Beyond Great ForcesNovember/December 2019 149a time when vast impersonal forces appear to deÄne our world, that
bias against the individual might seem justiÄed. Economics, technol-
ogy, and politics are all changing in ways that seemed unimaginable
only decades ago. Developments in communications, transportation,
climate, education, cultural values, and health have fundamentally
altered relationships among people within communities and across
the globe. The information revolution has given rise to the super-
empowered individual and the superempowered state and pitted
them against each other. Meanwhile, power is being redistributed
across the globe, with the unipolar era o American primacy that fol-
lowed the Cold War giving way to an unpredictable multipolarity.
Such are the faceless beasts wreaking havoc today.
Structural factors and technological change no doubt drive much o
states’ behavior, but they are not the only pieces o the puzzle. Even
today, individual leaders can ride, guide, or resist the broader forces o
international politics. And so there are still some men and women who
are charting their nations’ paths—some beneÄcial, some disastrous,
but all inconceivable without those leaders’ individual characters.
THE REVOLUTIONARIES
Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,
or MBS, is the most obvious example o a leader defying the pressure
o both domestic politics and international circumstances and, in so
doing, redeÄning both, for better and worse. For decades, change in
Saudi Arabia moved at a glacial pace. The question o whether women
should be allowed to drive, for example, had been debated since 1990
with no resolution. Saudi leaders ruled collectively, ensuring that any
policy changes were accepted by all the major branches o the sprawl-
ing royal family and the religious establishment. Although the ruling
elite talked about the importance o fundamental reform for years,
they did little to nothing, thwarted by conservative clerics, powerful
economic interests, and a consensus-oriented political culture.
Then came MBS. MBS means to upend Saudi Arabia’s economy
and society (but, crucially, not its political system), and he has begun
secularizing Saudi society, overhauling the kingdom’s traditional ed-
ucational system, and reforming its stunted economy. Like an earlier
generation o autocratic modernizers—Benito Mussolini o Italy,
Kemal Ataturk o Turkey, Stalin, and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi
o Iran—he is determined to drag his country into the new century