Close date updated to 2029-12-31 11:59 pm
Related questions
@JonathanRay when do you think it could definitively resolve No if not in 2029? When "Russia" does not exist anymore? What if it reappears as a state 50 years later and then nukes something called Ukraine?
Questions without end date are meaningless.
Will Russia nuke Ukraine? 12%
Will Russia kill 1000 with nuclear? 13%
@NahuelYazbek In my mind it's not.
I support the policy of having NATO-countries doing direct air strikes and that sort of stuff on the Russian military if this happens (and telling Russia in advance that this would be the response). But nonetheless I wouldn't think of it as "nuking Ukraine".
But if there is widespread disagreement on this, one option would be to mark this market as "unresolved" (if that was to happen).
@NahuelYazbek I understand nuking as using nuclear weapons in combat. I would also exclude dirty bombs without explosion. @Gigacasting can you clarify?
@NahuelYazbek I think that "nuking" is successful detonation of sth designed to create a nuclear explosion. According to my definition neither dirty bombs nor nuclear plant sabotages are "nuking".
@TorBarstad But if the consequences are basically the same, why shouldn’t it be considered the same?
@NahuelYazbek I would argue that it is important to stick to the meaning of the word how people usually understand it. The question is not "will Ukraine be polluted by radiation" or similar, which would mean we care about the consequences, not the event. It is whether Russia will nuke Ukraine, which (as I understand the word) means nuclear explosion.
But if the consequences are basically the same, why shouldn’t it be considered the same?
I’d argue that the firebombing of Tokyo was similarly destructive as the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (if not worse). But I still wouldn’t describe what was done there as “nuking Tokyo”.
I agree with Irigi that it’s preferable to “stick to the meaning of the word how people usually understand it”.
That aside, let me say some words about whether the consequences would be roughly the same (TLDR: no, I don’t think they would be).
I guess the consequences of dropping nuclear bombs may vary quite a bit (how big is it? how populated is the area where it’s dropped, and what kinds of building/geography is there in the area?). But the important consequences have to do with:
The explosion/heat/blastwave
Radiation
Even if blowing up a nuclear plant has comparable consequences in terms of radiation, it doesn’t have comparable consequences in terms of explosion/heat/blastwave.
Chernobyl had similar consequences to a nuclear bomb (if not worse) in terms of the radiation side of it. As to the number of deaths caused long-term from Chernobyl, it’s not clear how many there were - probably at least a few thousand deaths, but not as many as many people would think.
As to blowing up the Zaporizhia power plant, it’s not clear to me what the consequences would be in terms of radiation.
I’m not an expert on this, but it’s not clear to me that blowing up this power plant would have consequences that are comparable to Chernobyl in terms of radiation. Maybe if I had more expertise, I’d be more confident one way or the other. I lean towards guessing that the consequences in terms of radiation would be modest, but I could be wrong about that.
This is part of a combination market: https://manifold.markets/ChristopherKing/russia-coupnuke-combination-market?r=Q2hyaXN0b3BoZXJLaW5n
@Irigi The dip after Russian attack on Ukraine is about 13%. @KongoLandwalker you were probably right to raise it from those 5%
@KongoLandwalker I am doing a partial arbitrage, with the logic that if Russia nukes Ukraine, which might unfortunately happen, it will probably happen before end of 2024. I am keeping some distance between the questions though. For the question of whether there is 5% or 15%, I am staying mostly agnostic. (My personal guess is more towards 5%, but I will not put too much mana on it).
@KongoLandwalker Although, even in the absence of the semi-arbitrage, I would be probably shorting it.
@Irigi ok I see these:
/IsaacKing/will-a-nuclear-weapon-be-detonated-4e8634844602
/CP/will-russia-detonate-a-nuclear-bomb
Apart from the timeline still have slightly different criteria. I’d say the first one should be higher than here, but I wouldn’t hold it too tight, as you say.
Upd. Deleted as I mentioned the wrong market (this one)
@Irigi I have a different opinion. If Russia nukes Ukraine, it will likely be after couple years of propaganda saying "how the West leaves no choice for Putin". So if it happens, it is likely After 2025.
@KongoLandwalker currently russian propaganda tries to sell the idea they are winning because "there is no Ukrainian weapons left and all they have is from the west". It would be radical to go to nukes when recently you told that you are winning.
