Does Putin Care about the Costs of War against Ukraine? A Game Theory 101 Investigation 

You spend way too much time eating up western propaganda crap.

This comment was two weeks ago. Now there is 30k dead. Thousands of mechanized units destroyed. The last city Russia needs to claim some kind of victory has been going back and forth. Russia will probably get it at some point. In a war of pyrrhic victories... This might be the most pyrrhic of them all. I can easily see Putin rolling out the Mission Accomplished banner. While Kersion and the supply roads in the East get cut. With Russian army as exhausted as it is. I won't be able to counter attack.

@@Giganfan2k1 While a Russian defeat is not an existential threat to Russia, it may be for Putin. Putin may declare this a war and call for general mobilization. This would dramatically shift the advantage back to Russia. Of course, that may be the act that initiates a coup. Putin is known to be a risk taker. Honestly, I think there are way too many variables and unkowns to predict anything. Regardless, I sadly believe this war will go on for a while. Neither side isclose to exhaustion yet.

@@ycplum7062 All a mobilization will do at this point is call up Reservists. If they do that will pull hundreds of thousands of police officers, and domestic guards out of their posts. We have already seen over a dozen 'mysterious' fires all over Russia. You take away that domestic security for what? More fairly untrained soldiers? That would take months to refresh. If Putin *could* mobilize he would have done it by now. Probably to take Keiv when he was in the suburbs. The rest of the army at least knows *something* is up with the Special Military Operation. People from St. Petersburg, and Moscow have not participated for a good reason. Putin could hide the losses siberian losses. There get there and find out about how many Russians have already died. How good Ukrainian tactics are as countering their own. Their moral will plummet as well. If there was a full mobilization it isn't like they can pull soldiers, and equipment from Finnish, and Japanese boarders. There is a Perun video about troop amounts and a break down of those troops effectiveness.

@@Giganfan2k1 I generally agree. Technically speaking Russia is not allowed to deploy conscripts out of the country unless a war is declared and a general mobilization occurs. The troops in Ukraine are mainly contract (professional) soldiers. Some conscript soldiers were "accidentally" deployed. I don't recall if it was a 60/40 or 40/60 ratio between conscrpt and contract soldiers. A much higehr precentage of the contract soldiers tend to be sepcialists and in the technical areas rather than grunts in the front line. A new crop of conscripts are due, but Russia can not really use them unless there is a general mobilization. Russia is offering big bonuses for contract soldiers and have raised the age limit for those enlisting. I am not sure how effective that will be. Those Russian males that have the means have already started "vacations" out side of Russia. lol I hear Turkey is a very popular destination.

Give him an inch, he'll take a mile!

Exactly. Putin attacks... takes 90 km of territory and signs an agreement. He repairs infrastructure, digs in, builds military bases, and in ten years he repeats. Anyone dumb enough to sign an agreement basically deserves what is inevitably coming. Better to just fight and kill the bear to be done with it.

Thanks, and glad to have helped on the course!

As side note, when war started Ukraine expected it may loose Donets, Luhansk, parts of Zaporizhia and Kherson (Dniepr is quite defensible). Maybe even Odessa, Mykolaiv, Dnieprach and Kharkov if things go wrong (claimed territories of Novorossiya). But Putin's expectations were way higher. He wanted subjugate whole Ukraine (Western part kept as buffer state), with territories of Novorossiya being the minimum. It didn't work. He overextended his force and suffer major losses. What actually lead to change in expectations. He as it is now expect to hold parts of Zaporizhia, Kherson, Donbas and focus on claiming at least whole Luhansk. But Ukrainians expectations changed. They actually expect to reclaim Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozia and Kherson. With the maximum they consider to give up is Crimea. Especially as genocide committed by Russia, highly motivate them to victory (aka another prove why war criminals are idiots). So war would still go. The problem is that Russia seams to suffer higher attrition rate and poor morale. With Ukraine actually successfully mobilizing own defenses. Which mean that longer this war go, worst position of Russia would be. Because as it is now they change chance to keep Crimea if they start negotiations. But Putin can't acknowledge defeat, what may lead to point when Ukraine may even refuse status quo conciliation prize and full lost of Russia.

