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A useful metric - how often does a national leader willing to start a nuclear war come to power in a state with nuclear weapons? That's measureable from historical data.
If they're not disarming they're either willing to use them or bluffing.
> Put differently, Putin does not roll a dice every morning and launches a nuclear missile if a six shows up. Even he himself cannot meaningfully answer the question “What’s the probability that Russia will launch nuclear missiles 6 months from now” unless his answer is 100%. It depends on many factors, like how NATO reacts and how strong the Ukraine military is, none of which can be captured by probabilities. There'…
If Putin tries to invade Latvia, the default assumption in this analysis is that NATO will just crumble rather than respond?
Compare the following: What is the probability that you will die today?
What is the probability that you will die today given that you belong to the category of people with A_i characteristics and whose ensemble probability of dying on a given day has been measured?
A useful metric - how often does a national leader willing to start a nuclear war come to power in a state with nuclear weapons? That's measureable from historical data.
That said, I don't think any of this math is pointing us toward any kind of answer about how likely any person alive right now is to experience nuclear war, which is really what we're after. At the very most, every day that nobody uses one extends the lower bound of how often they are likely to be used (77 years and counting), but this is almost tautological. Also, maybe it follows some kind of power law and the farther away from their invention, the less likely we are to use them? Or maybe the opposite? Or maybe we oscillate between the two in some sinusoidal pattern? In any case, we can't know. History is not an experimental science.
> Put differently, Putin does not roll a dice every morning and launches a nuclear missile if a six shows up. Even he himself cannot meaningfully answer the question “What’s the probability that Russia will launch nuclear missiles 6 months from now” unless his answer is 100%. It depends on many factors, like how NATO reacts and how strong the Ukraine military is, none of which can be captured by probabilities. There'…
That’s a weird take. Ukraine is not a NATO member, NATO can choose to fight for them or can choose to not fight for them. Latvia is a NATO member. If Latvia is attacked and the NATO doesn’t fight for them NATO stops being a thing immediately. The 5th article is a cornerstone of the whole aliance. It is not an optional “and one more thing” but the reason to join the aliance at all, if it becomes shaky that undermines the whole thing.
I wouldn’t dare to guess what goes on in Putin’s mind, but I also don’t see any reason why he would think that.
On the other hand we have a lot of data points of humans and nations using every available edge to expand their power throughout history. Also we have made social systems where narcissistic greed and lust for power seems to get pretty much rewarded with more money and power, and misinformation runs rampant. More powerful weapons systems will get developed until MAD might not be certainty for the aggressor, if bombs c…
I don't think Putin needs to actually start nuking European countries to get his way though. He knows the Americans simply do not have the resolve to escalate a nuclear confrontation unless its own domestic security is threatened. I don't think the UK or France would either. NATO is kind of a sham.
But Putin isn't worried about nukes in Ukraine as much as ground troops. The fact that he is suggests he's not worried about getting nuked himself, which is actually a positive sign, for everyone except Ukraine.
ETA: I just realized in Biden's SOTU he said the US would defend every inch of NATO territory and make the Russians pay, which was clever, since neither of those statements suggests either an invasion of Russia nor a nuclear response, only that Russia wouldn't be able to hold the territory and that there would be repercussions of some kind. Not a dumb guy.
> Put differently, Putin does not roll a dice every morning and launches a nuclear missile if a six shows up. Even he himself cannot meaningfully answer the question “What’s the probability that Russia will launch nuclear missiles 6 months from now” unless his answer is 100%. It depends on many factors, like how NATO reacts and how strong the Ukraine military is, none of which can be captured by probabilities. There'…
I don't buy this. The NATO message was clear & consistent that they will intervene in case of an attack on a member - there's 0 reason to believe otherwise. In fact, I'd say that current response in Ukraine enforces this (though it's not a NATO member it got plenty of offensive equipment, intelligence, money, support, etc. - basically everything possible short of direct declaration of war / direct military involvemen…
How did Putin take that message? I think that's the only thing that matters at this point.
> Keep in mind that Putin's mythos was blown to pieces, there's no way he can (politically, if not physically) survive this.
_If_ that mythos was blown to pieces, in the eyes of the Russian public. That remains to be seen.
A crucial metric that occurs more more often and does help predict deaths is “HPI” - high potential incident. A worker eight metres in the air dropped a spanner. It thudded on the ground, harmlessly. No one was hurt. No problem, right? That’s a HPI. A workplace that has a death will have had many HPIs. The dice-roll is not “it’s a new day, we roll the dice”. When a HPI occurs, that’s when we roll the dice.
Or in nuclear war estimates: a HPNWI occurs (high potential nuclear war incident). The Cuban missile crisis springs to mind as a particularly big example. But many many smaller HPNWI’s have occurred. Border skirmishes between nuclear powers. Sabre rattling by nuclear powers. Elect a president who uses threats and brinkmanship. Do this year in, year out. The dice is rolled not because time passes but because risky decisions are made and risky actions are taken, over and over and over and over and over and over, year in, year out.
Have a read of Eric Schlosser's book, Command and Control https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill... The ways we could end up in a nuclear war are frightening to the point of madness.
Haven't read the book, but I watched Dr. Strangelove when I was young(er).
What made the movie great to me was that it made me realize that, although there is a nuclear "safety net", it was designed and controlled by humans — flawed humans who don't always behave rationally and who may not act in the best interests of humanity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...