"Let Us Now Praise Great Men" by Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, in International Security (Spring 2001), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Univ., 79 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138.

Political scientists striving for a theoretical explanation of international relations are inclined these days to pooh-pooh the significance of individual leaders. Of what importance could "Cleopatra’s nose" be in shaping history, they ask dismissively, compared with the anarchic system of nation-states, the weight of domestic politics, or the dynamics of institutions? It’s impersonal forces such as those, they insist, that determine the course of international events.

How strange, then, that makers of foreign policy in the world’s capitals expend so much time and effort trying to fathom the goals, abilities, and idiosyncrasies of leaders such as George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, and Jiang Zemin. Are the policymakers daft? No, argue Byman, research director of RAND’s Center for Middle East Public Policy, and Pollack, a senior research professor at the National Defense University.

Why are theorists reluctant to explore the role of individuals? If pressed, most will admit that individuals do make a difference in international relations, at least on occasion, say the authors. But "their influence does not lend itself to the generalizations that political scientists seek" in their effort to explain how international relations work, some theorists contend. Byman and Pollack disagree. Plausible and testable hypotheses can indeed be set forth, they aver, and they offer a baker’s dozen (e.g., "States led by leaders with grandiose visions are more likely to destabilize the system").

While German resentment of the harsh Treaty of Versailles, and other large, impersonal forces helped bring on World War II, Adolf Hitler still was the most important single cause. His grandiose aspirations for Germany far exceeded the ambitions of the German people, and went well beyond even the appetites of most of the mainstream nationalist parties and the army high command. Since Britain and France were eager to compromise in order to avert war, say the authors, Germany "should have been able to achieve the moderate revisionist goals espoused by most Germans without sparking a general European war. Only Hitler’s personal ambitions made such a conflict unavoidable."

Hitler’s influence on events was unusual but not unique. The authors also examine in detail several other cases: the contrasting impacts on European politics of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (for peace) and Kaiser Wilhelm II (for war); Napoleon Bonaparte’s role in determining not only the intentions of France, but its capabilities and the reactions of other states; the difference that the contrasting personalities of dictators Saddam Hussein (reckless) and Hafiz al-Asad (cautious) made in the behavior of Iraq and Syria, respectively, after the Cold War.

It is especially important to acknowledge the role of individuals, the authors argue, in order to dispel the dangerous illusion that events are the inevitable products of forces—nationalism, ethnic differences, economic imperatives—beyond human control.