of their core demographic. A rational agent who actually wanted to restore Russia to its former glory would have been behaving completely different through out these 20 years. A rational agent who somehow wanted both would have at least made really sure to have the military being capable.
You may be right that deterring the next war is harder than it appears. I’m pretty sure you’re right that escalation is more likely in reality than in theory. That doesn’t change the fact that the world still needs to deter the next war. And taking the problem seriously and thinking about how to find a solution is a necessary first step.