GEOPOLITICAL PREDICTIONS: PLACE YOUR BETS: “When I wrote about why Margaret Thatcher mattered, I concluded ‘that the political figures who matter have two rare gifts,’” Claire Berlinski notes at Ricochet:

First, they are able to perceive the gathering of historical forces in a way their contemporaries were unable to do. What do I mean by “the gathering of historical forces?” I mean, they are able to sense the big picture. Lenin was able to discern a convergence of trends in Czarist Russia — the migration of the peasants, the rise of revolutionary consciousness, the weakness of the Czarist government, the debilitation inflicted upon Russia by the First World War — and to recognize what this convergence implied: The old order could now be toppled — not merely reformed, but destroyed. Czar Nicholas II could not perceive this. It is thus that Lenin now matters and Nicholas II does not.

Second, when promoted to power, those who matter are able to master those historical forces. Chiang understood perfectly that China was vulnerable to communism and understood as well what communism in China would mean. But he was unable, for all his energy and efforts, to master them. And so, tragically, he does not matter.

Read the whole thing. At the conclusion of her post, Berlinski asks her readers:

So let’s hear from you. What will the world be like in six months, next year, in five years, in twenty? What are the most important gathering historical forces? What is the big picture? Which political figure, if any, has shown a sign that he — or she — has the ability to master them? If none of them do, and if the task by some accident fell to you, how would you approach it?

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