| Past Week | Past Month | Past Year | This Season | All Time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forecasts | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Comments | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| Questions Forecasted | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Upvotes on Comments By This User | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Definitions | |||||
Maintaining my percentage likelihood but adding further justification:
In his State of the Union speech, Putin largely employed the same rhetoric he has been using since the start of the war and he also thanked citizens for coming together in solidarity. There were not any new measures in the speech that would prompt people to protest. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/europe/putin-state-of-the-union-threat-analysis-intl/index.html
Maybe the lack of any new measures such as further military mobilization is actually a sign that Putin is concerned that Russian citizens will/are ready to protest.
There are several developments in the past couple days that are leading me to increase my probability by 2 percentage points.
First, the New York Times reported over the weekend that China is "strongly considering" giving weapons and ammunition to Russia, which would escalate the war and also likely draw it out much longer. It would also exacerbate tensions between the US and China. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/19/world/europe/us-china-weapons-russia-ukraine.html?smid=url-share
Second, Putin gave a state of the union speech in which he announced that he was suspending Russia's participation in the NEW START nuclear arms reduction treaty and threatened nuclear tests. The NEW START suspension is concerning for long-term global stability, while the nuclear test threat seems to be the only thing remaining in Putin's arsenal. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/21/europe/putin-state-of-the-union-threat-analysis-intl/index.html
Third, President Biden made a trip to Kyiv in a strong show of support for Ukraine. He did not promise F16's, and the trip was largely symbolic to show unity. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-biden-f00af220669457d5ba07127c7e57a27b
I believe all of these developments increase the possibilities of 25+ fatalities in a NATO member state in the long term, but I am not increasing it by more than 2% due to the short time frame.
I could be overvaluing the news reports from this weekend and they could all be symbolic gestures given that it was the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
I'm adjusting my forecast because I believe Priya mentioned in the last class that April 2022 recorded 203 protests so that means the number cannot be lower than that. That increases the weight I'm placing for the 200-400 mark. My justification from past weeks remains as to why I do not think it's likely for protests to increase above 400.
Perhaps movements like the flower protests that we discussed in class could gain significant momentum that they have to be considered by ACLED as protests.
I'm adjusting my percentage down 1% further because I think class discussions on this question are deepening my belief in how unlikely this scenario is.
To add one more further justification to inside view, here is a Forbes article from 2015 that does a great job summarizing how Putin manipulates his approval ratings to his advantage:
Some autocratic leaders continue to govern with a firm grip despite low approval ratings. For example, taking the outside view, Iran's Raisi and Venezuela's Maduro whose approval ratings are less than 20%, but that does not seem to play a factor in their governance. Maybe there is a scenario in which Putin stops caring about/manipulating his approval ratings? But that seems highly unlikely considering reporting about his ego.
https://iranwire.com/en/politics/105329-poll-ebrahim-raisis-approval-rating-at-28-percent/
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/six-ways-nicolas-maduro-stays-in-power-in-venezuela/21806197
I'm adjusting my percentage 1% higher this week due to a few points that were brought up in class last week that adjusted my thinking.
Tristan mentioned the point that Russia is running low on precision guided missiles, which inherently enhances the risk that a missile could mistakenly hit a NATO country. However, the reporting on this is relatively mixed and Russia is denying these claims (see: https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-running-short-of-long-range-missiles-ukraine-war/ ; https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/us/politics/cruise-missiles-russia-ukraine-sanctions.html) which is why I am only increasing the likelihood by 1%.
Also, to strengthen my outside view from previous weeks, I'm adding some further justification:
Article 5 has only been invoked once — after 9/11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations#:~:text=2001%E2%80%93present,-NATO%20became%20involved&text=3500%20soldiers%20were%20involved.&text=The%2011%20September%20attacks%20in,attack%20on%20all%20NATO%20members.
NATO is primarily militarily focused and it is not clear how they would respond to a scenario like a cyber attack.
There are several non-military scenarios that could lead to fatalities in NATO territory that I don't think I considered fully in previous weeks. If there is a critical infrastructure attack, it could lead to loss of clean water supply or something that inadvertently causes deaths in a NATO country.
One outside view is this article on how cyberattacks on hospitals could be deadly. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/28/cyberattacks-u-s-hospitals-00075638
One inside view that I could not find and that would perhaps change my percentage is whether Russia has tried cyberattacks against NATO members/Ukraine.
This USIP article also does a good job of explaining how quickly this probability could change if tensions inflame or there is another errant Ukrainian missile: https://www.usip.org/publications/2022/11/missile-strikes-poland-how-russias-war-could-spread
I am sticking with this percentage even after my conversation with my teammates because while I think the chances of 25+ fatalities occurring before April 1, 2023 is slim, it is not out of question. My teammates were also hovering a little below or around this probability and we were largely in agreement when discussing our justifications from the weekend.
One news article that caught my eye this afternoon that I discussed with my teammates was a report that an American volunteer/civilian had been targeted and killed by Russian missiles earlier this month. When I initially read the headline, I thought that might alter the course of the war/rhetoric if Americans were being targeted in Ukraine. However, once I read the article, the American was a volunteer medic and his team, a collective of international volunteers, was targeted, and not him specifically. Even though that violates the rules of war, it is not different from Russia's conduct throughout this invasion, so I don't think it warrants enough to change the probability. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/13/europe/ukraine-foreign-medics-russia-target-intl/index.html
After conversing with my teammates, adjusting my numbers slightly to strengthen my argument from past weeks as to why I believe the number will fall between 200-400. Our conversation talked about how previous periods of protest engagement in Russia had hovered around 200 at their peak and how given the exodus of people leaving the country, it was unlikely for protests to spike. We also discussed how there was not a strong culture of protest in Russia.
One scenario that I discussed with my teammates is adjusting perspective and considering whether pro-war protests/riots would count in this question. For example, if there was a scenario in which Putin/the Russian State incited protests in support of the war to justify certain measures or responses it was taking. I did not find any news reports that indicated this was an approach Putin/Russia had or were considering taking though, so I think chances of it are still slim.
Decreasing my percentage from 5% to 3% after my conversation with my teammates as our conversation centered heavily on the why it was so unlikely for Putin's approval rating to drop, as well as how heavily the ratings are manipulated. This was further reinforced by numbers from the Levada Center, which show Putin's approval ratings hovering right around 80% for the past year. https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/
I still agree with the scenarios that I have listed in past weeks -- that the course of the war would need to change significantly and create much higher costs for Russian civilians. This report from Wilson Center outlines the costs of the war on the Russian state and how it will affect the economy, but also notes that it will take more time before the costs fall onto the broader population -- perhaps towards the end of 2023. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/putins-war-costs-shifting-burden-population
Why do you think you're right?
Maintaining my earlier forecast percentage and adding further justification:
As outlined in my other forecasts, Putin's State of the Union speech today was largely run of the mill and seemed aimed largely for his domestic constituents. He honored soldiers who had been killed in the war and promised their families benefits and promised soldiers who were serving in Ukraine rest periods. Overall, it seems like Putin is aware of the discontent related to the war and his speech largely seemed aimed at addressing and responding to that, so I see little reason why his manipulated approval ratings would drop.
Why might you be wrong?
Perhaps the approval ratings did drop and that's why Putin's speech was more conciliatory to Russian citizens.