1. What about the negative effects on the Ukrainian military? It seems like Ukrainian soldiers are making $40k or less. Some might rationally support the plan in order to bring an end to the war, but many would be bitter if their government paid 2.5xtheir annual salary to the enemy. The impact could outweigh the benefit.
1A. Paying bounties to Ukrainians might help the problem above, but could also create a discipline problem on the battlefield with capturing being incentivized over other activities.
2. What about war criminals? Can they defect? If defectors are arrested instead of rewarded that can’t get out or the program won’t work. If war criminals can defect, it might double down on the problem above.
2A. What about mercenaries and the Ukrainian citizens of the occupied territories fighting for Russia? For the former, they might be militarily useless, but Russia would have an awesome recruiting tool to drain money from the EU/Ukraine. For the latter, Ukraine might balk at paying collaborators.
2B. What about the regular criminals fighting for Wagner? Will the EU want to offer cash and citizenship to some rapists and murderers?
And an alternative formulation: what about EU/US temporary work visas with a path to citizenship for military age Russian men (plus immediate family) who can make it out of Russia to present themselves. This drains the manpower pool for the military and economy, forces Russia to overtly prevent citizens from leaving, and sidesteps problem 1, and maybe problem 2.
Thanks, those are extremely good questions - we're considering creating a follow-up post to investigate those and some other problems raised in the comments further. Our current thoughts on them are below.
If sufficiently severe, 1. and 1A. could be resolved by splitting $1 equally among the Ukrainian forces for every dollar paid out to Russian defectors (or potentially more/less). This doubles the cost of the scheme, but as it is currently extremely cheap in comparison to existing policies doubling would still only make it cost ~$50 billion.
For 2. and 2B., war criminals and individuals convicted of serious crimes (say those that would carry a prison sentence in excess of 10 years) would not be permitted to participate in the scheme: we expect the cost of this (in terms of reduced value generated by the scheme) to be limited as penal battalions are not subject to the stop-loss policy the rest of the Russian military has meaning that they cycle out of the Russian army six months after joining regardless of our scheme and because the roles we care more about defecting - better trained personnel - are much less likely to be in the penal battalions or commit war crimes.
2A could be resolved be having payments as some increasing function of military value, as we note in the post - so DPR/LNR conscripts would likely receive EU citizenship only with no payment, still probably inducing large numbers to defect at low cost for the EU.
We very much agree with the alternative formulation you propose being implemented alongside our scheme to help drain Russia's military production and general economic capabilities - a version of which was proposed (https://www.adamsmith.org/research/let-them-come) by the Adam Smith Institute shortly after the war broke out. In the context of limited public appetite for migration, we believe our scheme is higher impact per migrant so would ideally be implemented first: however, we would very much prefer to see both.
In terms of full implementation of this kind of policy, no: in terms of partial, you can view the Hague convention's rules on the treatment of PoWs as part of this. It is usually in the self-interest of belligerents to treat PoWs well to promote as much surrender as possible: during WW2 something like 2.7 million Germans were captured on the Western front from mid-1944 to 1945 compared to about the same number over the entire course of the war in the East, in large part due to the UK and US having much better conditions for prisoners of war. This scheme could thus be viewed as a logical extension of the Hague convention given the large increase in wealth that has occurred since it was signed over a hundred years ago.
Yes, I agree that it's a great outside-the-box idea. I think there may be better outside the box ideas (such as the alternate I've already outlined).
We *need* outside-the-box ideas. The current box of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killing each other and blowing up things clearly entails tremendous human suffering and expense.
Using per capita PPP GDP doesn't make too much sense. Better would be median income at PPP.
It is another question whether the resettled Russians could make it to the median income level, and surely that is not independent of destination country, but that is a harder fix. Still, I might attempt to add a parameter accounting for that and then estimate a value.
Thanks, those are good points. The first shouldn’t mean the results substantially underestimate the actual payments needed unless Russia is much more equal than the EU: as the EU’s Gini coefficient is 0.301 but Russia’s is 0.36, this suggests this effect could actually mean that a lower payment is needed than the results imply. The second point does imply the Russians would need to pay some training costs to raise their incomes to this level, possibly entirely erasing the gains from first effect.
You should use EU-wide income if you are using an EU-wide Gini.
I wouldn't have complained so much if you hadn't picked Luxembourg, which is probably the EU country where per-capita GDP is the least informative. (Looking it up, Luxembourg's Gini coefficient is 64.6.)
Yes you are completely correct, apologies. If I change the income values to those in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income, then the result changes to https://rpubs.com/Test509/1022056: slightly worse at lower payments but actually better at higher payments due to reducing both Russian and Luxembourger average income rendering larger payments more effective.
The reasons for using Luxembourger income (Russians have a choice of any EU state, if they pick another the utility from doing so must be strictly greater rendering this estimate conservative) still apply.
I'd also wager that there's a breaking point where a certain number of surrendering troops causes cascade failure even before the 50% casualty number. Runaway effects like that are pretty common in military history, perhaps especially Russian and Soviet history, of tens of thousands of soldiers surrendering.
Does the author even realize the implications of his assumption that Ukrainian soldiers are the ones violating the Geneva conventions? So who are the bad guys again?