Thanks! I have a bunch more in mind on current events, but the next one probably won't come out until next week.

i think the case of South Korea isn't really the same. Think of every nation on the Earth has a scale of freedom. South Korea may looks like a democratic nation but its ranking would be very far behind the scale. That's why all of your presidents eventually ended up in jail or worse.

Maybe the percentage of leaders jailed after their term tells us if a country is a really democratic country.😄

@@yunfengwu4412 I'd argue that the issue is more cultural rather than governmental. We do have a highly competitive and amoral culture where it is acceptable for people to actively harm and sabotage one's rivals - as long as one does not get caught. Korea is basically a no-trust society : guess this is proof that modern democracy can't run properly under a morally bankrupt society.

​@@Jason06245 Well yes and no. South Korea is far from perfect, but a good number of research indicates that it is still on the more democratic (or "free" if you will) side. I'm comparing Korea with other nations on a similar level of democratic development, which still gives a surprising number of political revenge imprisonments. Just to make sure; I'm not defending Korea's many flaws and recent regression into populism.

YEAH! these videos are invaluable!

This is the key problem of dictatorship.

Well if he go ahead and invade USA will bleed the shitt outta Russia economy throwing them more and more to poverty and misery. At the end the civilization is who suffer and who will remove him from his position Of president .

Thanks!

A bunch of people had the same comment the last few videos, and I actually tried picking up the pace in this video. :) The funny thing is that I talk way, way faster in real life. For years, the modal comment about speed on my channel was that I needed to slow down. But perhaps there has been a bit of an overcorrection, and I will keep that in mind going forward.

@@Gametheory101 change nothing, the inf. Is gold- viewer has 7 speed options.

I think this assumes that peace agreements are binding. If you settle and then attack again, now everyone else fucks you

The hidden costs of war are high. Like killing a neighbor for his things, you will benefit for the first few days, then hell will come.

crimea 2014

Short answer: Even if Russia were to just back off, I still think the message has been sent. Georgia was moving toward NATO expansion in 2008, Russia intervened in the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in large part because of that, and Georgia-in-NATO has been dead in the water since then. Few in NATO are going to be excited to begin a path forward for Ukraine to join if it is just going to put us right back where we are now.

How is it unreasonable if Russia just invited Ukraine.

This.

Explain in what ways a weaker nation like Ukraine has over Russia?

@@lja996 a weaker nation that shares a long border with Russia over one of the largest flat areas in the world, making it one of the hardest places to protect and fortify from invasions with one of the strongest and biggest armies in Europe, armed to the teeth and with its constitution aiming to be part of NATO, whereby the US would have the possibility to Station its arms right at the border and being able to reach Moscow with its missiles in about 3 minutes. A "small" country that has been bloodily suppressing its Russian speaking and culturally Russian minorities by means of Bombardement of civilian areas and targets for about 8 years and a "small" nation that directly borders the area of Russia where about 80% of its population lives. This is no propaganda and has been stated not only by Russia for years, but also by US international security and relations experts like Professor Mearsheimer.

