winkelby

this is a great question because there are so many sub-texts to parse through.

first and foremost, will putin remain in power until 2027? given the social security actuarial tables - the base case for a 71 year old to make it to 2027 (in the USA, anyway) is ~93%. subtract about 5% for political risk (being deposed)  and he has a 87.5% chance of living that long. probably less if you figure in the hit teams targeting him (low chance of success but high value if successful - so worth the risk).  so i put a ~85% chance he is power until 2027. 

next, you have the look at the geography, ethnic make up and strategic resources of each of the target countries. which ones have the highest russian speakers? which ones does he have to plow through to "liberate" Kaliningrad Oblast? which ones have something he would actually want to risk a war with NATO and the EU over? which ones would be the easiest to conquer if left to their own devices?

per the CIA fact book: Estonia and Latvia are ~25% russian, Lithuania is 5%.

all three beefed up their militaries since Ukraine - introducing conscription, have large trained reserves, and are NATO armed. 

you have to go through Lithuania to get to Kaliningrad Oblast. (if i were putin, my war plan would be to plow through Lithuania - cutting off land routes to the other two and then mop them up.) 

Estonia is the largest supplier of rare earth materials to the USA (behind china).  that fact deserves note. 

IMO ultimately, a land grab - even if successful - would be futile. the citizenry of all three have lived under freedom most of their lives and are highly educated. subjugating them for any period of time will be extremely difficult.

lowering forecast with clock running out.

my visibility into whats happening in iran is very limited. while i believe that increased sanctions will increase the likelihood of social unrest, the warmongering seems to help galvanize public opinion for the govt. also, it seems to me that the real divide is more along religious lines (IE hardliners vs. laissez fairers) - not economic or political lines. yeah, the protesters hate the govt - but if the religious police just back off on head covering  enforcement it will quell a lot of their impetus to protest.  will the govt do that? how the hell would i know? like i said i have no visibility into iranian public opinion.

im putting the odds of this fairly low. i dont have any data to determine a base case so this is all gut. recently there have been strikes but fatalities were, thankfully, well below this threshold. ukraines air defenses are pretty good and will get better with more US aid. also, it seems to me that russia is resourced constrained. yes they can fire missiles, but only so many in a given day  

speaking of resources , how in the world is russia building and deploying so many missiles? one would think their stockpile would be running low. id be interested to see their missile production and deployment data. i think i heard the commerce sec. saying on 60 minutes that the russians were stripping refrigerators, microwave ovens - anything with the right chips - to keep their war machine running.