Epistemic status: trying to summarize the news and predict, post is under revision, too lazy to citation everything
I wanted to collect a few observations I've made, as best I understand them. This PBS article does a good job of explaining much of it.
Vladimir Putin has announced the annexation of four Ukrainian territories.
This makes them Russian territory from Russia's perspective.
“People living in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are becoming our citizens forever” - Putin
The West does not acknowledge this annexation, describing it as illegal. Ukraine does not acknowledge this annexation and says it plans to take the territories back.
"By attempting to annex Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin tries to grab territories he doesn't even physically control on the ground. Nothing changes for Ukraine: we continue liberating our land and our people, restoring our territorial integrity," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on social media.
Russian military doctrine allows the usage of nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory.
Putin has a track record of escalating apparently (this needs more data) and Russia seems to be planning for escalation until the war is won.
Conclusion: Ukraine will keep attacking the annexed territories in order to take them back until Russia uses a tactical nuke out of desperation, and the U.S. will respond with "catastrophic consequences".
This is obviously uncertain! But the chain of logic forms a coherent enough inside view for me to put a lot of probability on that, and I may start taking bets. I would be curious to see different inside views about what will happen or variations on this one that include facts I should update the post with.
If you want to make the case for tactical nuclear deployment not happening (which I hope is the likely outcome), I want to see a model of how you see things developing differently that has some sort of parts list like I have attempted, not just a vague black box-y sense that nuclear war is too horrible to contemplate and people will naturally successfully manage to try to avoid it at the last minute out of goodness or rationality.
We remember this. We didn't forget. The West claims to bring freedom and democracy to other countries but it's the exact opposite of the truth. The unipolar world is anti-democratic by its very nature. It is a lie. They used nuclear weapons, creating a precedent. They flattened German cities without "any military need to do so". There was no need for this except to scare us and the rest of the world. Korea, Vietnam. To this day they "occupy" Japan, South Korea and Germany and other countries while cynically calling them "allies".
Wait, does Putin not consider Germany part of "The West"? If not Germany, then who, beyond the US?
Epistemic status: trying to summarize the news and predict, post is under revision, too lazy to citation everything
I wanted to collect a few observations I've made, as best I understand them. This PBS article does a good job of explaining much of it.
Conclusion: Ukraine will keep attacking the annexed territories in order to take them back until Russia uses a tactical nuke out of desperation, and the U.S. will respond with "catastrophic consequences".
This is obviously uncertain! But the chain of logic forms a coherent enough inside view for me to put a lot of probability on that, and I may start taking bets. I would be curious to see different inside views about what will happen or variations on this one that include facts I should update the post with.
If you want to make the case for tactical nuclear deployment not happening (which I hope is the likely outcome), I want to see a model of how you see things developing differently that has some sort of parts list like I have attempted, not just a vague black box-y sense that nuclear war is too horrible to contemplate and people will naturally successfully manage to try to avoid it at the last minute out of goodness or rationality.