What Are the Odds of Russia Invading Ukraine?
To invade, or not to invade, that is the question
PART 1, If I were playing Russia in Sid Meyer’s Civilization game
Many years ago, I used to play a lot of Sid Meyer’s Civilization - a turn-based strategy computer game. My favorite installment was CIV 3 but all of them had similar principles of gameplay - you played as a leader of a tribe (nation) and your goal was to gain military, cultural or technological dominance over the world.
To beat the game you had to make various resource allocation decisions, among which the decision to engage in a military conflict with AI operated neighbors was one of the most important ones. This is a high level checklist for deciding if it makes sense to go to war in CIV 3:
Will you gain significant economic benefit from taking over the new territory?
How will other nations react to you move? Is there a risk that they would unite against you militarily? Or that they may try to isolate you from the technology trade which was a hugely important aspect of the game?
Will you be able to defend and hold the newly conquered territory?
Does the economy and demographics of your empire support a significant military spend? Are you able to churn out lots of military units without undermining the economic and technological growth in the long term?
Finally, are you actually able to defeat the neighboring army? At what cost?
All these considerations had to be taken into account when pulling a trigger on the invasion. And if you were a half decent player you’d be making the invasion decisions very carefully, especially when playing the Ironman mode on the Diety difficulty level.
Now with this CIV 3 mindset imagine that you are Putin playing as Russia but the game happens in real life with real life consequences which probably should make you more risk averse than in a computer game setting.
Let’s go through the CIV 3 checklist to answer the Shakespearean question: “to invade or not to invade?”.
Gaining new land and population. Ukraine’s GDP per capita is about one third of Russia’s GDP per capita. The population is culturally close to Russia but majority considers themselves to be ethnically Ukrainian and, therefore, likely to resist the occupation or to emigrate from Ukraine. Absorbing and placating such population without major subsidies and handouts would be impossible. As a benchmark - about 80% of Crimea’s budget comes from Russia's federal money. Unlike Taiwan, Ukraine does not have any microchip foundries. It has coal, iron ore, uranium reserves, however Russia’s wast territory has all the rare elements that Ukraine has and then some. So the economic benefit of taking over Ukraine is questionable at best.
Reaction of other nations - the trade sanctions. As stated by many Western leaders the consequences of any, even the smallest invasion, would be a significant escalation of the economic sanctions from the West (the EU, UK and the US). About 50% of Russia’s international trade is with EU, the US, UK and Japan which all are likely to impose some sanctions on Russia. Gaining a territory in a relatively poor country in exchange for ruining global trade relationships is probably a bad value proposition.
Reaction of other nations - the individual sanctions. A significant escalation of individual sanctions against Russian oligarchs and Putin’s inner circle is expected. Many of those individuals have assets in the EU, UK and the US. Russians like their vacation homes in Italy, France and Spain. Many of them would experience major lifestyle deterioration if such sanctions were imposed.
Defending the conquered territory. Depending on how much territory is conquered and the ethnical composition of that territory, it might be very challenging to hold it. Controlling Crimea seems to have worked well for Russia, however in the late 1990s and early 2000s there was a negative precedent when Russia invaded Chechnya but could not being maintain peace in the region. After many years of fighting Russia had to de-escalate the conflict and to grant Chechnya significant autonomy and huge federal subsidies. It is reasonable to assume that there’s a serious risk of potential guerrilla warfare and terrorism. Some of that terrorism could spill over to Russia where about two million of its population identify as Ukrainians.
Risk of losing the war is small - Russia still has one of the strongest global military forces. Russia’s invasion is likely to succeed, however depending on the resistance, the military cost might be excessive. And there is a chance that the Western countries might supply Ukrainians with the most modern weapons, the costs of such military operation are difficult to model.
Global reputation is likely to suffer as Russia would have set a dangerous precedent of taking over a European country by a military force. Russia will probably lose the PR battle with Western media outfits which despite their recent loss of credibility are still much more sophisticated and powerful than whatever Russians can offer.
Internal backlash if the war becomes a long term conflict is a very likely scenario. A country with aging population cannot afford waging long wars. In Russia, there’s only 1.83 births per woman which is below the replacement levels. Russian women will not want their sons to die in optional wars to gain territory of dubious value. Modern Russia’s, and pretty much any European country’s, propensity for kinetic warfare is not the same as it was in the 20th century.
Another trick that was often abused by CIV 3 players was invading a nation by taking one city and then demanding tribute to stop the invasion. Would Russia’s bargaining power improve if Russia occupies part of Ukraine?
