@nostradamnedus You're right and I edited it to be less rude. But the message is the same, the media you're reading isn't coming together to tell a coherent story. It reads to me like Western journos who don't quite understand what Russia's overall approach has been for the last 40 years.
When Russia invades, they invade with limited objectives over a narrow front, usually with ambiguous causus belli. This is not that case, so I don't see Russian officers or oligarchs signing off on it. Nobody benefits.
@fewerlacunae always great to have the superforecasters confirm your position. Good find.
@tryingToPredictFuture Honestly, you repost Putin's essay every day. Read Israel's "The Concept" in the lead up to the Yom Kippur War for reasons as to why fixation on a single, strategic, meta assessment is not a good framing for analysis. Yes, it's an important document, but events do not occur because of a single factor. There are a million decisions from tens of thousands of decisionmakers that go into a "yes" for war. Recontextualise that essay from 100% of your evidence to 2% and you'd be closer to accurate forecasting bevahiours.
@nostradamnedus An unnamed Ukrainian official, whose account is disputed by both the White House and the Ukrainian government? Maintain the outside view baseline and don't over correct with CNN sensationalisations.
A backchannel is not public, which means the outcome of previous public negotiations is not particularly relevant. We've seen this in similar situations, such as the Cuban Missle Crisis, right?
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@KnowName polls don't matter in Russia. The oligarchs decide what happens in national politics and there has never been a reason to dismiss Putin, especially with the Moscow Exchange at all time highs.
The only reason to dismiss him would be an interruption to the trade and economic growth that's occurring right now... you know, like going to war...
@mumpskin I think it's rare for an event to have one foundational reason. Nations and organisations are made up of thousands of tiny decisions and decision makers.
But yes geopolitical defensive considerations are probably a primary consideration, sure.
@RedBox you're telling me that if we ran a different version of reality 100 times, only one of them would result in "no war"?
@nostradamnedus In no way do I see "the White House seems resigned to an invasion".
@RedBox People are over correcting for the latest White House releases.
@KnowName That's right, which is why I rate the chance of a "technical" resolution as about x4 higher than an "actual" invasion. I can see the UNSC acknowledging minor incursions or some kind of firefight as an invasion, and the chances of a small scale gun battle is substantially higher than a full invasion, right? This question is in some ways measuring the likelihood of the US and a supporter (UK?) overstating an incident on Ukraine's border.