Is NATO next? Is Putin Rational?

As long time followers of the blog know, I removed virtually all of my geopolitical posts about a year ago because of an organized attack by supporters of Ukraine. The vitriol (including death threats) over expressing the opinion that the situation was not a simple good/evil comic book was intense. It’s sad we can no longer have balanced public discussions about issues like Foreign Policy. However, I have continued to advise political and business leaders in private (including a few politicians in both US parties). Unfortunately, I think we are nearing a dangerous nexus, perhaps the most dangerous of the war, and feel I should say something in public.

While the tactical details of the Ukraine conflict have changed over the last year, the overall trajectory and likely outcome have not. I had the timing wrong when last I posted publicly; I thought the collapse would come in the spring of 2023 because I underestimated the risks the US/NATO was willing to take and the amount of money thrown at Ukraine – your money that could be lowering the cost of health care, paying down the deficit, protecting the border, fixing infrastructure, reducing crime and poverty, you know, trivia like that. In addition, Western Europe in general and Germany in particular has gone beyond what I thought their economy and politics could support. Finally, I also underestimated Russia’s strategic patience and willingness to take risks by not ending the conflict more decisively.

All that changed the timing, but the end result of the conflict is progressing pretty much as predicted last fall: the government and military of Ukraine is nearing collapse, with a great deal of harm being inflicted on the US and Europe.

This month Congress refused to allocate more funding to prolong the disaster, albeit for the wrong reasons (a power play over immigration). This has prompted President Biden, Secretary of Defense Austin, and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby to make some pretty inflammatory statements about the situation to try to intimidate Congress in to action. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Congress Tuesday 5 Dec during a private briefing that if they do not pass more aid to Ukraine, it would “very likely” lead to U.S. troops fighting a war in Europe. That is, in my view, an utterly irresponsible comment that is not based on any rational assessment of the military or political situation. With the Zelenski visit on 12 December we’re hearing some even more incendiary rhetoric, and the pressure on Congress to do something risky and waste more money, resources, and prestige on this disaster will be huge as things deteriorate.

To make things worse, an “intelligence” estimate was released last week that for any serious analyst is an embarrassment to the subject. It claims that “87%” of Russian troops have been casualties in the conflict. This seems to be yet another in a series of “Baghdad Bob” moments for the USIC, which has had a terrible track record in analyzing Russia, both in public and (apparently) in private. I’ll not bother to disassemble the latest travesty here (you can check out former CIA officer Larry Johnson’s blog for a rant).

I hope this is mostly political posturing, trying to “set up” Republicans to refuse the funding and create the political perception that they, not Democrats, “lost” Ukraine, and take the obvious exit ramp. But I’m worried. The announcement that the US is sending a high level team of advisors (likely at least a hundred) under LTG Aguto to essentially take control of Ukrainian Military operational planning is yet another dangerous escalation. Smells a lot like how we got in to Vietnam with MAC/V … back up a highly corrupt, unpopular, losing regime in the midst of what is primarily a civil war, send in military “advisors” to take charge, which leads pretty quickly to actual combat forces when they come under fire. The President has wide authority to re-route military assets, as it has done for Israel, and if they do intend to “double down” can easily escalate the crisis even without Congressional approval.

A lot of this boils down to what you think is the underlying cause of the conflict. Is the Ukraine intervention a prelude to a war of expansion by Russia as the Administration argues in public, or a defensive action in response to provocations by the US/NATO? About the only people who believe – or say they believe in public for their own agenda – that Russia is bent on conquering Europe militarily are rabid Neoconservatives (both parties have them) and their history-scarred allies in Eastern Europe who don’t realize it isn’t 1980, much less 1780. Unfortunately they have saturated the media and political discourse, convincing many otherwise reasonable people, but I think most neutral analysis don’t buy it. And you shouldn’t either. Sadly, you aren’t hearing many reasonable contrary views because they are “canceled,” intimidated in to silence, or marginalized. But some truthiness is starting to leak through, given the pending collapse and contradictory public narratives.

Consider: this spring the Administration and pro-Ukrainian factions were arguing that Russia was weak and about to collapse; now they are saying Russian tanks will roll forward to the English Channel. As “Biden” tweeted a few days ago, (15 Dec), “Ukraine’s freedom is on the line. And if we do not stop Putin, it will endanger the freedom of everyone almost everywhere.“ Yet the day before the Administration said Russia lost 87% of its troops and most of its tanks in Ukraine. Doesn’t add up, does it?

Below is a post from nearly two years ago that I had removed, but I think is worth reposting with a couple of minor tweaks, discussing “rational actor theory” in the context of the President of the Russian Federation. The article is a bit academic, but that’s sort of the point: what we need are clear headed, rational assessments of Russia’s leadership and intentions, not overheated rhetoric and comic book depictions geared to short term, domestic political calculations and misguided ideologies. While I can understand bogus intelligence being served up to the public to shape opinion, it should never be used internally or briefed to Congress, yet it appears that is what is happening.  To be clear, as far as I can tell, Russia and Putin are in fact rational actors, and while they are aggressively defending Russia’s interests, they are not going to risk starting World War III by doing more than they feel they have to. They have made many proposals over the last decade for reasonable solutions to the Ukraine crisis. It guts me to say I’m not so sure about US leadership. We are probably approaching the moment of maximum danger, and the consequences of miscalculation are nothing short of nuclear war.

