Calibrating your probability estimates of world events: Russia vs Ukraine, 6 months later.

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Aug 28, 2014

Some of the comments on the link by James_Miller exactly six months ago provided very specific estimates of how the events might turn out:

James_Miller:

The odds of Russian intervening militarily = 40%.
The odds of the Russians losing the conventional battle (perhaps because of NATO intervention) conditional on them entering = 30%.
The odds of the Russians resorting to nuclear weapons conditional on them losing the conventional battle = 20%.

Me:

"Russians intervening militarily" could be anything from posturing to weapon shipments to a surgical strike to a Czechoslovakia-style tank-roll or Afghanistan invasion. My guess that the odds of the latter is below 5%.

A bet between James_Miller and solipsist:

I will bet you $20 U.S. (mine) vs $100 (yours) that Russian tanks will be involved in combat in the Ukraine within 60 days. So in 60 days I will pay you $20 if I lose the bet, but you pay me $100 if I win.

While it is hard to do any meaningful calibration based on a single event, there must be lessons to learn from it. Given that Russian armored columns are said to capture key Ukrainian towns today, the first part of James_Miller's prediction has come true, even if it took 3 times longer than he estimated.

Note that even the most pessimistic person in that conversation (James) was probably too optimistic. My estimate of 5% appears way too low in retrospect, and I would probably bump it to 50% for a similar event in the future.

Now, given that the first prediction came true, how would one reevaluate the odds of the two further escalations he listed? I still feel that there is no way there will be a "conventional battle" between Russia and NATO, but having just been proven wrong makes me doubt my assumptions. If anything, maybe I should give more weight to what James_Miller (or at least Dan Carlin) has to say on the issue. And if I had any skin in the game, I would probably be even more cautious.

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10 points

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I estimate the chances of NATO getting involved militarily in the Ukraine to be less than 1%. Ukraine is not a NATO member and the US has zero appetite for a war with Russia over some former Soviet territory. Russia has already detached pieces from Georgia and pretty much no one noticed or cared. For grabbing Crimea Russia got a gentle slap on the wrist and that was it.

The situation would be different in the Baltics, but the West will not intervene over Ukraine.

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Why will the Baltics be different? Do you think that the dead hand of the past (in the form of the NATO treaty) will compel Obama to act to protect nations that most Americans have never heard of? If yes keep this in mind

By 1996, Ukraine voluntarily gave up all of its nuclear arms and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In exchange for making the world a safer place, it received security assurances from Britain, the United States and Russia in the form of the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and John Major, with pledges to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and the “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.”

Do Baltic members spend lots of time and money building their political support among American politicians like Israel and Taiwan do? If not why will these politicians care if Russia retakes the Baltics?

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15 points

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Why will the Baltics be different?

Because they are members of NATO.

If NATO doesn't react to the Russian invasion, it will be clearly and very publicly dead. And that would radically change the power equation in Europe and may e.g. lead to Western Europe rearming itself.

I am not saying that if Putin, say, starts grabbing chunks of Estonia, NATO will necessarily intervene. It might decide to die instead. But the odds are very different from the Ukraine case.

And, of course, NATO's original purpose and whole reason for existence is precisely to contain the Russian/Soviet expansion to the west.

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5 points

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And, of course, NATO's original purpose and whole reason for existence is precisely to contain the Russian/Soviet expansion to the west.

I don't think the reasons for forming NATO in 1949 are, or should be, relevant today. Upholding treaties is a legitimate concern, but what people cared about two generations ago when they formed them isn't.

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the United States and Russia in the form of the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and John Major, with pledges to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and the “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.”

Memorandums are non-binding and do not, for example, pass Congress, and certainly are not the 'supreme law of the land' like treaties with mutual self-defense clauses. That memorandum bound the US to nothing and whatever it meant expired with the president who signed it. It is no more surprising that the USA has not invaded Russia over its violation of the memorandum than it is surprising that the USA did not invade Japan in 1905 or 1910 for colonizing Korea despite the letters of assurance to the Korean king and (some interpretations of) the previous treaty. With NATO, everyone understands that an attack on a NATO country will involve American reprisals; in contrast, I've never even heard of this memorandum until the past year where suddenly everyone is invoking it as an example of how hollow American treaties are.