@KongoLandwalker My personal model is that NATO will (silently) push Ukraine to peace talks around elections in USA, when it might be difficult to defend continuation of the weapon supplies. (I hope I am wrong on this). If that happens, the war will probably freeze. It would be extremely stupid of Russia to use nuclear weapons and escalate the situation again at that point - it would guarantee further weapons supply or more.
Even if I am wrong on the weapon supplies, after 1.5 years there is non-trivial probability the war would end, so the years after 2024 would have smaller per-year probability of use of nuclear weapons with this discounting. The reason why this would have much higher probability than the question "by the end of 2024" would be only if the war is very long.
What are your expectations of how long the war will last? (Optimally multiple options with probabilities.)
@Irigi all the Russian and Ukrainian specialists I have heard in the internet said the war is likely to be in active phase for a decade. Putin has no strategic way of winning, so he will just hope to exhaust Ukraine.
Also Putin had 5+ speeches where he clearly stated that he wants to end some "monopolar world built by western expansion". I interpret it like he wants escalation to have a reason to fight USA directly.
@Irigi oh, my personál percentages, let mé think. I do not have a model and do this numbers by intuition.
Finiš before 2024: 0.02
Before 2027: 0.2
Before 2030: 0.85
Before 2033: 0.95
I think the war is more likely to end due to Putin dying to some illness, not due to Ukraine being pushed to peace negotiations.
I am sure that even the stop of supplies Ukraine will not give up. They have the mentality to convert the situation to a partisan chaos war, even if all territory is under occupation with no hope of strike back.
I am very pessimistic about That all, because I listened to Putin speeches and looked through literature that Putin mentioned in some interview. His total decision making is ideological (made on beliefs), not on facts or potential profit.
@Irigi From one Open Judgment predictor (don't remember who, but I believe he was in top100) I read a "rule of thumb": do not give less than 5% to an event that depends solely on one human decisions. I would upgrade that to "don't give less than 60% to an event, which depends on single human decision, when that human is crazy and when he deliberately drops hints he is willing to do that event".
The main argument against a nuclear strike is this: The line of contact is too wide and there is no point of ukrainian army concentration te be an obvious target.
@KongoLandwalker The decision to Nike Ukraine does not depend on a single person though. There is a chain of command of ≈5 people from Putin's decision to the actual launch. And one person decision to not obey the order could lead to significant personal repercussions for Putin (loss of power).
This is potentially a significant enough deterrent for him.
@42irrationalist Let's say one of the five people refuses to pass tho order to the next link. What will happen? That person will be arrested within 6 hours and the order will be passed by other means. The only one who can completely stagnate the process - the very last link who knows how to operate with launchers and could sabotage the control panel (or whatever is used in Russia). There are 1000+ alternative armed nuclear weapon launchers. Also I expect to be true (but this one is much less probable): those specialists have been gradually filtered out since 2014 and only loyal people stay on the key nuclear control positions. Also Putin has compeltely loyal FSB, OMON and Rosgvardia to force any decision.
People are regularly stopping to listen to orders. But they are just named (not oficially, but in tv) "enemy of the nation". There is no reputation loss in the news: "today our efficient FSB uncovered a western spy and arrested him". More "enemies" found between Russians, more ground has the propaganda take "west wants to tear us apart from inside".
After the start of the war some part of officers left as a protest. But that only increases the level of army loyality.
Prigozhin is the only person with his own military power inside Russia, but I do not see any way his structure could interfere with nuclear facilities.
@42irrationalist I'd be happy to be wrong, but your argument is not convincing at all. Any person is replaceable in Russian structures.
@KongoLandwalker The point is not that it's a foolproof argument.
The calculation for the guy disobeying orders is something simple: "Launch the nukes or become a hero of the entire world, spend a year or two in prison, get released when Putin likely loses his power". The calculation for Putin is "Do I want to make an order that has an unknown but significant even if small chance of getting disobeyed and leading to me losing power and potentially getting imprisoned?". I personally wouldn't play Russian Roulette with a 2% chance risk. Would you? Would Putin?
@42irrationalist I undestand. But I do not think Putin is capable of risk calculations. The whole "Special War Operation" was a risk with no profits. That's why I say his decisions are made on ideology, not anything else.
@KongoLandwalker
It's a clear miscalculation on his part. He intended to capture the Eastern Part of Ukraine within 3-10 days then present the result as a fait accompli to the world. Kiev was close to falling multiple times in the early days.
