Thread by @TrentTelenko

Alright, this is the promised thread🧵explaining the "Irrational Regime Hypothesis."

This is a national/institutional behavior template.

Warning: once you see this template. You cannot unsee it.

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The basic concept is that for certain unstable regimes (or even stable ones with no effective means of resolving internal disputes peacefully, particularly the succession of power) domestic power games are far more important than anything foreign, and that foreigners are

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...only symbols to use in domestic factional fights.

The need to show ideological purity & resolve - "virtue signaling" in modern terms - as a means of achieving power inside the ruling in-group becomes more important than objective reality

Only the internal power matters

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...as outside reality is merely a symbol to be used in the internal power game.

The ruling Imperial Japanese military faction of 1931 - 1945 was a classic example of this irrational regime hypothesis.

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Irrational behavior in the Intra-Nippon factional case refers to extreme self-defeating militancy - Kamikaze/suicide attacks after Japan lost -- that dehumanized them in the eyes of the American leadership and people.

This militant behavior became the primary means of
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...achieving power inside the ruling Military faction in-group

This reward process became more important than objective reality. As outside reality is merely a symbol to be used in the internal power game.
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Operation Ketsu-Go was the ultimate expression of irrational Imperial Japanese militancy in pursuit of an unachievable national policy goal, maintaining the Japanese imperial system via a post-war armistice rather than unconditional surrender.

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It literally took two atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria to cash the Ketsu-go reality check and get a surrender decision.

U.C. - Santa Barbara historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa has described this factional decision in enormous detail, in multiple articles &

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...books, trying to establish what the positions of each faction were at each point in the decision process.

Survival of the Imperial House was the only concern to those that made the surrender decision, and they had to consider the military die-hards in that as that
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faction had a very different agenda.

Hirohito et al wanted to surrender on terms which let them stay in office, subject to an American shogunate which they expected would be temporary, and got those terms from the Truman Administration.

The Emperor and his supporters
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wanted to avoid an invasion because it meant a coup by the Japanese Army, and such complete destruction and starvation that the surviving Japanese civilians would kick the Imperial Family out after the defeat…plus face a likely Communist takeover following termination
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...of the U.S. occupation.

So it was a question of the Emperor and the peace faction getting the military die-hards to stand down. That was what the A-Bomb meant - the Imperial Japanese Army wouldn't get a glorious last stand as they'd just all be nuked from a distance.

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The Soviet attack was icing on the cake. It gave the Imperial Family another argument to use on their military fanatics - that Communists would conquer the place because the Imperial Japanese Military couldn't defend Yamato. This was an emotional, not rational, argument.
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The A-Bombs, plural, were decisive.

The chemical tests of Japanese physicists detected the difference between the HEU Hiroshima & the Nagasaki Plutonium bombs telling the Japanese Military that America had two different production methods for making nuclear bombs.

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I've been doing annual history columns over on the chicagoboyz web log on the subject of the Japanese WW2 surrender since 2010.

This link will give you most of them and is the source for the Imperial Japanese history in this tweet thread.
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chicagoboyz.net/archives/63890…

The "Irrational Regime Hypothesis" has it's origins in the comment threads of foreign policy blogs I hung out in the 2001 - 2003 period.

It began as a description of the Taliban regime destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan with "nutball"
nbcnews.com/news/world/tal…
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...as the descriptive instead of "irrational."

The problem with that behavior template insight is that academic culture runs from it screaming.

It is too bloody reality based and shows that sweet words are useless with such regimes.

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The insight looked far too much like the Islamic world of today for the PC academic class members who see & understand it to write about it for career reasons.

Iran's intra-faction motives for the 'limpet mine war' in June 2019 being a case in point.
news.usni.org/2019/06/13/u-s…

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The Putin Regime has checked all the necessary 'lack of clear succession,' self-destructive with the outside world factional actions for power, multiple foreign invasions and ultimate jump off the cliff stupidity that Imperial Japan did from 1931-1945.
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And by "self-destructive with the outside world factional actions for power" I am referring to the Putin Regime's pre-Ukraine War novachuk nerve gas & Polonium-210 murders, plus recently tooling around a pair of tac-nukes near Swedish air space.
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https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1509222633069551628

,@bellingcat has a lot on the Putin Regimes' murder of Russian political opponents.

The difference between authoritarian and kleptocratic irrational regimes is their relationship with money.

In authoritarian regimes it's all about power with money as a perk.

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In Putin's kleptocratic regime it is all about money.

Money right now, so it can be shared to maintain power.

A kleptocratic regime simply does not have anywhere near the innate public & institutional support an authoritarian regime does.
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Putin's Ukraine gambit means his fellow Kleptocrats are losing money from Western Sanctions as long as Putin keeps Russia is in Ukraine, plus the additional time he remains in power because the Putin Regime cannot be trusted to stop further irrational actions.

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This means the Putin Regime is far more fragile than Imperial Japan's was.

A coming date to watch for this is the late April 2022 date when the current class of Russian conscript's reach service end date.

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Putin has to declare war or a state of emergency to keep those men in military service. If Putin doesn't, they will try and leave.

Of course, Putin's officers can shoot them.

However, if they keep their guns, the conscripts can shoot back and leave anyway.
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That would be mutiny, but we have seen this before in the Russian army at war in 1917.

So Putin is on a clock for a hobbesian choice in Late April 2022 regardless. And even if he does choose more war. He cannot generate replacement troops before June 2022 at best.

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Point blank, Putin will not survive the year because that is the only way his fellow kleptocrats can end Western sanctions.

In the interregnum after Putin is removed by his fellow kleptocrats and a new kleptocrat emerges. Ukraine will over run the disputed territories
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...in Crimea and Donbas.

The West should not fall for the temptation to drop sanctions on Post-Putin Russia until Ukraine's kidnaped citizens are returned.

That will take a no-notice inspection regie like Germany faced post-WW1.

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If that Russia objects to inspections of "secret" facilities that might be holding Ukrainians. Then have the Israelis do it.

They are not NATO & they have a working relationship with Russia.
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P.S.

I didn't properly lay this out up thread regards the Putin Regime's nuclear "Virtue Signaling."

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1509194414564032516