Putin's presidential plane visit to US sparks questions

There’s still time! Reminds me of the investing advice adage - current performance does not predict future results. My opinion is that they are all insane. But then again I naturally distrust people who seek authority. And re Putin’s insanity specifically, are you aware of his backstory of how he came into power in Russia? He’s shady as hell to his own people.

Stalin also had nukes BTW.

Nuclear weapons are very political. In the US it's the only weapon whose use is authorized by the president alone. Putin may not care about a NATO response but he does care about keeping those under him in check. A nuclear response could be very bad for them which would also be bad for Putin. He still needs to keep the fat cats fat.

Also I don’t see how the west “abandoning” Ukraine would make them suddenly buddy buddy with Russia who’s currently killing them. That makes no sense.

Not buddy buddy per se - but you need to remember that some people in Ukraine are still sympathetic to Russia and think Ukraine should have sided with them. This would give them a lot of rhetorical ammo for some time.

You apply game theory to lower stakes situations like prisoners flipping to get their sentence reduced, not the chance or nuclear war.

What? No. Just no.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anything else you said but this is very wrong.

For the record, you still haven't actually addressed the logic at hand. You simply keep, wrongly, suggesting there are limits where one can apply game theory when MAD of the Cold War is almost by definition textbook Game Theory.

To your Ad Hominem, honestly, I don't particularly desire to be around most of them all that much either so it works out. I have my loved ones and I'm content. Go to your parties and drink; leave geopolitics to me I guess?

Bonus history lesson:

The first mathematical discussion of the prisoner's dilemma appeared, and an experiment was undertaken by mathematicians Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher, as part of the RAND Corporation's investigations into game theory. RAND pursued the studies because of possible applications to global nuclear strategy.[15]

Edit: For the record, you sound like a complete twat that nobody wants to be around.

Extremely childish and bullying.

I can guarantee by your edit, that your personality is absolute garbage and more likely than not, people don't want to be around you. You're probably not even aware of it because of your own narcissism.

Numerous sources suggest it has been in consideration by the Biden camp since mid November. I suppose we'll see.

Russia is hemorrhaging losses themselves while their economy on a war time footing cannot sustain this in perpetuity; after all a smaller Soviet-Afghanistan war contributed to the over-toppling of the mightier USSR — mostly along economic lines. They need an off-ramp themselves, and fairly quickly. To suggest the country that has continued to escalate war crimes in Ukraine would suddenly stop escalating — especially now having a key ally in who was once their largest geopolitical threat — I think is somewhat naive.

Putting myself in the shoes of a psychopath like Putin, you're gauging how far you can push the limit on the geopolitical stage. Would I want to end this conflict sooner than later and decisively? Would I not be praised domestically as a hero who vanquished a foreign adversary? Yes. Is it likely I'll ever actually conquer Kyiv by conventional means if the first months failed with my forces at their strongest? No. Could I get away with a nuke under Biden? Probably not. Could I with Trump? Probably yes.

To ask what would that gain for Russia is kind of moot in my view because ultimately, Russia has already lost far more than they've gained in waging this conflict. Their economy is in tatters; their armies exposed as weak and incompetent and crippled. What geopolitical status they had in the West before has completely washed away. Sure they gained something like 17-19% of land including Crimea, but they'll be suffering for decades to come. This is mostly about legacy and vengeance for the cold war in the eyes of Putin and that's reflected in his own essay and the Foundations of Geopolitics.

Either way, the threat is enough that has deterred the West from engaging in conventional defense of Ukraine. I'd say that's concerning enough to warrant provision of a handful of nuclear missiles to Ukraine to serve as a direct deterrent. Ideally one would simply move these nukes into Ukraine and then reveal to Putin that they have already been put in place and ready to respond. Again, the goal is deterrence of course.

Edit: Let's not forget that Putin recently escalated yet again, using an inert MIRV intermediate ballistic missile whose payload would normally contain multiple nuclear warheads. (the first documented use of a MIRV in combat, apparently).