This was the strategy of Napoleon Bonaparte when French invaded Russia in 1812. Napoleon’s army managed to occupy Moscow and, as the winter was approaching, Napoleon expected czar Alexander to sue for peace. Unfortunately for Napoleon, Russian czar called Napoleon’s bluff and did not engage in negotiations. You know how the story ends - Napoleon was first defeated by the Russian winter (i.e. his army run out of resources and the remnants of it retreated back to France) and eventually he was defeated at Waterloo.
Considering the balance of economic and military power being in favor of the NATO alliance by a huge margin, the West is extremely unlikely to sue for peace to stop Russian invasion, which means that Russia would not have an easy exit from the Ukraine excursion. Russia would have to keep draining its resources to maintain order and in the meantime suffer the international economic sanctions.
If I were playing CIV 3 as Russia and had to decide on the invasion of Ukraine based on the above analysis, I would not invade. The upside is almost non-existent and the downside is very obvious.
PART 2 - Putin Plays a Poker Game
Now let’s imagine that you are sitting at the poker table as Putin playing your hand against the opponents from Ukraine, EU, UK and the US. You are holding a mediocre hand (based on the above analysis) and everyone at the poker table is quite certain that you have a mediocre hand. You also have a reputation of a bluffer and a risk taker from the previous poker games so, despite suspecting that your hand is weak, everyone still considers you a skillful player.
You, being Putin, are the only one who knows if Russia will invade Ukraine or not, and considering the potential consequences of such move, in poker terms this would be an equivalent of moving all in (or betting the house). Your posture at the table indicates to others that you are likely to move all in. Meanwhile, you have made a statement that you will not go all in (Russians have repeated publicly several times that they do not plan to invade Ukraine and the accumulation of troops at the Ukrainian border is just a military training exercise).
So what are your (Russia’s) options at the poker table:
Option 1 - announce to the world Russia will not invade but then, when no one expects it, invade.
Option 2 - announce to the world Russia will not invade, however make appearances that Russia might invade. In the end, though, you choose not to invade.
Option 3 - tell the world that Russia plans to invade, unless some ultimatum is met, but in the end don't invade.
Option 4 - tell the world that Russia plans to invade, unless some ultimatum is met, and then invade due to the demands not being met.
As of mid February of 2022, the Western politicians believe (or, at the very least, publicly indicate that they believe) that the Option 1 is the most likely scenario. Based on the precedent that Russia had invaded Ukraine’s territory already in 2014 and based on the accumulation of the military forces at the Ukraine’s border this is not an unreasonable position to take.
When Russia announces to the world that it does not plan to invade Ukraine, no one takes those announcements seriously. Ukraine is preparing for war, the West is preparing the economic sanctions.
If Russia decides to invade, despite its pronouncements to the contrary, the world learns that NATO and the Western politicians were right all along and that Putin is a warmongering maniac whom you cant trust an inch. Meanwhile no element of surprise is gained as Ukraine and everyone else is prepared for this turn of events.
It seems that, if Russia really had intentions to invade Ukraine, it would actually be more beneficial to announce the intentions openly. So Option 1 seems to be a sub optimal choice for Russia.
What if the Western politicians are wrong and Russia plans to pursue the option 2? This may be the strongest play, because there’s very little risk both militarily and reputationally. Telling the world that Russia will not invade and not invading provides some benefits:
Feeding information about the invasion and provoking the Western leaders to come out and say that the invasion is imminent sets them up for a credibility hit if such invasion does not happen.
Putin declaring Russias intentions of not invading would make him look good and credible when in the invasion does not happen.
When Russia eventually de-escalates there is no loss of face because the public message was consistently about non-invasion.
If the West and Ukraine rally take the indirect threats seriously and decide to negotiate and give Russia a few concessions then this will be an extra gain from this semi-bluff.
Even if the West calls Putin’s bluff and there are no concessions coming, Putin can still score a few points with Russians by spinning how NATO is freaking out just from the fact that Russians do a military training exercise.
As Russia is not explicitly threatening with invasion, yet, I will not review the pros and cons of option 3 and 4, however, you can imagine that the stakes would be higher for Russia in those scenarios, especially the loss of face in case of West offering no concessions and Russia choosing not to invade.
CONCLUSION
As of February 20, 2022, I expect that Ukraine and Western politicians will agree with Russia about some insignificant quid pro quo so that all the parties come out looking good. The NATO will probably declare that their resolve stopped Russia’s aggression while Putin will spin the story in a way to make the West look weak and conciliatory.
If, however, Russia does invade Ukraine, even a small part or its territory, it’s likely to be one of the worst geopolitical moves of the 21st century unless, as Donald Rumsfeld once said, there are some unknown unknowns in play which skew the cost-benefit analysis toward invasion.