Let's discuss how this war is going. I'll start with a somewhat counterintuitive problem - the one of nuclear deterrence. Its dynamics are so paradoxical from the standpoint of game theory that they greatly stimulated development of the conflict economics in the 1960s🧵
Both the US and the USSR were able to inflict irreversible damage on each other. But there was a problem - human factor. Would you *actually* give an order to launch the nukes? If you wouldn't or nobody believes you would, it greatly reduces your power to pressure and blackmail
And vice versa. Consider that your opponent did make a strike with devastating effect for your country. But he didn't wipe out your nuclear forces completely: some of them survived the attack. Will they strike back? Pragmatically speaking, it's not in their best interest
After you nuked your enemy, best thing his nuclear forces can do, pragmatically speaking, is bargain. Negotiate some reasonable terms of surrender for themselves. Their country is (largely) gone anyway. If they strike back, humanity is doomed and they're doomed too. They know it
Paradoxically, the devastating effect of nuclear strikes leads to very counterintuitive dynamics. Yes, actors will be hesitant to make a strike. But if they did it anyway, then whatever remained of their opponents may be reluctant to strike back. That's not in their best interest
Human factor obstructs actually employing the nukes not only as the offensive, but also as a defensive weapon. If I believe that whatever remains of my opponent after my strike might not strike back (they'd rather bargain) than the entire nuclear deterrence mechanism doesn't work
Counterintuitive problems require counterintuitive solutions. So Khruchev told:
"Your generals talk of maintaining your position in Berlin with force. That is a bluff. If you send in tanks, we'll burn them. If you want a war, you'll get it. Our rockets will FLY AUTOMATICALLY"
What did he mean? Well, that's clear. The USSR was stronger conventional weapon-wise, US - nuke-wise. Ofc the USSR wanted to solve any conflicts by conventional weapons, but was concerned about American nukes. Khruchev knew that human factor largely devaluates nuclear deterrence
Soviets found a counterintuitive solution to this problem. Which is - *limit their own choices*. Like, yeah, we surely would like to avoid the nuclear apocalypse. Sadly, we won't have such an option. If you nuke us, our rockets will fly automatically with no human factor involved
Counterintuitively it may sound, limiting your own options was a great move from the standpoint of game theory. Convey the message that if your enemy makes a strike, you'll literally have no choice but to inflict total mutual destruction. That's what makes nuclear deterrence work
Cultures of honour work *exactly* by limiting one's own options. Like, sorry guys but if you kill one of ours we'll wage a blood feud and hunt every single one of you. Yeah, that's irrational. Yeah, many more of ours will die as a result. Sadly, we won't have a choice to back off
It may seem that the best strategy is to ensure you always have choices. BUT. If you have them and your opponent knows that, you're defenceless. No deterrence will ever work. For deterrence to work, they need to know you'll 100% strike back. That's why you limit your own options
Alternatively, you may bluff and make your opponent *believe* that you have limited your options. Which is exactly what Khruchev did. All his talk of rockets that will "fly automatically" was BS. He was playing with Americans and bluffing so that his nuclear deterrence would work
No Soviets rockets would ever "fly automatically". There was indeed an automatic system informing the military of a supposed American nuclear strike. That was true. But there was no automatic system that would actually make a strike with no human factor involved. It never existed
Decision to launch Soviet rockets could be made only by mid-ranked humans made of flesh and blood. It was all based on human factor. Which is exactly why the nuclear war never happened. The humans wouldn't press the button no matter what the automatic systems told them to do
The first case where situation could've potentially escalated happened in 1962 during the Caribbean crisis. Soviet submarine Б-59 broke the quarantine which Kennedy imposed around Cuba. Americans didn't know this submarine has nukes and started bombing it with depth-charges
The submarine had to dive deeper where no radio connection was possible. Its lost any communications with Moscow and with the High Command. Meanwhile, Americans continued dropping depth bombs on a submarine. So captain Savitsky ordered to prepare the nuclear torpedoes for launch
Btw Soviet submarines employed not only the nuclear rockets but also the torpedoes. They were still pretty powerful and as you see could inflict a heavy damage
What happened next? Savitsky was stopped. Who did it? His own politruk and the chief of staff of the submarine brigade who just *accidentally* happened to be there. A hothead captain wanted to make a nuclear attack but it was vetoed both by his military and political superiors
FYI: in Soviet army politruks were not professional military but the political appointees commissioned to the army in order to check, control and veto decisions of the military. Politruk doesn't so much help a captain as to ensure there are no fluctuations from the Party line
Both military and political higher-ups vetoed the strike. Ofc info was classified till 2002. And even then it was presented as their personal decision. But if they had a clear order not to make a strike, would it be published? No. That would devalue the entire nuclear deterrence
Another escalation that we know of happened in 1983. On September 1 a Soviet fighter shot down a Korean Boeing, taking it for a spy plane. 269 people died. NATO scheduled exercises for the nuclear war Able Archer 83 on November of that year. Tension grew rapidly
What is worse, Soviets knew that Americans will employ their new missiles Pershing II in Western Europe. This rockets could reach Moscow in just six minutes, leaving very little time for figuring out what's happening, making a decision and striking back. One had to decide quickly
To detect American strikes, USSR employed the Oko satellite system. Satellites were based both on Molniya (= to detect a launch from high latitudes, see below) and geosynchronous orbits. They'd detect exhaust plume of rocket launch in infrared light and notify the Soviet military
On 26nd of September 1983, a command station Serpukhov-15 located near Moscow got a notification that Americans made a strike. According to the official narrative, colonel-lieutenant Petrov, an engineer-analytic of the station had to report to the General Secretary immediately
But he didn't do that. Instead he informed his superiors of a false alarm. It's understandable. He was a professional engineer and knew that a computer absolutely can make a mistake. Besides he concluded that the notification of just several rockets launched is likely to be false