And it's not just him who predicted Ukraine falling within the first few days after the invasion. American intelligence services also predicted Ukraine falling quickly within the first few days. And they were miscalculating too.
In this case we have two opposing sides predicting the same thing, so clearly the calculation was "rational" (in some sense) even if it was ultimately wrong.
@42irrationalist But capturing Eastern Ukraine gives no profits. Not "how fast" is a miscalculation I refer to, but "whether to start at all" is a miscalculation.
@42irrationalist How you interpret the reasons behind placing Nuclear weapons in Belarus?
But capturing Eastern Ukraine gives no profits. Not "how fast" is a miscalculation I refer to, but "whether to start at all" is a miscalculation.
Why is this a miscalculation? He clearly considers capturing Crimea a success both from the approval ratings perspective and for its own sake, and he clearly values capturing more territory.
It does not seem 'irrational' to me to value having more territory just like it's not irrational to value having more of other resources.
> How you interpret the reasons behind placing Nuclear weapons in Belarus?
Power posturing, potentially getting weapons closer to the "enemy territory". How do you interpret it?
@42irrationalist Crimea has a previous story of being part of RussianSSR, that is why people felt pride for "returning it back".
But currently he fights for not related territories which do not increase his rating.
Territory is not a set of resources in this case. It is also huge spends on militia (even if occupation was successful), rebuilding, overcoming sanctions, companies and specialists leaving, and losing international influence and demographics.
Going for territories for the sake of territories is exactly his personal belief that he is a Conqueror.
@KongoLandwalker Probabilities. Thank you. With those, I can see how your estimate on nuclear attack makes sense. For me, they would be
Before (end of) 2024: 0.17
Before (end of) 2027: 0.50
Before (end of) 2030: 0.80
Before (end of) 2033: 0.90
@42irrationalist also, instead of trying to get profit from rebuilding Ukraine (in case of Russia winning) it would be much cheaper to focus on upgrading Asian part of Russia.
@KongoLandwalker
> Crimea has a previous story of being part of RussianSSR, that is why people felt pride for "returning it back".
Many people in Russia feel a lot of political resentment due to the collapse of USSR and view Russia as a "successor" to the USSR (rather than one of equal constituent countries). They also often equate more territory with more power. Additionally, years of propaganda painted Russian-speaking eastern Ukrainian as "oppressed" in the eyes of the TV-watching majority.
> also, instead of trying to get profit from rebuilding Ukraine (in case of Russia winning) it would be much cheaper to focus on upgrading Asian part of Russia.
Look, I actually am from that Asian part of Russia you are talking about, although I no longer live there. I see little political benefit for Putin to focus on it. I see a lot of benefit ̧for capturing new territories for the reasons described above (in case they can be captured swiftly as Putin originally was planning to do).
@42irrationalist so the only benefit is "feeling big and strong"? But not even guaranteed. All economical or quality of life or any longterm benefits are prevented by the negatives from sanctions.
Putin would not need the war to keep himself in power, he already built a web. Why then he plays with the feeling of the people's resentment? My theory is he doesn't care what people think (he would definitely be able to hold power even with less that 10% of support due to monopoly on weapons). He plays his own high-stake game. He wants to become A Historical Figure.
@KongoLandwalker
> so the only benefit is "feeling big and strong"?
Yeah, sort of. Feeling proud for the country, rallying around the flag. Similar to what happened after Crimea.
> But not even guaranteed. All economical or quality of life or any longterm benefits are prevented by the negatives from sanctions.
Again, the original plan was to do capture most of Ukraine within days before the West would have an opportunity to pass big sanction packages. There would still likely be some sanctions but likely not as many as there are now in place.
Miscalculating is not the same as being irrational.
Case in point. There were sanctions after Crimea, but not that many. They stifled the economic development quite a bit, Crimea itsself ended up being a cost to the rest of Russia, and yet his rating rose. No amount of developing of the Asian part of Russia (where only 20% of people live) would bring him these ratings.
> My theory is he doesn't care what people think (he would definitely be able to hold power even with less that 10% of support due to monopoly on weapons).
From listening to independent Russian political analysts: he certainly does, or at the very least his government does. They generally keep track of ratings of all sorts of political figures and figure out how to raise them if necessary.
It would be strange if he didn't care about his rating at least for instrumental purposes. All things being equal, it's better to be popular than unpopular.
> He wants to become A Historical Figure.
I think that's true. But it's also... not irrational? And probably correlates well enough with what would bring him good ratings.