History’s Not Just About Great Men: Peter Frankopan on Iran and Ukraine

July 31, 2026

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5 min read

History’s Not Just About Great Men: Peter Frankopan on Iran and Ukraine

In the opening minutes of this episode, historian Peter Frankopan makes a claim that cuts against the grain of how we usually talk about war: “If you decide to fight a war of choice, it’s very hard to win. If you’re fighting a war of existence, your capacity is limitless.” That distinction—between choosing a fight and being forced into one—runs through the entire conversation, linking two conflicts that rarely get analyzed together: the US-Iran war and the Russia-Ukraine war. Frankopan, a professor of global history at Oxford and author of Silk Roads and The Earth Transformed, argues that both the United States and Russia have fundamentally mispriced the resilience of their adversaries.

Wars of Choice vs. Wars of Existence

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What you'll learn

1 (02:06) **Opening: A Historian’s View of Two Wars** - Peter Frankopan introduces the core idea that history is driven by logistics and geography, not just great men.
2 (06:17) **Core Diagnostic: Wars of Choice vs. Wars of Existence** - Frankopan explains why Iran and Ukraine can absorb enormous punishment, a key miscalculation by both Washington and Moscow.
3 (07:35) **State of Play: Ukraine’s New Phase** - Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian oil refineries and logistics hubs have brought the war’s cost into daily Russian life.
4 (09:01) **The Russia-Iran-China Triangle** - Frankopan traces the material and strategic links between the two conflicts, including Iran’s drone supply to Russia.
5 (10:40) **Origins: How a Historian Looks East** - Frankopan explains how his childhood fear of nuclear war and a rare school Arabic teacher led him to study Russia, Iran, and the Middle East.
6 (14:13) **Warning Sign: The Unchanged Russian Mindset** - The end of the Soviet Union did not change Russia’s core decision-making structure, which remains a small group of aging men.
7 (17:03) **Looking Forward: Landing Zone for Ukraine?** - Frankopan diagnoses the likelihood of a frozen conflict versus continued escalation.

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Show Notes

Uncertainty about the US-Israel war with Iran and its endgame continues to cast a long shadow over global trade, while Ukraine’s increasingly sophisticated counterattacks are imposing mounting costs on Russia.

What are the combined implications of these two wars? In this conversation with Mishal Husain, Oxford University historian Peter Frankopan argues we are entering an era of consolidation and new alliances, especially between middle powers, and that predictions of US decline are wrong.

Read Mishal’s notes on this conversation www.bloomberg.com/mishal

Contact The Mishal Husain Show [email protected]

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