Forcing Russia to respect minsk protocols with dollar auction-game model

Abstract

Four years of active international sanctions against Russia have brought no signs of visible progress, neither in terms of respecting Ukrainian territorial integrity or the agreements of Minsk and Sevastopol, nor in terms of Putin’s regime leaving power. The EU-US negative conditionality (sanctions) against Russia seems to be losing its momentum despite new measures taken and prolonged in 2017. Russia’s annexation of Crimea as well as the separatist control across the strategically important industrial and resource rich cities of the Eastern Ukraine has not been effectively dealt with. Accordingly, in many aspects the situation meets Russian expectations to retain the occupied territories and wait for the softening of international reactions. Thus, there are good grounds for inquiring into the possibility of the West taking control over the situation in Ukraine and ending the geopolitical power struggle in the region. It is in this context that the game theory, and particularly the “dollar auction game” strategy, offer an intriguing insight into the dynamics of the escalation of the conflict and a dynamic model, thereby showing some future-oriented alternatives of how to get out of the crisis before the costs become excessive for all the “players” involved.