@@edmundr2167 are you stuck back in time? That whole "buffer zone" crap is dated. Furthermore, the US wouldn't need Ukraine to strike the Russian homeland. Again, you're behind in the times and that's fine. But, Ukraine still doesn't pose a real threat to Russia. This is just a sorry land grab excuse. They did plenty of simulations, without nuclear war heads the American's defeat the Russian military. So again, why was an invasion of Ukraine needed? Those people didn't want to be under Russian rule since 1991. All the dumb asses did was weaken Russia. This war is costing Russia in so many ways that it's going to take decades for them to recover. America didn't have to do anything at this point- the Russians did the work for the US and NATO. This is a major win for the US. The US is waging a full proxy war and it's winning big time. And even if they had concerns about NATO expansion, it still doesn't give them the right to attack a sovereign nation. If they want to join the EU and NATO that is their right. They govern themselves. Let me type this so you understand "UKRAINE DOESN'T BELONG TO RUSSIA." Now, that we got this out of the way we can talk about the rest of the issues. Russia won't win this one. They thought they were going to storm it and take it in three days and it never happened. Any chance of them winning was lost when they didn't take Kiev. At this point they are dumping so much money into this and losing tons of troops and equipment. Their economy is in the shambles and won't recover for a long time ever after the dust settles. This was a mistake like the US in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the key difference is that the US won both initial invasions and lost little to nothing. Even over the course of two decades in total 7,000 troops were killed in combat. Russia managed to lose 20,000 in a month in a half and failed many objectives. They don't even have the airspace and what makes this shit even better is they are right next to each other and they still don't have control. Even if they some how manage to take the whole country which isn't possible now; that insurgency war would be brutal. It'll be another bloody war like their failure with Afganis in the 1980s. What they should do is withdraw before they lose a lot more. If they would've just waited things out, they would've gained. Europe was already divided over the US- then comes Russia to hand the US the greatest geo political gift of all time and they managed to unite Europe back under America's orbit and now NATO is gaining two new states. So all those goals Putin set out back fired. We're not even touching on the subject of the massacres of unarmed civilians that took place. Any hope of Russia and Ukraine being best of buddies is forever dead. Even decades after this, people will still not like the Russians. So good job on that one.

@@edmundr2167 also tell me how you set out to fight nazism and then do all the actions the nazis did to Poland in 1939.. it's so hypocritical. Russia couldn't even afford this war to start with. This is draining them so badly it's not even funny. Then you're fighting a ex soviet state with the know how on how your military operates with mixed in with US training and bam you get what we're seeing today. The way the Russians planned this one was so genius.

It’s an honor and a privilege.

@@Gametheory101 thanks a lot

doesnt everyone?

See what happened to the Soviet Impire.... so big, so powerful... and yet, it was all a lie. I think Russia gets the same risk.

Maybe Russia would be willing to sell Siberia to China? They'd get top dollar for their tundra.

@@lexwaldez They want to be payed in rubles. 😁

Yes

That was just to illustrate the cost/reward in concrete terms. He wasn’t suggesting that the conflict was about lives and resources. Before drawing the lines on the map he stated, “imagine for a second...”.

Liberal democracy is a failure

Ukraine God bless you stand for your democratic values you soon reap the harvest...

The USSR was a superpower. Russia is like North Korea, but weaker.

Princip was armed and paid by Serbian intelligence. You most certainly can blame the Serbian state for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

Not entirely true and very misleading. While it is unlikely that Nikola Pasic, the Serbian PM, approved the assassination senior officials certainly aided it (notably the ultra nationalist Dimitrijevic, the head of intel). As for Serbia accepting almost all demands of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum - the one they rejected was participation of the austrian police in the investigation, for the obvious reason that they might actually investigate. Foreign police involvement in high profile investigations is these days a routine courtesy and won't turn anyone into a "satellite state". Don't twist the facts to make Serbia out to be the innocent victim, there is enough blame to go around.

True

the expansion of NATO which at the time wasnt really the problem, hell. they never moved most of their military Infrastructure past the 1991 borders with Germany it was only AFTER Russia invades ukraine that they moved their shit over to their border. and this whole fiasco gave the west the reason why NATO should stay they didnt have a communism to fight after the USSR fell Alternate History Hub did a video explaining why the whole "NATO betrayed Russia" story was a load of Horseshit.

Exactly! Imagine it was the other way around. I dont blame Putin and Russia not wanting more and more American munitions right at their own borders

Except the US offered guarantees about placing missies not within Russia bordering countries and conducting NATO military exercises in countries not on russias border. Russia rejected the offer, demanding a rollback of NATO to 1990. because this is actually more about Russian imperialism and how it thinks about Ukraine as more Russian than western. They see it as humiliating if the people of Ukraine recognized that it prefers being within western influence vs Russian

You’re wrong. We Americans DO NOT want to fight any wars. There is no way the American public will tolerate mass casualties on a foreign land. NATO be damned. In reality it’s every country for themselves. Well disperse some weapons and cheerlead but that’s it.

@@jimbeam4111 are you sure man ?

@@angelomagleo8185 100%. The American public will not stand for mass casualties