Pardon? In war it is often difficult for the soldiers of any side to stick to all "niceties" of the Geneva convention. Their Comrades were killed by some of those. Aware of the dynamics this article is about (treat PoW and surrenderers nicely and more will surrender) the Ukranian leadership was keen to keep violations at a minimum. (Maybe they are also just good guys, who knows). Minimus does not equal zero at all times. Nor would even zero guarantee that the Russian side will not tell its troops "Ukrainians do eat all POWs". - The Russian invasion, the attacks on civilian targets, the war-crimes in Bucha et al. plus the regular torture + execution of POW by the Russian forces make it pretty clear who the bad guys are. Sure you seen the video https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Oleksandr_Matsievskyi
How about this: Instead of paying Russian soldiers to defect to the EU, or paying the Russian military to arrest Putin and turn him over to the International Criminal Court to face his indictment for war crimes, perhaps there should just be a payment to Russian soldiers to surrender and be held as a POW until after hostilities cease?
Part of the payment could be an agreement to never fight against Ukraine again, verified by taking fingerprints, DNA samples, extensive facial/body photographs, and iris scans. Then if the Russian soldier ever was found to be fighting in Ukraine again, they would be punished in some manner.
The payments could be: one year's pay for anyone at lieutenant or below, and two years pay for anyone above the grade of lieutenant. A POW camp could be set up in Ukraine as far as possible from Russia. The POW camp would have decent facilities and food, but not spectacular.
You may want to add “gullibility coefficients” around some of the parameters, such as the 50,000 Russian casualties. Secondly, given that the living standards are much higher in Russia than in Ukraine (even before the war), if the goal of your project is to end the war, wouldn’t it be cheaper to pay Ukrainians to surrender?
"Secondly, given that the living standards are much higher in Russia than in Ukraine (even before the war), if the goal of your project is to end the war, wouldn’t it be cheaper to pay Ukrainians to surrender?"
I think the cheapest solution would be paying Russians to surrender...rather than paying them with EU citizenship for them and their families if they defect.
If we pay Russians to surrender, we don't need to deal with them and their families moving to another country. All we need is to house and feed them until the war is over. And I think most Russian soldiers, fighting in a war of aggression in a foreign country, would probably surrender for very little money. It beats getting killed in that foreign country.
Excellent idea. Mail it to Putin. We shall see, how "eager" Ukrainians defending their homeland are to sell-out to the Kremlin. - As Caplan pointed out: You also should trust the side making promises. Thus - in his opinion - the EU/US should make the offer (Russians believe those, no matter what ORT claims) and not just Ukraine. Otos: Not even many Russians seem to believe the golden promises for serving in Putin's latest war.
It is true that Russian GDP per capita is more than twice that of Ukraine - living standards are indeed higher there than in Ukraine. But Russian soldiers were probably on the low end of the income distribution, and thus desperate.
It seems likely that if the goal is removing Putin from power but keeping him alive to try in court then destabilizing his regime by defeating him on the battlefield is one of the best ways of doing that: and with that in mind, as demand curves slope downwards, we should investigate the cheapest way of doing that to the West to ensure the maximum probability it does in fact occur. The post above provides indicative evidence it is possible to defeat Putin at a much lower cost than existing policies, so it may be profitable to research the scheme further.
"It seems likely that if the goal is removing Putin from power but keeping him alive to try in court then destabilizing his regime by defeating him on the battlefield is one of the best ways of doing that:..."
The problem is that the Russian military doesn't want to be defeated on the battlefield. In my proposed plan, they're not defeated. In my plan, all that they do is to arrest one man, Putin, extradite him to the International Criminal Court, and aid in setting up a democracy in their country.
If we pay soldiers to defect, the soldiers that remain will likely get slaughtered on the battlefield. And the defectors may end up with many members of their family killed, and there is a high likelihood that they'd never be able to return to Russia.
If, on the other hand, if we pay the whole military, not only would their families likely be safe, and they'd likely be able to stay in Russia, they could even end up being praised by their fellow citizens for helping to set up a democracy.
The ability of low-ranking officers to engineer a coup without higher level support feels limited: in principle your proposed scheme and ours are fully compatable if you were to offer large payments to any individuals responsible for a coup were it to be carried out (expecting senior officers to do so) but to further incentivise a coup occurring you continued to undermine Russia's military capabilities using the cheapest available methods, which the post above has demonstrated may be paying other soldiers to defect.
Offering payments to the entire Russian army regardless of their part in any coup feels extremely wastleful however: most of the money would go to paying individuals who did not contribute at all to the coup, meaning much better results could be achieved at lower cost by offering larger payments to up to say 1000 officers actually involved in the coup in question.
"The ability of low-ranking officers to engineer a coup without higher level support feels limited:..."
Yes, the main purpose of paying the people at the rank of lieutenant colonel or below would be to keep them "on board" in setting up the democracy that would replace Putin's rule. One thing that I think the debacle in Iraq made pretty clear is that unemployed members of the military can create significant problems when setting up a new, democratic government.
"Offering payments to the entire Russian army regardless of their part in any coup feels extremely wastleful however: most of the money would go to paying individuals who did not contribute at all to the coup, meaning much better results could be achieved at lower cost by offering larger payments to up to say 1000 officers actually involved in the coup in question."
Yes, paying more to officers actually involved in the coup is a very good idea. For example, rather than paying $900,000 to every general, we could pay an *average* of $400,000 to every general, but up to $900,000 for the generals that participate in the coup.