If Americans did attack, launching several rockets would be stupid. They should have made a mass strike. So Petrov decided that the alarm is false. Indeed, the system mistook the sun rays reflection from the high altitude clouds for a rocket launch. They fixed this bug much later
What do these two stories (that we know of) teach us? The entire narrative of rockets that would "fly automatically" is a myth. It's a bluff aimed to maximise the nuclear deterrence effect. No sane commandment would ever do this considering how unreliable these systems are
Decisions are taken by humans and not even by high-ranked humans. Those higher-ups have no idea how to even interpret data, and have to rely on explanations (=interpretations) of engineers. Some fancy general/minister has no better info than the one his technical staff gave him
Furthermore, there is a reason to believe that several independent mechanisms prevent some hothead from just launching rockets because he feels like that. That would explain why in 1962 decision to launch torpedoes was blocked both by military and political higher-ups
I don't have any hard evidence to support this hypothesis but logically speaking that would make total sense. A military supervisor got a secret instruction to prevent a launch, and a political got one too independently. Double control just to make sure no accident gonna happen
That would also make sense from a game theory standpoint. Technically the best scenario ever is when you actually have options, but pretend you don't. You claim you limited your choices, excluding the human factor, but in reality you don't do that
Technically speaking deterrence isn't based on having actually limited your choices but on making them believe you have. The thing is, with conventional weapons you can't just bluff for long without actually using them. Very soon nobody's gonna believe you anymore
Nuclear deterrence is a bit different. Since the nukes are universally regarded as a domesday device and a full-scale nuclear war will mark the end of humanity, it's totally possible to pretend to have limited your choices, but to keep them in reality. Nobody had a chance to try
I think, I'm done for today. Next time I want to make a brief overview of how this war is going. If you want to support my work, you can sign up to my Patreon patreon.com/kamilkazani922
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In August 1999, President Yeltsin appointed his FSB Chief Putin as the new Prime Minister. Same day, he named him as the official successor. Yet, there was a problem. To become a president, Putin had to go through elections which he could not win.
He was completely obscure.
Today, Putin is the top rank global celebrity. But in August 1999, nobody knew him. He was just an obscure official of Yeltsin's administration, made a PM by the arbitrary will of the sovereign. This noname clerk had like 2-3% of popular support
Soon, he was to face elections
By the time of Putin's appointment, Russia already had its most favoured candidate. It was Primakov. A former Yeltsin's Prime Minister who broke with Yeltsin to contest for power. The most popular politician in Russia with massive support both in masses and in the establishment.
In Russia, the supreme power has never ever changed as a result of elections. That simply never happened in history. Now that is because Russia is a (non hereditary) monarchy. Consequently, it doesn't have any elections. It has only acclamations of a sitting ruler
Obviously, there has been no elections of Putin in any meaningful sense. There have been only acclamations. And that is normal. His predecessor was successfully acclaimed with an approval rate of about 6%. Once you got the power, you will get your acclamation one way or another
Contrary to the popular opinion, Russia doesn't have any acclamation ("election") problem. It has a transition of power problem. Like Putin can get acclaimed again, and again, and again. But sooner or later, he dies. What next?
My team has documented the entire Russian missile manufacturing base. That is 28 key ballistic, cruise, hypersonic and air defence missile producing plants associated with four corporations of Roscosmos, Almaz-Antey, Tactical Missiles and Rostec
The link is in the first comment
Our report How Does Russia Make Missiles? is already available for download
By the next weekend, we will be publishing the first OSINT sample, illustrating our methodology & approach. The rest of our materials will be made available laterrhodus.com
Key takeaways:
1. Missile production is mostly about machining 2. You cannot produce components of tight precision and convoluted geometry otherwise 3. Soviet missiles industry performed most of its machining manually
That was extremely laborious and skill-intensive process
No one gets famous by accident. If Alexey @Navalny rose as the unalternative leader of Russian opposition, recognised as such both in Moscow and in DC, this indicates he had something that others lacked. Today we will discuss what it was and why it did not suffice 🧵
Let's start with the public image. What was so special about the (mature) @navalny is that his public image represented normality. And by normality I mean first and foremost the American, Hollywood normality
Look at this photo. He represents himself as American politicians do
For an American politician, it is very important to present himself as a good family man (or woman). Exceptions do only corroborate the rule. Notice how McCain defends @BarackObama
Should Putin just suddenly die, @MedvedevRussiaE is the most likely compromise candidate for the supreme political power. He is the inaugurated President for God's sake. Which means, the anointed King.
"Not a real king", "Figurehead", "Nobody takes him seriously" is just intangible verbalism. Nothing of that matters. What matters is that he is the inaugurated President, consecrated by God. Opinions are subjective, anointment is objective
It is the fact
Medvedev may be one single person in the entire Russian establishment with a decent chance to keep power, should Putin go. For this reason, he may not even need to fight for power. The power will very probably be handed to him
On Friday, @navalny died (most probably killed) in prison. This is a good time to discuss the prospects of Russian opposition and the future transition of political power, once Putin is gone. This is also a good occasion to debunk some pervasive myths on the mechanics of power🧵
First, getting rid of @navalny was probably a correct decision on behalf of Kremlin. Execution of this murder may have been suboptimal (unprofessional, etc.). But the very idea to eliminate him was reasonable and makes total sense. There is nothing crazy or irrational about it
This remark may sound as cynical or paradoxical. So let me present you another paradox, which is yet to be fully processed by the political theorists. And the paradox is:
Bloody tyrants rule longer
The Russian history may possibly demonstrate this better than any other