a man in a suit who speaks at conferences, discusses economic indicators, social programs, all sorts of taxes, and endlessly coordinates something.

We have grown accustomed to perceiving this as the natural evolution of politics. Once there were kings, military commanders, and warlords, and now a higher stage of development has arrived — the politics of professional managers.

But history is not obliged to move in a straight line. And now it is becoming clear that the image of the politician of recent decades was a product of a very specific era of relative peace. When hard geopolitical confrontation returns, the old requirements for a leader also return. The head of state is once again required to understand foreign policy, war, the army, industry, technology, resources, and the country’s ability to withstand prolonged confrontation.

Of course, the economy remains critically important. A competitive society, efficient industry, education, infrastructure, and a normal state system are of enormous significance. But in an era of confrontation, all of this once again begins to be evaluated, among other things, through the state’s ability to wage struggle.

A strong economy is also needed because it allows the production of more weapons, faster development of technology, maintenance of an army, and the weathering of crises. Strong education produces engineers and officers. An effective state allows resources to be mobilized more quickly. And at the top of this system a person is required who understands why all of this is necessary and where he is leading the country.

In the West there is today an obvious shortage of such figures. Political elites have for decades been cultivated inside the bureaucratic system of peacetime. Even many military leaders have gradually turned into a special type of official: they know how to work inside a huge administrative machine, but are by no means necessarily capable of becoming independent political leaders.

In different countries today people are once again beginning to look for a person capable of leading the state under conditions of war. And it is precisely here, perhaps, that one of the reasons for Putin’s rather strange popularity among part of the Western audience lies. It is by no means necessarily connected with love for the Russian political system or authoritarianism. Putin fills the need for a different archetype — the image of a military leader. In the public space he appears as a person who understands geopolitics, speaks confidently, and demonstrates knowledge of details. He formulates strategic goals and creates the impression that he knows where he is leading the country. What matters here is precisely the image. Against the background of Western politics, where a leader often looks like just another manager of a huge bureaucratic corporation, such an image turns out to be extremely powerful.

People feel that the world has changed faster than the political system. The era that gave birth to the politician in a suit with a PowerPoint presentation is coming to an end. An era is returning in which a leader will once again be asked something completely different: do you know how to understand war, choose an enemy and an ally, build a strategy, mobilize the state, and win. We considered the military leader a relic of the past, but perhaps it was simply a very long pause.

@madam_secretar