I think we're in very strong agreement that it should be possible to find *something* better than the current situation of people killing each other and blowing up houses and factories, based on the whims and desires of Vladimir Putin.
I personally have no knowledge of how militaries operate, especially the Russian military. I think it would be very helpful to involve people with knowledge of Russia's military, to explore what options would be least expensive and most effective. I remain dubious about paying military members and their families to defect...but if people with expertise in the Russian military provided an argument why that would be better than paying them to stay and arrest Putin and set up a democracy, then I'd certainly value that expertise.
As I've written before, I just hope the objective will be not be to simply stop the fighting, but to replace the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin with a democracy...and to have Putin tried in the International Criminal Court for the war crimes of which he's been charged.
I have a better solution. Develop a payment scheme for the Russian military to arrest Vladimir Putin for the war crimes with which he's been charged, and work with the countries making the payments to set up a democracy in Russia.
This is just total spitballing, but the payments might look like:
Based on 830,000 people in the Russian active duty military (all branches), and assuming a rank structure exactly like the U.S. Army, the Russian military would contain the following approximate number of people in each rank category:
Brigadier general or above = 520
Colonel = 6500
Lieutenant colonel = 15,700
Major or Captain = 77,700
Lieutenant to sergeant = 380,000
Corporal or below = 349,000
The total payout to all personnel based on the payout breakdown by rank given above would be approximately $53 billion.
For that, we'd get Vladimir Putin arrested and extradited to stand trial for war crimes, and the Russian military working to set up a democracy in Russia.
Note that, since January 2021, the U.S. has *already* spent $33 billion for aid to Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin is nowhere near arrested, and the Russian military is nowhere near helping to us to set up a democracy in Russia.
I've come up with revised payments for the different ranks. It is based on what I understand the *approximate* annual salaries are for various ranks in the Russian military, times the number of years' salary I think each rank should be paid. I'm thinking the higher ranks should be paid more years of salary....since they are more "career" people.
1) Brigadier general or above --> $60,000/yr times 15 years = $900,000
2) Colonel --> $40,000/yr times 12 years = $480,000
3) Lt. Colonel --> $24,600/yr times 10 years = $264,000
4) Major or captain --> $13,200/yr times 8 years = $105,600
5) Lieutenant down to sergeant -->$7,000/yr times 5 years = $35,000
6) Below sergeant --> $6,000/yr times 5 years = $30,000
Using those values and a total Russian military strength of 850,000 active duty personnel, with the breakdown by rank previously listed, the total cost comes to $40 billion (down from $53 billion based on the initial wild guess payout). The $40 billion would be to:
1) Arrest and extradite Vladimir Putin to the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and
2) Aid in setting up a Russian democracy.
The $40 billion could be paid as $4 billion (10 percent) for the arrest and extradition of Vladimir Putin, and the remaining $36 billion (90 percent) paid over 10 years, provided the person being paid continues to aid in setting up a Russian democracy that's acceptable to the people paying the reward.
I think he means that offering Ukrainian soldiers EU citizenship would get them to defect. If the goal is just to stop the war, that would probably be effective, as it would just let Russia win. But if the goal is for Ukraine to win the war, that's obviously counterproductive.
"But if the goal is for Ukraine to win the war, that's obviously counterproductive."
I think the goals should be:
1) Stop the war in a manner such that areas of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia (including Crimea) can be allowed to, as peacefully as possible, decide what country they want to live in.
2) End up with a government of Russia that will not invade neighbors in the future.
3) Achieve some manner of justice (it will almost certainly never be perfect or even sufficient justice) for the crimes committed during the military conflict.
All three of those objectives will be tremendously difficult to achieve. And I don't see how any of those three objectives can be accomplished if Vladimir Putin stays the head of Russia.
1) Based on their ethnicity, language, and voting patterns we could probably just accept that most people behind the front lines would be fine being annexed into Russia if it meant peace.
Even if we held a referendum, everyone would claim it was rigged anyway.
2) I think this is pretty much in the bag already. Russia isn't even capable of invading its neighbors.
3) If we locked up everyone that committed crimes during war several US presidents, generals, and intelligence personal would be locked up. There are no war crimes, only punishment for losing.
If you offered Putin to divide the country along the current front line and move on he would take it in a heartbeat and we could all move on. He will probably die in a decade. Nobody will think taking some shelled out Donbass villages full of pensioners was an accomplishment.
This is easy to achieve. Just tell the Ukranians those are the terms and if they refuse they are cut off.
The entire war could be done tomorrow but it's good for domestic politics and it makes defense contractors rich.
"1) Based on their ethnicity, language, and voting patterns we could probably just accept that most people behind the front lines would be fine being annexed into Russia if it meant peace."
I don't think that's an acceptable assumption unless legitimate voting indicates it's true. And there can be no legitimate voting when Russia has invaded and taken territory by force.
"2) I think this is pretty much in the bag already. Russia isn't even capable of invading its neighbors."
It invaded Ukraine and took first Crimea, and now the southeast of Ukraine from Russia to Crimea.
"3) If we locked up everyone that committed crimes during war several US presidents, generals, and intelligence personal would be locked up. There are no war crimes, only punishment for losing."
No, there are war crimes. There has just been very little, and very uneven, enforcement. The way you're looking at it is equivalent to saying that, because people have gotten away with murder, there is no murder.
