War and rational choice

It looks like the Ukraine war is going to be fought to its ultimate conclusion. All Ukrainian men who have not managed to escape the regime will die (the regime being composed of men who do not actually think of themselves as Ukrainians)

It is never rational to fight a war all the way to its ultimate end.

War is a test of will and capability. If both sides knew the other’s will and capability, and both sides were rational, they would know the outcome of the war, and they would agree to accept that outcome, without all those people being killed and stuff blown up.

It is frequently rational to go to war, because you don’t know the other side’s will and capability. But war is apt to reveal it rather quickly.

However, what is rational for the nation, is not necessarily rational for individuals and groups within the nation. If the Ukraine settled now for the likely outcome of the war (a neutral and disarmed rump Ukraine governing substantially less territory than it now governs) then the flow of graft money to regime immediately stops, and the regime has to immediately flee the country. If it delays, will still have to flee the country, but will have larger estates in England, Germany, and the South of France.

When the Russians thought they could get a negotiated settlement, they focused on the Donbas. They were willing to accept less than they would obtain by fighting the war to its final conclusion. Now that it is apparent that a negotiated settlement is unlikely, they are preparing to take Odessa.

This is going to take a while.

Russian tactics are increasingly focused on extermination of the Ukrainian army. Used to be when the Russians enveloped an area, they would leave open a narrow and dangerous escape route. And then they started to make escape routes rather narrower and more dangerous. And now they are shutting off the escape routes altogether.

The cost of this war has been horrifying for both sides. Total casualties were roughly comparable for both sides, but Russia is bigger — a considerably smaller proportion of their men died, even though a roughly similar number died.

But though total casualties were comparable for both sides, they no longer are comparable for both sides. As the Ukrainian army gets smaller and smaller, it suffers higher and higher casualties, while inflicting lower and lower casualties. Thus do wars of attrition end.

The only way Europe can avoid this end is mass conscription of European cannon fodder, starting right away, for the longer they delay, the more unfavourable the odds. Being a beast with too many heads and too many horns, they find it very difficult to decide to do anything decisive. They will dither, then dither some more. They want a low level war with Russia that goes on forever, but Russia wants a decisive war that will come to a final end.

Absent massive waves of fresh meat from Europe, the Ukrainian army is going to disappear sooner or later. But as long as troops can be compelled to obey, and as long as the European Union is willing to throw good money after bad, the war will go on.

It is politically convenient for Russia to exterminate the Ukrainian army in Russian majority areas, rather than in areas that are majority non Russian, thus the Russian army is in no hurry to advance.

When it comes to pass that the Russian army occupies all Russian majority areas, Russia is going to be in a very awkward situation, since advancing beyond these areas could make Europe sufficiently nervous that they stop dithering.

Once Russia occupies all Russian majority areas, they are going to offer a peace deal based on that area of occupation, plus rump Ukraine to be neutral, disarmed, and to respect Russians, the Russian language, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Europe and the proxy regime in Kiev are likely to offer a ceasefire based on the line of contact, which would turn into continued lower level war.

At that point Russia has no alternative but to continue onwards, or horizontally escalate against Europe in some other way, either of which leads to World War III.

Suppose the Russians occupy all of the Ukraine, create a rump Ukrainian government, and hold elections? This might make the Europeans so nervous that they escalate, and even if they do not, chances are that Europe will just continue low level war, now against the rump Ukrainian government, in which case Russia has to escalate.

Obviously, once the Ukrainian army is exterminated, Russia can impose its preferred outcome in Ukraine — Russian majority areas part of Russia, non Russian areas governed by a neutral regime that respect the rights of Russian language speakers and the Russian Orthodox Church. But what it cannot do is impose peace, if Europe persists in low level war even after the Ukraine ceases to be capable of war.

Europe’s preferred outcome is forever low level war with Russia, and they do not much care where this war is fought, since the objective is to exhaust Russia and Russians. This makes Russia and Russians nervous, so Russians would prefer escalate to a high level war so that they can fight the war to a decisive conclusion. Once the Ukrainian army is no more, if Europe attempts to continue low level war, it will be war without the Ukrainian fig leaf, in which case Russia is likely to escalate directly against Europe.

On the other hand, Russia has established a credible threat of responding to forever low level war with high level war. So, once the Ukrainian fig leaf is gone, Europe may chicken out and accept peace on Russian terms. Or they might gamble on Russia chickening out in favor of low level forever war, which I think would be a foolish gamble, for Russians are sick of low level forever war.