Last spring, I predicted that once loss of occupied territory loomed, he would annex what he controlled and start talking about nuclear defense of Russia's new borders – and here we are. 

Citation/link please? "Trust, but verify."

I view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that Putin would accept "Vietnam" without first going nuclear, because it would almost certainly result in him being overthrown and jailed or killed.

This seems overconfident to me. So many people made confident predictions about what Putin would or wouldn't do (or Trump, or Obama, or Xi for that matter) and were wrong. It's hard to predict world leader behavior even in cases with somewhat of a precedent, which this is not. Example: Early in this war I thought "Belarus will almost certainly join the war sooner or later, because Putin can have Lukashenko assassinated, along with loads of higher-ups in the government, if he wants." Welp, I was wrong. Don't know why yet. Similarly I think that if Putin were to accept a "vietnam" he'd probably still remain in power. You might think that there'd be a revolution, and there totally might, but I don't know how you can be almost certain.

 

On the other hand, I also view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that the West would accept a "Kosovo" scenario where Russia is granted a peace deal where it keeps everything it's annexed, because if the powers that be in the West were that appeasement-minded, they would presumable have opted for a "Cuba" scenario in 2021 by acquiescing to Russia's demand that Ukraine never join NATO. 

I can't square my model of Russia with the idea that Russia genuinely invaded Ukraine because they were afraid of NATO expansion. Pre-invasion, Ukraine was unlikely to join NATO and NATO itself was likely only to become smaller and less significant.

Up until the invasion NATO was increasingly perceived as a relic - an organization that lost the reason for its creation. It was hard for me to even imagine chain of events would revitalize NATO. But then Russia sends columns of tanks straight to the capital of the largest country in Europe and yeah, I guess that would do it. Give every country near Russia's the strongest possible reason and urgency to join NATO and increase their defense budgets.

That result seems likely even if Russia had conquered the entire country in 3 days. In fact I believe Putin felt comfortable invading Ukraine, knowing this would massively boost NATO, because he had absolutely no genuine concerns about NATO invading RUSSIA itself.

Regarding your Twitter comment about Musk's proposals:

Here's why I think there's now a one-in-six chance of an imminent global #NuclearWar, and why I appreciate @elonmusk and others urging de-escalation, which is IMHO in the national security interest of all nations

The real issue with backing down from nuclear threats is what happens when you back down.

Let's say we force Ukraine to allow Putin to keep the annexed territory because of nuclear weapons. This gives him, every Russian and every dictator around the world a clear message: nuclear weapons are the winning strategy.

It would make Putin and all warmongers like Prigozhin or Kadyrov look like geniuses. They stood against the whole world and won! Everyone inside Russia who was opposing the use of nuclear weapons would have to admit that it worked. So they need to use this trick more! It costs nothing. You just need to be a true believer in the greatness and ruthlessness of mother Russia. 

Hitler also looked like genius of strategy after annexation of Austria and Sudetenland. From German perspective in Summer of 1939 he obviously knew what he was doing and should be trusted.

So, how far are you willing to back down?

Is Poland va... (read more)

We’re still only a few hours post the bridge attack, but worth noting that when given the opportunity to massively escalate with a ‘red line’ being crossed, the Russian government are talking about how this was a terrorist attack and traffic will be up and running within hours (playing down the impact). This suggests to me they’re extremely unwilling to move up to tactical nuclear weapons right now.

Thank you for this post, Max.

My background here:

• I've watched the Ukraine war very closely since it started.
• I'm not at all familiar with nuclear risk estimations.

Summary: I wouldn't give 70% for WW3/KABOOM from conventional NATO retaliation. I would give that 2-5% in this moment (I spent little time thinking about the precise number).

Motivation: I think conventional responses from NATO will cause Russia to generally back down. I think Putin wants to use the threat of nukes, not actually use them.

Even when cornered yet further, I expect Putin to assess that firing off nukes will make his situation even worse. Nuclear conflict would be an immense direct threat against himself and Russia, and the threat of nuclear conflict also increases the risk of people on the inside targeting him (because they don't want to die). Authoritarians respect force. A NATO response would be a show of force.

Putin has told the Russian public in the past that Russia couldn't win against NATO directly. Losing against NATO actually gives him a more palatable excuse: NATO is too powerful. Losing against Ukraine though, their little sibling, would be very humiliating. Losing in a contest of strength against someone supposedly weaker is almost unacceptable to authoritarians.

I think the most likely outcome is that Putin is deterred from firing a tactical nuke. And if he does fire one, NATO will respond conventionally (such as taking out the Black sea fleet), and this will cause Russia to back down in some manner.

You think it is likely/possible that a nuclear war kills almost everyone in the US and Europe. Since you estimate the chance of this happening to 1 in 6, are you moving to South America or Australia for a year or two? 

I strongly disagree with this post but I think it's well written conditional on the views of the author, so now I'm divided between whether I should upvote or downvote it.

If only we had agreement karma at the post level, not just the comment level...

I view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that Putin would accept "Vietnam" without first going nuclear, because it would almost certainly result in him being overthrown and jailed or killed.

Why are you saying "almost certain" instead of giving a probability? 

Many people who have power in Russia have power because they were over decades loyal to Putin. They are likely going to lose power if Putin would be overthrown.

I recently heard from a Ukrainian that part of the demands of the EU for what Ukraine would need to do in terms of minority protection of Russian speakers is pro-Russian propaganda. The Ukrainians pretend that Elon Musk that spends gifted them ~80 million worth of StarLink is anti-Ukrainian. 