"If you offered Putin to divide the country along the current front line and move on he would take it in a heartbeat and we could all move on."
Who is "we"? Do you think the Ukrainian parents who have had their children abducted and given to Russians will "all move on"? What about the Ukrainians living in territories now controlled by Russia? Where do you think they'll "move on" to?
"He will probably die in a decade."
Yes, but the crimes he's committed (e.g. the kidnapping of Ukrainian children, and giving them to Russians) won't be magically reversed when he dies. No will the territories his troops invaded and conquered magically revert to Ukraine when he dies.
I can't imagine anyone accepting an election under any circumstances at this point. Feels like a pragmatic compromise.
2) So Russia, a country roughly 10x Ukraine in GDP, was able to blitz some mostly depopulated areas in roughly friendly territory, take no significant cities, and then completely stall out for a year (oh I forgot they also lost huge swatch of territory).
I'm sure NATO is QUAKING in its boots over such a GOLIATH.
3) Who cares? You think you wouldn't find war crimes on the Ukrainian side too? I've got some videos of how they treat "traitors" to show you.
The only wars that end in war crimes trials are TOTAL WARS where you take the enemy capital in ruins. Do you plan on fielding an army and marching to Moscow? No. Then grow up.
The people behind the Russian lines are mostly Russians who would mostly be happy with being a part of Russia and having the war end. You instance of considering these people are territories "Ukrainian" because of some arbitrary lines on a map is propaganda used to justify continuing the war.
The war ends when the west says it ends. What would the Ukrainian's do without our support? Nothing, it would be game over. That's why we should tell them that if they don't end the war we are pulling our support.
In terms of modelling were this to occur: The evidence cited in the post suggests people value their children’s utility as 9% of their own: assuming such a ratio holds then the fraction of utility that people would value the death of their immediate family (siblings + parents + children) as under average Russian family sizes is going to be ~<50% of their own utility (summing average birth rate today + highest average birth rate in past 60 years + 2 parents. Assumes all family alive, have already had all children, siblings had in highest birth rate year etc.). If this is put into the model you get that a $100,000 payment would still be sufficient (https://rpubs.com/Test509/1021826) to induce defection with the chance of being unsuccessful just below 10%.
In terms of plausibility of it actually occurring: Putin likely lacks the legitimacy to murder tens of thousands of innocent Russian civilians, as the long delays in mobilisation show. Even if Russia could credibly threaten to do this in the first say 1000 cases, the result would just likely be that individuals who cared little for their families would take advantage of the scheme, vast amounts of political capital would be spent on killing the families of those first defectors, and then if the scheme is axed afterwards then the scenario originally described in the blog post above occurs.
I don't think Putin would murder the families but if this scheme were launched at large scale, he would probably find ways to imprison them/take the children away from the family (like this case https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-father-whose-daughter-drew-anti-war-picture-given-two-years-jail-2023-03-28/). And there's a difference between statistical valuation of a small risk or valuation of a small change in utility and the value you assign to a near-certain loss of a spouse's freedom/children being taken away from you. There may be some irrationality too. I know lots of Russians who emigrated to the US, and many of them at least claim to be afraid to speak up against the war publicly out of fear that Putin will do something to their families in Russia (which is quite implausible given that I'm not thinking of publicly prominent individuals here).
Some irrationality is possible but the same logic as I gave in the second paragraph of my reply above likely holds: if Putin can credibly promise to imprison only 10,000 innocent family members (equivalent to considerably fewer soldiers), Russians with the least ties to family defect first, Putin runs out of political capital and then everyone else can follow. This would slow the rate at which the scheme progresses (and thus cause more Ukrainian casualties relative to the counterfactual) but would likely not change the eventual outcome.
"I don't think Putin would murder the families but if this scheme were launched at large scale, he would probably find ways to imprison them/take the children away from the family (like this case..."
Yes, that's part of why I think simple payment to Russians to surrender and sit the war out in POW camps is the way to go.
There's no history of soldiers defecting to other countries in the middle of wars. But there's plenty of history of soldiers surrendering during wars.
"If I were Russia I'd just kill the families of people who defect. Easy-peasy."
That's why the proper way to work this situation is not to pay the members of the Russian military to *defect,* but to instead pay them to *arrest* Vladimir Putin for the war crimes with which he's been charged, and help the countries paying the reward to set up a democracy as a replacement. That way, the military members who arrest Vladimir Putin are no longer in danger, because he is out of power, and a democracy has been set up as a replacement.
Some unaddressed problems:
1. What about the negative effects on the Ukrainian military? It seems like Ukrainian soldiers are making $40k or less. Some might rationally support the plan in order to bring an end to the war, but many would be bitter if their government paid 2.5xtheir annual salary to the enemy. The impact could outweigh the benefit.
1A. Paying bounties to Ukrainians might help the problem above, but could also create a discipline problem on the battlefield with capturing being incentivized over other activities.
2. What about war criminals? Can they defect? If defectors are arrested instead of rewarded that can’t get out or the program won’t work. If war criminals can defect, it might double down on the problem above.
2A. What about mercenaries and the Ukrainian citizens of the occupied territories fighting for Russia? For the former, they might be militarily useless, but Russia would have an awesome recruiting tool to drain money from the EU/Ukraine. For the latter, Ukraine might balk at paying collaborators.
2B. What about the regular criminals fighting for Wagner? Will the EU want to offer cash and citizenship to some rapists and murderers?
