Day 928

Tree Trimming with Det-chord

Ukraine’s Z sharpens appeal to end restrictions on weapons. Z’’s appearance at the meeting of arms-donating nations in Germany underscores the critical juncture in Ukraine’s war with Russia (The Washington Post, September 6, 2024)

No one is interested in Z’s beseechments, except maybe Sean Penn. The president has discredited himself too many times to be taken seriously. His authoritative charisma might still influence some western leaders, but we are sick of it here.

Our big intellectual project is to try to figure out when and why and how and what variables Ukraine can dial up and dial down to generate better governance and better military outcomes. We have very highly contingent hypotheses with some bits of evidence for the case involving the supreme commander-in-chief, who appears to have lost his mind.

It's hard work empirically and it calls for very different sorts of tools, including heavy econometric quantitative sorts of evidence, but also qualitative evidence from spending y…