The Great Man theory of current events

Why has the Ukrainian resistance been so successful? Surely some of it comes down to the charisma and effective leadership of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Photo: Bloomberg

Historical biography is a perennially popular genre. But in the academy, "great man" accounts of history have been unfashionable for a couple of generations. Most historians focus on broad structural factors.

They are not wrong. The Great Man theory is a limited frame through which to view history, not least because it ignores half the human population. But it remains useful — underrated, even — as a way to understand leadership in an era of hyperpartisanship.

The current emphasis on structural influences reflects a turn away from traditional political history and its focus on the clash of big personalities. Alan Taylor's excellent recent history "American Republics," covering the period between 1783 and 1850, for example, is relatively light in its coverage of classic set pieces of American history, such as Andrew Jackson's war on the First Bank of the United States. 

Instead, it delves into formerly neglected topics such as the status of Hispanic residents of Texas, California and other lands seized in the Mexican-American War, or the contrasting U.S. and British approaches to the indigenous residents of the Pacific Northwest. The most recent volume in the Oxford History of the United States, Richard White's book on Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, is so focused on sweeping social and economic trends that it barely covers political history at all.

And yet: It is hard to look at the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has turned the global economy upside down and reordered Europe's military priorities and deny the singular influence of Vladimir Putin's particular ideas and judgments on the course of world affairs.

To be sure, the roots of Russian scepticism of Ukraine's right to a distinctive national identity go back centuries. Any Russian leader would be protective of the interests of Russophone Ukrainians, eager to keep NATO away from his borders and perhaps reluctant to accept the legitimacy of the late Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's decision to shift the Crimean peninsula from the Russian Soviet Federal Republic to the Ukrainian one (itself an example of the influence of individual idiosyncrasy on world history).

Even so, there was no need for tensions to explode into a full-scale invasion. Putin simply thought it was a good idea. He was clearly not counting on both Ukrainian resistance and Western pushback to be as effective as they have been.

Sketch: TBS

And why has Ukrainian resistance been so successful? Some of it is tactical errors on the part of the invading Russians. Some are the inherent appeal of defending one's homeland.

But some of it surely comes down to the charisma and effective leadership of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a somewhat unlikely success story who entered Ukrainian politics from the entertainment world and has taken those same skills onto the world stage. And of course, the idea of a charismatic television personality shaking up politics is familiar to Americans, who watched Donald Trump go from reality-TV host to president.

Again, much of Trumpist politics is structural. Polarisation of the electorate along the lines of educational attainment is visible in almost every developed country, as is the rise of new forms of right-wing politics that emphasise anti-immigration and anti-establishment themes more than hostility to taxes and the welfare state.

Other features feel much more contingent. In Australia, a right-wing populist government responded to the outbreak of Covid-19 with border closures and strict lockdowns. One can imagine a version of U.S. politics in which Trump followed a similar policy, turning the entire politics of Covid upside down — with Republicans, the party of the elderly, in favour of strict measures that liberals see as punitive to the poor and to urban economies while increasing reliance on the law enforcement apparatus they view as racist.

Nor is there any real element of historical necessity to Trump's yearslong infatuation with Putin. Many European politicians on the populist right share Trump's affection for the Russian dictator — but many others, including the current leaders of Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, are on the opposite side.

The contingency of personality plays out domestically as well. Last year Senator Joe Manchin chose to support his president, Joe Biden, in his request for the American Rescue Plan rather than insisting on a smaller relief package from moderate Republicans. Today, Manchin probably regrets that — as do, quietly, many more progressive Democrats.

I have a little collection of scholarly essays, published 10 years ago, called "Why Did The United States Invade Iraq?" Its very existence tends to underscore the inadequacy of broad structural accounts of world affairs. Even for those of us who participated in those debates, it is a bit difficult to say in retrospect exactly why some leaders made the decisions that they did. The best possible explanations ultimately come down to some version of, "George W. Bush thought it was a good idea." Certainly, if he had profound doubts, nobody was in a position to force him to do it.

Will Chinese President Xi Jinping look at Russia's unexpected difficulties in Ukraine and think twice about attacking Taiwan? Or will he decide that with the West bogged down and economic disruption already sweeping the world, the time is right to strike? You would have to ask him — because, fundamentally, the decision is his to make.

The world's ability to survive two generations of Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union without a nuclear exchange makes that outcome feel inevitable. But at several crucial moments, including the blockade of Berlin and the Cuban missile crisis, the two sides came perilously close to war. It is fashionable today to deride Baby Boomers' affection for John F. Kennedy as a sentimental attachment to a president whose actual achievements were slight. Yet managing to not get the world blown up is an impressive achievement.

Is there a lesson here? Maybe it is that choosing wise leaders is more important than choosing meaningful issues. It is easy to believe it does not really matter who sits in which chair as long as you know which coalition he is a member of and whose bills he will sign. But the judgement and temperament of the person with his finger on the button really is critical.

In 2019 and 2020, there were hours of Democratic presidential debates in which various candidates either did or did not pledge fealty to various interest-group demands — even as it was obvious that even the most circumspect contenders (such as Biden) were promising more than Congress would plausibly enact. America's nominating process dedicates almost no time to asking candidates how they think about crisis management or catastrophic risks.

In this particular case, the country came out with a good choice — Biden is a steady hand who has united much of the world to check Russian aggression without indulging hot-headed calls for direct U.S. military involvement. But it is hard to argue that this was anything other than good luck.

Matthew Yglesias is a Bloomberg columnist and Senior Fellow, Niskanen Centre.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Bloomberg, and is published by special syndication arrangement.