And an alternative formulation: what about EU/US temporary work visas with a path to citizenship for military age Russian men (plus immediate family) who can make it out of Russia to present themselves. This drains the manpower pool for the military and economy, forces Russia to overtly prevent citizens from leaving, and sidesteps problem 1, and maybe problem 2.
Thanks, those are extremely good questions - we're considering creating a follow-up post to investigate those and some other problems raised in the comments further. Our current thoughts on them are below.
If sufficiently severe, 1. and 1A. could be resolved by splitting $1 equally among the Ukrainian forces for every dollar paid out to Russian defectors (or potentially more/less). This doubles the cost of the scheme, but as it is currently extremely cheap in comparison to existing policies doubling would still only make it cost ~$50 billion.
For 2. and 2B., war criminals and individuals convicted of serious crimes (say those that would carry a prison sentence in excess of 10 years) would not be permitted to participate in the scheme: we expect the cost of this (in terms of reduced value generated by the scheme) to be limited as penal battalions are not subject to the stop-loss policy the rest of the Russian military has meaning that they cycle out of the Russian army six months after joining regardless of our scheme and because the roles we care more about defecting - better trained personnel - are much less likely to be in the penal battalions or commit war crimes.
2A could be resolved be having payments as some increasing function of military value, as we note in the post - so DPR/LNR conscripts would likely receive EU citizenship only with no payment, still probably inducing large numbers to defect at low cost for the EU.
We very much agree with the alternative formulation you propose being implemented alongside our scheme to help drain Russia's military production and general economic capabilities - a version of which was proposed (https://www.adamsmith.org/research/let-them-come) by the Adam Smith Institute shortly after the war broke out. In the context of limited public appetite for migration, we believe our scheme is higher impact per migrant so would ideally be implemented first: however, we would very much prefer to see both.
Has this sort of thing been done before successfully?
In terms of full implementation of this kind of policy, no: in terms of partial, you can view the Hague convention's rules on the treatment of PoWs as part of this. It is usually in the self-interest of belligerents to treat PoWs well to promote as much surrender as possible: during WW2 something like 2.7 million Germans were captured on the Western front from mid-1944 to 1945 compared to about the same number over the entire course of the war in the East, in large part due to the UK and US having much better conditions for prisoners of war. This scheme could thus be viewed as a logical extension of the Hague convention given the large increase in wealth that has occurred since it was signed over a hundred years ago.
I think it's a fascinating pragmatic outside the box idea. Can also imagine politicians (and general populations) being very skeptical.
Yes, I agree that it's a great outside-the-box idea. I think there may be better outside the box ideas (such as the alternate I've already outlined).
We *need* outside-the-box ideas. The current box of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers killing each other and blowing up things clearly entails tremendous human suffering and expense.
Using per capita PPP GDP doesn't make too much sense. Better would be median income at PPP.
It is another question whether the resettled Russians could make it to the median income level, and surely that is not independent of destination country, but that is a harder fix. Still, I might attempt to add a parameter accounting for that and then estimate a value.
Thanks, those are good points. The first shouldn’t mean the results substantially underestimate the actual payments needed unless Russia is much more equal than the EU: as the EU’s Gini coefficient is 0.301 but Russia’s is 0.36, this suggests this effect could actually mean that a lower payment is needed than the results imply. The second point does imply the Russians would need to pay some training costs to raise their incomes to this level, possibly entirely erasing the gains from first effect.
You should use EU-wide income if you are using an EU-wide Gini.
I wouldn't have complained so much if you hadn't picked Luxembourg, which is probably the EU country where per-capita GDP is the least informative. (Looking it up, Luxembourg's Gini coefficient is 64.6.)
Yes you are completely correct, apologies. If I change the income values to those in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income, then the result changes to https://rpubs.com/Test509/1022056: slightly worse at lower payments but actually better at higher payments due to reducing both Russian and Luxembourger average income rendering larger payments more effective.
The reasons for using Luxembourger income (Russians have a choice of any EU state, if they pick another the utility from doing so must be strictly greater rendering this estimate conservative) still apply.
I'd also wager that there's a breaking point where a certain number of surrendering troops causes cascade failure even before the 50% casualty number. Runaway effects like that are pretty common in military history, perhaps especially Russian and Soviet history, of tens of thousands of soldiers surrendering.
Does the author even realize the implications of his assumption that Ukrainian soldiers are the ones violating the Geneva conventions? So who are the bad guys again?
Pardon? In war it is often difficult for the soldiers of any side to stick to all "niceties" of the Geneva convention. Their Comrades were killed by some of those. Aware of the dynamics this article is about (treat PoW and surrenderers nicely and more will surrender) the Ukranian leadership was keen to keep violations at a minimum. (Maybe they are also just good guys, who knows). Minimus does not equal zero at all times. Nor would even zero guarantee that the Russian side will not tell its troops "Ukrainians do eat all POWs". - The Russian invasion, the attacks on civilian targets, the war-crimes in Bucha et al. plus the regular torture + execution of POW by the Russian forces make it pretty clear who the bad guys are. Sure you seen the video https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Oleksandr_Matsievskyi
How about this: Instead of paying Russian soldiers to defect to the EU, or paying the Russian military to arrest Putin and turn him over to the International Criminal Court to face his indictment for war crimes, perhaps there should just be a payment to Russian soldiers to surrender and be held as a POW until after hostilities cease?
