The Current Events Room
This will be my thread tracking the progress of the war. First article- from Niall Ferguson, author of Doom.
The Fates of Ukraine and Putin Turn on 7 Forces of History
On predicting history-
But the war in Ukraine was not an unpredictable event. It was not random.What makes history so hard to predict — the reason there is no neat “cycle” of history enabling us to prophesy the future — is that most disasters come out of left field. Unlike hurricanes and auto accidents, to which we can at least attach probabilities, the biggest disasters (pandemics and wars) follow power-law or random distributions. They belong in the realm of uncertainty, or what Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in his book “The Black Swan,” calls “Extremistan.” They are like tsunamis, not tides.
What’s more, as I argued in my book “Doom,” disasters don’t come in any predictable sequence. The most I can say is that we tend not to get the same disaster twice in succession. This time we’ve gone from plague to war. In 1918, it was from war to plague. The Hundred Years’ War began eight years before the Black Death struck England.
So now that war is here, now what? Some questionsNot everything in history is random, of course. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was not difficult to foresee at the beginning of this year. You just had to take Russian President Vladimir Putin both literally and seriously when he asserted that the Russian and Ukrainian peoples were one and that the possibility of Ukraine becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or the European Union was a red line; and to realize that Western threats of economic sanctions would not deter him.
1. Do the Russians manage to take Kyiv in a matter of two, three, four weeks or never?2. Do the sanctions precipitate such a severe economic contraction in Russia that Putin cannot achieve victory?I have already mentioned this elsewhere. Russia does have three branches of government, although they are different than those in the US:3. Does the combination of military and economic crisis precipitate a palace coup against Putin?
1. Putin and the official government
2. the Oligarchs, and
3. the military/intelligence elite.
If we see a coup it will come from the third branch. They will not seek western assistance to do this.
This is an important point. I think Putin got Xi's green-light for the invasion, and I think Xi intended to use it as a case study for a future Chinese invasion of Taiwan. I think Xi is so far disappointed so far as Taiwan goes, but can save face by playing peacekeeper in the Rus-Ukraine war if Russia fails.5. Do the Chinese keep Putin afloat but on the condition that he agrees to a compromise peace that they offer to broker?
The emotion-based reporting may be an effort to overcome this.6. Does the West’s attention deficit disorder kick in before any of this?
This is the really important part for the US. Increases prices, inflation, food / stuff shortages. And more.7. What is the collateral damage?
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Originally Posted by Hoosier8
