Thread by @Iyervval

THREAD: Rationality in decision making. Putin & Ukraine

1 As a rule when analysing any situation you assume rationality of the actor as the basis - Kim Jong Un, Xi, Imran. Stupidity & Risk taking are the variables. “Stupidity” is function of limited information - both what your

2 Intel tells you, who you include in your intel loop, and further what information you accept and what you reject - this is both objective & subjective. “Risk Taking” is a sub function - almost entirely objective - based on a cost benefit analysis. The better your Intel, the

3 the better your risk taking. However this is where “madness” comes in - what’s acceptable cost to one may seem madness to another. Notice both are functions of information. We’ve all known that dictatorships are fundamentally compromised on this because there is never a free

4 flow of information as dictators eliminate unpleasant news. Till this week, all my friends in the Kremlin were convinced an invasion was impossible, simply because the risks they had calculated were simply too high for any “sane” individual. So did Putin not read their risk

5 analysis? Or has he simply cut them out of the loop? It would seem both. When I called them after the invasion to find out what happened they were as stunned as I was (except 1 person who had predicted this 2 months back and I had roundly abused as being “mad” - Let’s call him

6 DELPHI for now). Curiously their first reaction was “what’ll happen to our kids? They’ll never be able to study abroad”. That was telling - telling because it was the first time I’d factored in the allure of a western education as a limiting factor in executive decisions. Mind

7 you of joint Secretary and above in the IAS/IFS - some say 98% of their kids study abroad. Back to Russia: these people don’t know what happens here on because to their knowledge there is no study/analysis/Intel on the 2nd and 3rd order effects of the Invasion as their analyses

8 had ruled out the impact as too devastating based on the 1st order effects. Problem now is they’ve not even been asked to prepare anything to now analyse 2nd & 3rd order effects. Essentially this would mean that unless there is some super secret study, Russian policy is now

9 floating on guesswork. Notice something here - every behaviour so far has been rational, including seemingly Putin’s. The question is why did Putin snap? Obviously no leader should ever snap - it’s a weakness which means your enemies can bait you. This is where I come back to

10 DELPHI. His prognosis was based on a simple Anton Chekov rule “if while watching a play there’s a gun on stage, the probability that the gun will be part of the plot is 100%”. Mind you he said this 2 months back. Clearly then Putin didn’t “snap” now. He snapped before any

11 coherent analysis or cost/benefits were on his desk. For@me this is totally unlike Putin - because it’s decision making completely shorn of information. That’s dangerous - extremely dangerous. Even Japan entering WW2 made meticulous calculations of what to do. We know they

12 considered first going after Dutch oil fields in Indonesia, but decided then to pre-empt US intervention by bombing Pearl Harbour. Admiral Yamamoto at the time had told Emperor Hirohito in no uncertain terms “your majesty, I can guarantee victory for 6 months, but after that

13 we lose”. So what tempted the imperial cabinet to go for war when Yamamoto wrote the declaration of defeat so clearly? We’ll never really know the specifics of what played out in Hirohito’s mind - but safe to say he wasn’t mad - just risk accepting. The problem now is that

14 if you extrapolate that on Ukraine - this would be the Yamamoto moment. Mind you history shows us that authoritarian states choose ideology- Hitler despite loss being evident, North Korea choosing to deindustrialise and go from asias 2nd richest country to the worlds poorest.

15 issue is I don’t think Putin will accept a DPRK style miserable existence. Which means you’ll see Russian behaviour becoming ever more disruptive and dangerous. That it pushes Russia inexorably & irrevocably into Chinese orbit should be the least of our worries. But notice for

16 a moment what’s happening. Putin’s own risk taking is significantly & IMO detrimentally impacting western decision making. They’ve counted the economic cost-benefit of Russia sanctions, not the geopolitical. That’s how the world stumbled into war on 2 occasions. Honestly I

17 love my job. So far analysing stuff over the last 20-25 years gave me huge thrills. Today for the first time I feel unease & fear. These things are highly stochastic & I’m actually hoping I’m wrong again.

18 Wrong - remember rationality is based on how many options you have on the table - “rationality” to a man with 50 options is very different from “rationality” to a man with 5. Problem is fewer the options higher the desperation & risk talking

https://twitter.com/shivang88491583/status/1497836378813792263

19 unsurprisingly, Putin has put Russian nuclear forces on alert. This despite the fact that the actions by NATO have been economic + conventional deployments to eastern allies. Clearly this isn’t going well. how long before a signalling strike over the Baltic or Atlantic?