One interesting aspect of the reaction to Musk's proposal in German media, is the absence of citing anyone from the German government. As winter progresses the pain from lack of Russian gas will rise in Europe, moving troops in Winter in the Ukraine is harder. That shifts the politics into making a peace deal more likely.

It's quite clear why it's worth suffering when Russland attacks parts of Ukraine that don't want to be Russian. On the other hand, the case for why European ... (read more)

EDIT: Removed "nuclear arsenal not working because Russia didn't bother to maintain them" as I don't find that especially likely on reflection.

An aside on the level of destruction we can anticipate: Nuclear war is not an existential threat. ^[1]Fears of nuclear winter, which may be an existential threat^[2],  are likely overblown as the well known soot production model is based on poor research. Soot production in the high atmosphere is like 1-2 orders of magnitude below what the original studies suggested.

Strategy suggests that military targ... (read more)

 My estimate is quite high (80%) that NATO's response will be forceful enough to include a non-nuclear military strike against Russia, because key NATO leaders have already made strongly worded statements to this effect.

Here, my estimate is much lower (about 25%). Talk is cheap, so strongly worded statements in itself are only weak evidence for future intentions if carrying out those threats poses threats on this level (and I do think it to be likely that the relevant players in NATO are aware of the level of risk). 

One question in the back of my mind regarding the likelihoods here about Russia's demonstrated maintenance performance in its military. Yes, strategic systems will have to have both a higher priority and, one might think, higher quality professionals performing all the tasks and management. But is that really a safe assumption?

Is there really any reason to believe that the corruption that has hamstrung a the Russian military in general is not also pervasive in strategic weapons? Seems to me that would be driven by the underlying culture of autocratic regimes which seem poorly suited to maintaining high quality and honest assessments of actual state.

I view it as highly unlikely (<10%) that Putin would accept "Vietnam" without first going nuclear, because it would almost certainly result in him being overthrown and jailed or killed.

Two points:

• This is why Biden is looking for an "offramp" for Putin. Is this included in your "<10%" figure?
• If Putin wants to avoid being jailed or killed, a nuclear attack that by your own logic leads to a 56% chance of WWIII seems worse for him. Would ordering his military to escalate in this way be more likely to result in compliance, or a coup?

I would like to see st... (read more)

Perhaps a nuclear war today would reduce the possibility of human extinction within this century. It appears that AGI is close, without substantial progress in AI Safety. A nuclear war, would, I believe cause a major slowdown in AI progress, increasing the probability of getting an aligned AI at the end. 

If Putin uses a nuke in Ukraine, NATO will respond by decimating the Russian invasion force in Ukraine (probably excluding Crimea) with conventional air power. That should be seen as de-escalating, since 1) only a nuclear response can really be an escalation to a nuclear provocation, and 2) Russia’s pre-war border is not violated. It will allow the Ukrainians to take back their land to pre-war boundaries (“Vietnam”). Putin knows this (it’s probably been “explained” to him by Western leaders), so the likelihood he would choose that path is small. Even if he... (read more)

Of the 4 NS pipelines ( 2 NS1, 2 NS2), 3 are off line, one is still operational, hence I think we shouldn’t rule out the scenario where gas flow from Russia to Germany would resume

There's potential paths that this model doesn't include. I have to believe that the Five Eyes have done some amount of work to find ways to hamstring Russias nuclear capabilities (I recall stories that "we" were able to sabotage chips in in the supply chain for Iraq's missiles, for example).  Meaning, there's a chance Russia does some kind of nuclear launch and it's horribly botched for one reason or another.  Their own incompetence, supply chain sabotage, etc. They may, then, be reluctant to launch another.

I don't know what a reasonable prior is... (read more)

What are the numbers based on, especially 30% of Ukraine winning? So far, the retired US and NATO generals have voiced that Ukraine has achieved "irrevesible momentum" of winning. 

Any evidence you can counter argue that with?

In the past, we've often seen that officers in charge of nukes don't launch them (Archipov, the Generals in the Trump admin seemed minded to ensure they got a look in before launch). What probability do you assign that when told to launch a nuke, the Russian officers don't?

To be honest I would like to understand a little bit more on why and how the parameters of this little model were "tuned". I mean, I am not saying that the model is wrong (because the outcomes are forcibly those) but I would like to understand more on how those probabilities were tuned or at least estimated.

Let's put in this way: to possibly have an hint to calculate and have a reasonable estimate I think we should consider the chicken game scenario. Because at the moment we are in a stage of the war that is a "chicken game", in which neither Ukraine, neit... (read more)

The only nuclear target map thus far declassified by the United States suggested that China would also be targeted even in a US-Russia war, to prevent it from emerging as the strongest post-war economy.

Wait, what? 

If true, this seems to strongly undermine the credibility of the U.S. in the eyes of most world leaders.

Especially the leaders of India, Africa, Brazil, etc., who would almost certainly share fears of being next on the chopping block.

I can't see how this is possibly advantageous for the US government to suggest.

Max is clearly a highly intelligent person, who's highly respected with a great track record. I believe we all should be taking his arguments seriously and discussing how we can create better outcomes through action, rather than focusing our intellects on breaking apart his logic and trying to convince ourselves that everything is fine.

Non-military deterrents:

How about turning off Moscow’s lights for a few hours? Or wider-scale?

Or seizing ALL Russian assets in the West?

Darker deterrent:

Seize all children of Putin & Russian generals & elite who reside or school or vacation in the West?

—O.S.