This is another of my infamous long posts, but like most subjects I tackle it’s a complex thing, and there’s too much oversimplification in our media as it is.

Post from March 2022 follows:

A number of people online, not to mention the media, have questioned if Putin is rational, and insist he is the next Hitler, bent on world domination. The push-back against those who say he is not, and try to use logic to assess Russia’s intentions, has been intense. I think there is a lot of anger, propaganda, and more importantly a failure to understand how the term “rational” is used in various contexts that clouds the issue. Unfortunately a lot of people use the term “rational” to mean “agrees with or thinks like me.” Of course that’s not what it means. It may surprise you to know it doesn’t really even mean “makes good or optimal decisions.”

When I and other geopolitical/intelligence analysts use the term “rational”, we are mostly using it within the context of Rational Choice Theory. Some of you may be familiar with the term as it is used in Economics (the basic underlying theory goes back to Adam Smith). Parallel related theories have emerged in political science and other fields such as international relations and military analysis. What follows is simplified, but hopefully introduces some background in the context of geopolitics. To be sure it is not a perfect analysis method for various human behaviors, and there are lots of variations such as bounded rationality, and academics get in to poo throwing contests over the details, but it’s a good start, and was an important tool that helped us get through the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

In short, a rational actor does a benefit/cost analysis of various options and selects the option that maximizes that benefit/cost ratio. However, hidden within that simple statement are a lot of factors such as the framework and values in which the calculations of “benefit” and “cost” are made, the amount and quality of information available to the actor, and so forth.

Rational Choice Theory, and the determination if someone is a Rational Actor within that theory, is a useful tool. You can predict and potentially change the behavior of a rational actor by taking actions that change the factors the actor uses in their calculation. By creating policies that optimize the benefit/cost ratios of the parties to a conflict, you can often create diplomatic solutions to sticky geopolitical problems (an application of Game Theory). You can also determine if there are truly intractable situations due to ideology/religion – the Gaza/Israel conflict is probably one of these.

A non-rational actor is in contrast dangerous because they are unpredictable or unpersuadable. Note there is no moral judgement involved. Hitler before 1943 or so was a “rational actor” (later not so much), especially if you factored in the importance of his ideology. Repugnant to be sure, but, within the context of Rational Choice Theory, “rational” and predictable. Likewise, Gandhi was a rational actor – yet you could not find two more different individuals or moral systems.

It should be evident that a rational actor, working in a framework different from the analyst, may decide a given course of action is rational, whereas someone who has a different framework may see it as irrational. Information also plays in to this – if you know something I don’t, my actions may seem irrational in light of that thing I don’t know, and vice versa. Time frame also matters; what is “rational” in the short term may be “irrational” or sub optimal in the long term, and vice versa. The US Government often makes bad decisions because it is geared towards the Congressional election cycle that happens every two years – actions that make sense in the context of two or four years politically often don’t make sense when examined at 8 year, much less a 20 year time frames.

So “rational decisions” can easily be bad decisions, not just because of a flawed moral framework or bad information, especially when they depend on the unanticipated “rational” decisions of other actors or their time frames.

Therefore it is vital to realize that you can’t always assume other actors are working within the same moral/ethical framework, time frames, and with the same information that you are. IMNSHO this has been the greatest failure in US Foreign Policy over the last 30 years, be it in the Middle East or with Russia. We take actions that would result in a certain outcome by assuming that the other actors hold to our values and way of thinking, and we make assumptions as to their information space that are not valid.

It is far too complex to go in to a lot of detail here, but when you look at Putin’s actions within the framework of modern Russia and its environment, his actions thus far are “rational”. We may not like them, but they make sense to him and those around him. And this is my frustration, that we could have worked with him, within his worldview, to prevent the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine. By discounting his actions as irrational or unreasonable, we absolve ourselves of the need to negotiate or compromise, and that makes the world a lot more dangerous place.

Reducing these kinds of things to mathematics and logic, be they hurricanes or wars, isn’t always popular. I have been criticized for being “emotionless” about this stuff, and sadly objectivity in this case is often seen as siding with Russia given the tremendous bias present in the Western information space. Anyone who knows me, and what I have been through in my life, knows that nothing could be further from the truth. As noted in other posts, I feel all this very deeply – I’ve experienced war firsthand. But what is also true is that I have learned to try to use a careful mix of logic and empathy when analyzing these situations, and not let either get out of control. That is essential in trying to figure out policies that minimize human suffering while maximizing human dignity. It is simply not possible to do that while angry, in a politically charged environment, saturated by propaganda. And anyone who thinks there is always a good outcome is delusional. Sometimes there are no good outcomes other than not making things worse. Trying too hard to change complex, dangerous situations for the “better” or to our advantage without careful planning can be very risky. Noble sometimes, selfish more often than we would like to think, but risky.

Unfortunately there is no geopolitical equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath to “first, do no harm.” However with careful planning and truly understanding the motivations and thinking of all of the parties, and avoiding comic-book, politically motivated depictions, we can make better decisions. Tools like Rational Choice Theory can help us do that, or at least help us see things more clearly and avoid the mistakes of the past.