Updates on Russian Desertion and the Freedom/Merit Statement
One of the earliest Bet On It posts was called “Make Desertion Fast”:
Enticement to desert should be a standard part of military strategy, but hardly ever is. But let me propose a Version 2.0 to better fulfill the intent of the original offer.
Version 2.0: The EU, in cooperation with Ukraine, offers $100,000 plus EU citizenship to any Russian deserter. Russians can either go directly to the EU, or surrender to Ukrainian forces for speedy transport to the EU border.
Recently Duncan McClements and Jason Hausenloy tried to estimate the critical monetary value required to actual induce desertion:
In this post, we provide a simple model of the effect of such a policy. Conservatively, we conclude that if there is a <17% chance of death while trying to defect, a $100,000 payment is sufficient to incentivise the average Russian soldier to do so – meaning that it might cost as little as $20bn to end the war entirely.
I admire the effort, but since their model is supposed to actually guide action, I think it was a big mistake to omit marketing as a key variable. In hindsight, Ukraine’s initial offer was only a publicity stunt. If Zelensky restated the offer in every public statement, or better yet appeared at televised ceremonies handing Russian deserters their payments, even the initial Ukrainian offer would have been pretty effective. Offhandedly mentioning a deal once or twice, in contrast, will barely work.
I wrote the most controversial parts of the text, but it was my colleague Dan Klein spearheaded the Statement of Commitment to Academic Freedom and Intellectual Merit. Here, Brandli Stitzel interviews Dan of the Statement and related issues on the EconBuff podcast.
Click here for bonus materials, including a full transcript. Enjoy!
I mean, I love the idea but I doubt it would go very far. These potential deserters have families back home, yes? Wives, mothers, sisters?
All the Russian government would need to do is retaliate against a few of them and the desertions would dry up real quick
You don't seem to have considered the real problem with the paying for desertion strategy: the enemy would immediately exploit it by training soldiers to defect and then launch attacks from behind our own lines. (Or flooding the system with fake deserters, who were never soldiers in the first place, etc.)
The use of the EU would help, but in order to be effective, the deserting soldiers have to be completely removed from the theatre of war - sent to South America, perhaps. This makes the project harder to administer, and thus less credible.