Genghis Khan had the most powerful military ever seen

The argument

The claim here is comparative rather than absolute. Genghis Khan is a candidate for the most powerful leader of all time because of the military power he exercised relative to other powers at the time. Power measured this way is not a matter of territory or wealth in the abstract but of the margin between what one force can do and what anything else in the world can do to stop it. On that measure the Mongol Empire had a formidable army unmatched by any other military at the time. The argument then anticipates the obvious rival case. The only other empire that even came close to the level of military dominance exerted by the Mongol Empire would be the British Empire, which at its height enjoyed a comparable gap over its contemporaries. But the question asks about a person rather than a state, and that is where the comparison breaks down. No individual in the British Empire enjoyed a level of power comparable to Genghis Khan, because British dominance was exercised through institutions that divided authority among many hands. The specifics of that division do the work. The British monarch was limited by Parliament, so the formal head of state could not direct the empire's force at will, and Prime Ministers were not autocratic either, holding office at the sufferance of a legislature and a cabinet. Dominance of that kind belongs to a system rather than to any person within it, and it is checked at every point by someone whose agreement is required. Genghis Khan, by contrast, held personal and unconstrained command over the force he led, so the empire's military supremacy and one man's authority were the same thing. Combining the largest relative military advantage of its era with undivided personal control over it is what this argument treats as making him the most powerful person of all time.

Context

Military power is one of the most coveted forms of power. It affords a leader stability and the ability to crush their enemies.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Military power is not as powerful as ideological power. This can be seen through history. The Soviet Union's defeat in Afghanistan and the US defeat in Vietnam are two clear indicators that military power has its limits. To become truly powerful, a leader must capture a population's hearts and minds. Genghis Kahn failed to capture people's hearts and minds. He forced his leadership on people and built an army of slaves. If he had been around today, an insurgency movement would have plagued his leadership and he would have been unable to build an empire.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Military power is far less important than ideological power. [Rejecting P3] Genghis Kahn amassed almost no ideological power.

Framing

Military power is a valuable source of power. Genghis Kahn amassed an unstoppable and unprecedented amount of military power.