Part of the payment could be an agreement to never fight against Ukraine again, verified by taking fingerprints, DNA samples, extensive facial/body photographs, and iris scans. Then if the Russian soldier ever was found to be fighting in Ukraine again, they would be punished in some manner.
The payments could be: one year's pay for anyone at lieutenant or below, and two years pay for anyone above the grade of lieutenant. A POW camp could be set up in Ukraine as far as possible from Russia. The POW camp would have decent facilities and food, but not spectacular.
You may want to add “gullibility coefficients” around some of the parameters, such as the 50,000 Russian casualties. Secondly, given that the living standards are much higher in Russia than in Ukraine (even before the war), if the goal of your project is to end the war, wouldn’t it be cheaper to pay Ukrainians to surrender?
"Secondly, given that the living standards are much higher in Russia than in Ukraine (even before the war), if the goal of your project is to end the war, wouldn’t it be cheaper to pay Ukrainians to surrender?"
I think the cheapest solution would be paying Russians to surrender...rather than paying them with EU citizenship for them and their families if they defect.
If we pay Russians to surrender, we don't need to deal with them and their families moving to another country. All we need is to house and feed them until the war is over. And I think most Russian soldiers, fighting in a war of aggression in a foreign country, would probably surrender for very little money. It beats getting killed in that foreign country.
Excellent idea. Mail it to Putin. We shall see, how "eager" Ukrainians defending their homeland are to sell-out to the Kremlin. - As Caplan pointed out: You also should trust the side making promises. Thus - in his opinion - the EU/US should make the offer (Russians believe those, no matter what ORT claims) and not just Ukraine. Otos: Not even many Russians seem to believe the golden promises for serving in Putin's latest war.
Living standards much higher in Russia? I guess that's why the Russians were stealing toilets and washing machines...
It is true that Russian GDP per capita is more than twice that of Ukraine - living standards are indeed higher there than in Ukraine. But Russian soldiers were probably on the low end of the income distribution, and thus desperate.
You title the post, "Paying for Peace." But we should *not* be "paying for peace". We should be paying for *justice.*
*Justice* would involve Vladimir Putin being arrested and tried for the crimes for which he has been indicted.
It seems likely that if the goal is removing Putin from power but keeping him alive to try in court then destabilizing his regime by defeating him on the battlefield is one of the best ways of doing that: and with that in mind, as demand curves slope downwards, we should investigate the cheapest way of doing that to the West to ensure the maximum probability it does in fact occur. The post above provides indicative evidence it is possible to defeat Putin at a much lower cost than existing policies, so it may be profitable to research the scheme further.
"It seems likely that if the goal is removing Putin from power but keeping him alive to try in court then destabilizing his regime by defeating him on the battlefield is one of the best ways of doing that:..."
The problem is that the Russian military doesn't want to be defeated on the battlefield. In my proposed plan, they're not defeated. In my plan, all that they do is to arrest one man, Putin, extradite him to the International Criminal Court, and aid in setting up a democracy in their country.
If we pay soldiers to defect, the soldiers that remain will likely get slaughtered on the battlefield. And the defectors may end up with many members of their family killed, and there is a high likelihood that they'd never be able to return to Russia.
If, on the other hand, if we pay the whole military, not only would their families likely be safe, and they'd likely be able to stay in Russia, they could even end up being praised by their fellow citizens for helping to set up a democracy.
The ability of low-ranking officers to engineer a coup without higher level support feels limited: in principle your proposed scheme and ours are fully compatable if you were to offer large payments to any individuals responsible for a coup were it to be carried out (expecting senior officers to do so) but to further incentivise a coup occurring you continued to undermine Russia's military capabilities using the cheapest available methods, which the post above has demonstrated may be paying other soldiers to defect.
Offering payments to the entire Russian army regardless of their part in any coup feels extremely wastleful however: most of the money would go to paying individuals who did not contribute at all to the coup, meaning much better results could be achieved at lower cost by offering larger payments to up to say 1000 officers actually involved in the coup in question.
"The ability of low-ranking officers to engineer a coup without higher level support feels limited:..."
Yes, the main purpose of paying the people at the rank of lieutenant colonel or below would be to keep them "on board" in setting up the democracy that would replace Putin's rule. One thing that I think the debacle in Iraq made pretty clear is that unemployed members of the military can create significant problems when setting up a new, democratic government.
"Offering payments to the entire Russian army regardless of their part in any coup feels extremely wastleful however: most of the money would go to paying individuals who did not contribute at all to the coup, meaning much better results could be achieved at lower cost by offering larger payments to up to say 1000 officers actually involved in the coup in question."
Yes, paying more to officers actually involved in the coup is a very good idea. For example, rather than paying $900,000 to every general, we could pay an *average* of $400,000 to every general, but up to $900,000 for the generals that participate in the coup.
I think we're in very strong agreement that it should be possible to find *something* better than the current situation of people killing each other and blowing up houses and factories, based on the whims and desires of Vladimir Putin.
I personally have no knowledge of how militaries operate, especially the Russian military. I think it would be very helpful to involve people with knowledge of Russia's military, to explore what options would be least expensive and most effective. I remain dubious about paying military members and their families to defect...but if people with expertise in the Russian military provided an argument why that would be better than paying them to stay and arrest Putin and set up a democracy, then I'd certainly value that expertise.
