Utility-based predictions of military escalation: Why experts forecasted Russia would not invade Ukraine

Abstract

ABSTRACT When Russia amassed troops in the winter of 2021–2022, many analysts deemed a large-scale invasion of Ukraine unlikely. Surveying the expert literature, we establish that these arguments largely relied on utility-based reasoning: Analysts thought an invasion was improbable, as it would foreseeably entail massive costs for Russia, its people, and its regime. We show that this regnant expert opinion had not sufficiently accounted for the Russian regime’s tendencies to increasingly accept risks, coupled with an inadequate processing of information on Ukrainian and Western views and policies. We argue that analysts miscalculated partially because the most prominent facts, long-term trends, and causal mechanisms available to them jointly suggested Russian cost-sensitivity, but provided only weak signs of countervailing factors. We thereby showcase that good forecasting requires explicit theory with a view on multiple interacting causal factors, area expertise and Socratic humility on the extent, context and certainty of our findings.