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Even without the US the EU has more than double the defense budget of Russia. European willingness to defend one of the countries of the EU is by a magnitude higher than the willingness to defend Ukraine or Georgia.

There are open borders in the EU and that means people from the baltic states are free to travel around. As a result many EU citizens have interacted with people from the baltic states

Latvia has a per capita GDP (PPP) of 20,000 while Ukraine has one of 7,500. Latvia has a functioning democracy and is not ruled by a bunch of oligarchs. It's from an European perspective worth protecting in a way that Ukraine simply isn't. Or Moldova, Georgia, Belarus or Azerbaijan for that matter.

I would also expect that Latvia gives it's minorities certain rights because it's legally obliged to do so under EU law that Ukraine didn't.

The contract that you linked to doesn't specify that the US has a legal duty to protect the Ukraine.

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11 points

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I would also expect that Latvia gives it's minorities certain rights because it's legally obliged to do so under EU law that Ukraine didn't.

This isn't directly relevant to the discussion, but if Russia were ever to attack Latvia, their excuse would probably precisely be the treatment of ethnic Russians. It is, in fact, a recurring theme in Russian media.

The reason for this is that in order to be eligible for a full citizenship one is required to pass Latvian language competency and Latvian history exams. What is more, Latvia allows dual citizenship, but only if the other citizenship is of a country that belongs to the list that is specified by a law. Russia is not on the list.

Citizens of the former USSR who possess neither Latvian nor other citizenship who live in Latvia are eligible for a non-citizen passport. They are allowed to naturalize provided they pass the aforementioned exams. However, for various reasons many are unwilling (few are unable) to do so. For example, traveling to Russia is easier for a non-citizen than a citizen of Latvia. However, it is easier to work and travel in the Schengen Area if one is a non-citizen of Latvia than a citizen of Russia. Thus some people might find it disadvantageous to choose one citizenship (in their day-to-day lives traveling is more important than having the right to vote).

How such an unusual situation came into existence? If I understand correctly, in early 1990s Latvia desperately tried to avoid breakaway regions, because in 1989 only 49% of the non-Latvian population supported the idea of the independence of Latvia (the number of Latvians supporting the idea made up 93%). It should be noted that, according to wikipedia, such situation is not without a precedent:

Peter Van Elsuwege, a scholar in European law at Ghent University, states that the Latvian law is grounded upon the established legal principle that persons who settle under the rule of an occupying power gain no automatic right to nationality. A number of historic precedents support this, according to Van Elsuwege, most notably the case of Alsace-Lorraine when the French on recovering the territory in 1918 did not grant citizenship to German settlers despite Germany having annexed the territory 47 years earlier in 1871.

However, as you can imagine, the fact that these non-citizens (mostly Russians) do not have voting rights is a target of outrage in Russian media. Furthermore, many ethnic Russians in Latvia watch a lot of it and this results in them having different opinions (about e.g. situation in Ukraine) than ethnic Latvians. However, it is not clear whether they would actually support Russia in the case of armed conflict.

Please note that I'm neither Latvian, nor an expert on Latvian law, therefore the story above may contain some inaccuracies. Still, LW readers might find it helpful for their probability estimates of potential wars and/or other events.

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8 points

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My guesses for the next 6 months:

The odds of Ukraine reclaiming complete political control over ALL areas of the country: 10%

The odds of Ukraine reclaiming complete political control over ALL areas of the country EXCEPT Crimea: 30%

The odds of Russia de facto annexing some chunk of Eastern Ukraine then setting up a new border: 20%

The odds of invasion of the rest of Ukraine by Russia: 5%

Other situations, especially one where Russia retains Crimea and some parts of Eastern Ukraine but the situation is still in flux: 35%

Why? I think that the situation will escalate further, but not THAT much further. Diplomacy and a firmer NATO attitude will stop Russia from committing to full-scale invasion, but won't prompt it to give any land back.

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6 points

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The Good Judgement Project in which I participate has an item about this:

#1415: Will there be a **lethal confrontation involving Russian **national military forces in Ukraine **before 1 October 2014?

Note the "*" refer to very precisely defined terms.

I will update my prediction based on this LW info.

Are there any comparable bets related to the South Chinese Sea dispute?

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