As I've written before, I just hope the objective will be not be to simply stop the fighting, but to replace the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin with a democracy...and to have Putin tried in the International Criminal Court for the war crimes of which he's been charged.
I have a better solution. Develop a payment scheme for the Russian military to arrest Vladimir Putin for the war crimes with which he's been charged, and work with the countries making the payments to set up a democracy in Russia.
This is just total spitballing, but the payments might look like:
1) $2 million for generals,
2) $1 million each for colonels,
3) $500,000 for lieutenant colonels,
4) $200,000 for captains
5) $50,000 for officers down to sergeants
6) $10,000 for anything below sergeants.
Based on 830,000 people in the Russian active duty military (all branches), and assuming a rank structure exactly like the U.S. Army, the Russian military would contain the following approximate number of people in each rank category:
Brigadier general or above = 520
Colonel = 6500
Lieutenant colonel = 15,700
Major or Captain = 77,700
Lieutenant to sergeant = 380,000
Corporal or below = 349,000
The total payout to all personnel based on the payout breakdown by rank given above would be approximately $53 billion.
For that, we'd get Vladimir Putin arrested and extradited to stand trial for war crimes, and the Russian military working to set up a democracy in Russia.
Note that, since January 2021, the U.S. has *already* spent $33 billion for aid to Ukraine, and Vladimir Putin is nowhere near arrested, and the Russian military is nowhere near helping to us to set up a democracy in Russia.
I've come up with revised payments for the different ranks. It is based on what I understand the *approximate* annual salaries are for various ranks in the Russian military, times the number of years' salary I think each rank should be paid. I'm thinking the higher ranks should be paid more years of salary....since they are more "career" people.
1) Brigadier general or above --> $60,000/yr times 15 years = $900,000
2) Colonel --> $40,000/yr times 12 years = $480,000
3) Lt. Colonel --> $24,600/yr times 10 years = $264,000
4) Major or captain --> $13,200/yr times 8 years = $105,600
5) Lieutenant down to sergeant -->$7,000/yr times 5 years = $35,000
6) Below sergeant --> $6,000/yr times 5 years = $30,000
Using those values and a total Russian military strength of 850,000 active duty personnel, with the breakdown by rank previously listed, the total cost comes to $40 billion (down from $53 billion based on the initial wild guess payout). The $40 billion would be to:
1) Arrest and extradite Vladimir Putin to the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and
2) Aid in setting up a Russian democracy.
The $40 billion could be paid as $4 billion (10 percent) for the arrest and extradition of Vladimir Putin, and the remaining $36 billion (90 percent) paid over 10 years, provided the person being paid continues to aid in setting up a Russian democracy that's acceptable to the people paying the reward.
If you offered this deal to Ukrainian conscripts they would probably take it too.
I don't think anyone wants to learn under what circumstances their slave armies would stop fighting.
Ukrainian soldiers contemplating a similar deal offered by Russia would face the following drawbacks:
Russian citizenship is less valuable than that of the EU (which they would likely attain if they win the war).
Russia has much less credibility to honour any promises made regarding payments or treatment due to lacking the rule of law.
Russia is lower income than the EU and US so could likely afford only a lower lump sum payment.
Thus, as Caplan originally noted, introducing this scheme to conflicts seems very much asymmetrical - and advantageous to the West.
I think he means that offering Ukrainian soldiers EU citizenship would get them to defect. If the goal is just to stop the war, that would probably be effective, as it would just let Russia win. But if the goal is for Ukraine to win the war, that's obviously counterproductive.
"But if the goal is for Ukraine to win the war, that's obviously counterproductive."
I think the goals should be:
1) Stop the war in a manner such that areas of Ukraine currently occupied by Russia (including Crimea) can be allowed to, as peacefully as possible, decide what country they want to live in.
2) End up with a government of Russia that will not invade neighbors in the future.
3) Achieve some manner of justice (it will almost certainly never be perfect or even sufficient justice) for the crimes committed during the military conflict.
All three of those objectives will be tremendously difficult to achieve. And I don't see how any of those three objectives can be accomplished if Vladimir Putin stays the head of Russia.
1) Based on their ethnicity, language, and voting patterns we could probably just accept that most people behind the front lines would be fine being annexed into Russia if it meant peace.
Even if we held a referendum, everyone would claim it was rigged anyway.
2) I think this is pretty much in the bag already. Russia isn't even capable of invading its neighbors.
3) If we locked up everyone that committed crimes during war several US presidents, generals, and intelligence personal would be locked up. There are no war crimes, only punishment for losing.
If you offered Putin to divide the country along the current front line and move on he would take it in a heartbeat and we could all move on. He will probably die in a decade. Nobody will think taking some shelled out Donbass villages full of pensioners was an accomplishment.
This is easy to achieve. Just tell the Ukranians those are the terms and if they refuse they are cut off.
The entire war could be done tomorrow but it's good for domestic politics and it makes defense contractors rich.
"1) Based on their ethnicity, language, and voting patterns we could probably just accept that most people behind the front lines would be fine being annexed into Russia if it meant peace."
I don't think that's an acceptable assumption unless legitimate voting indicates it's true. And there can be no legitimate voting when Russia has invaded and taken territory by force.
"2) I think this is pretty much in the bag already. Russia isn't even capable of invading its neighbors."
It invaded Ukraine and took first Crimea, and now the southeast of Ukraine from Russia to Crimea.
"3) If we locked up everyone that committed crimes during war several US presidents, generals, and intelligence personal would be locked up. There are no war crimes, only punishment for losing."
No, there are war crimes. There has just been very little, and very uneven, enforcement. The way you're looking at it is equivalent to saying that, because people have gotten away with murder, there is no murder.
"If you offered Putin to divide the country along the current front line and move on he would take it in a heartbeat and we could all move on."
Who is "we"? Do you think the Ukrainian parents who have had their children abducted and given to Russians will "all move on"? What about the Ukrainians living in territories now controlled by Russia? Where do you think they'll "move on" to?
"He will probably die in a decade."
Yes, but the crimes he's committed (e.g. the kidnapping of Ukrainian children, and giving them to Russians) won't be magically reversed when he dies. No will the territories his troops invaded and conquered magically revert to Ukraine when he dies.
1). Seems reasonable enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/files/2014/06/Kudelia-Figure2.jpg
I can't imagine anyone accepting an election under any circumstances at this point. Feels like a pragmatic compromise.
2) So Russia, a country roughly 10x Ukraine in GDP, was able to blitz some mostly depopulated areas in roughly friendly territory, take no significant cities, and then completely stall out for a year (oh I forgot they also lost huge swatch of territory).
I'm sure NATO is QUAKING in its boots over such a GOLIATH.
3) Who cares? You think you wouldn't find war crimes on the Ukrainian side too? I've got some videos of how they treat "traitors" to show you.
The only wars that end in war crimes trials are TOTAL WARS where you take the enemy capital in ruins. Do you plan on fielding an army and marching to Moscow? No. Then grow up.
The people behind the Russian lines are mostly Russians who would mostly be happy with being a part of Russia and having the war end. You instance of considering these people are territories "Ukrainian" because of some arbitrary lines on a map is propaganda used to justify continuing the war.
The war ends when the west says it ends. What would the Ukrainian's do without our support? Nothing, it would be game over. That's why we should tell them that if they don't end the war we are pulling our support.
+1 spot on
The purpose of the war is to let rich westerners live vicariously through Ukrainian conscripts because their lives are a cheap form of dopamine.
Both armies are essentially slave armies were people are conscripted against their will and deserters are shot.
"The evidence cited in the post suggests people value their children’s utility as 9% of their own"
There are no autistics in the foxholes I guess.
If I were russia I'd just kill the families of people who defect. Easy-peasy. how do you model that?
In terms of modelling were this to occur: The evidence cited in the post suggests people value their children’s utility as 9% of their own: assuming such a ratio holds then the fraction of utility that people would value the death of their immediate family (siblings + parents + children) as under average Russian family sizes is going to be ~<50% of their own utility (summing average birth rate today + highest average birth rate in past 60 years + 2 parents. Assumes all family alive, have already had all children, siblings had in highest birth rate year etc.). If this is put into the model you get that a $100,000 payment would still be sufficient (https://rpubs.com/Test509/1021826) to induce defection with the chance of being unsuccessful just below 10%.
In terms of plausibility of it actually occurring: Putin likely lacks the legitimacy to murder tens of thousands of innocent Russian civilians, as the long delays in mobilisation show. Even if Russia could credibly threaten to do this in the first say 1000 cases, the result would just likely be that individuals who cared little for their families would take advantage of the scheme, vast amounts of political capital would be spent on killing the families of those first defectors, and then if the scheme is axed afterwards then the scenario originally described in the blog post above occurs.
I don't think Putin would murder the families but if this scheme were launched at large scale, he would probably find ways to imprison them/take the children away from the family (like this case https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-father-whose-daughter-drew-anti-war-picture-given-two-years-jail-2023-03-28/). And there's a difference between statistical valuation of a small risk or valuation of a small change in utility and the value you assign to a near-certain loss of a spouse's freedom/children being taken away from you. There may be some irrationality too. I know lots of Russians who emigrated to the US, and many of them at least claim to be afraid to speak up against the war publicly out of fear that Putin will do something to their families in Russia (which is quite implausible given that I'm not thinking of publicly prominent individuals here).
Some irrationality is possible but the same logic as I gave in the second paragraph of my reply above likely holds: if Putin can credibly promise to imprison only 10,000 innocent family members (equivalent to considerably fewer soldiers), Russians with the least ties to family defect first, Putin runs out of political capital and then everyone else can follow. This would slow the rate at which the scheme progresses (and thus cause more Ukrainian casualties relative to the counterfactual) but would likely not change the eventual outcome.
"I don't think Putin would murder the families but if this scheme were launched at large scale, he would probably find ways to imprison them/take the children away from the family (like this case..."
Yes, that's part of why I think simple payment to Russians to surrender and sit the war out in POW camps is the way to go.
There's no history of soldiers defecting to other countries in the middle of wars. But there's plenty of history of soldiers surrendering during wars.
"If I were Russia I'd just kill the families of people who defect. Easy-peasy."
That's why the proper way to work this situation is not to pay the members of the Russian military to *defect,* but to instead pay them to *arrest* Vladimir Putin for the war crimes with which he's been charged, and help the countries paying the reward to set up a democracy as a replacement. That way, the military members who arrest Vladimir Putin are no longer in danger, because he is out of power, and a democracy has been set up as a replacement.