Poisoned Ivies (August 16, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away. I keep waiting for the dog days of summer, but they seem not to have arrived. Increasingly, I think they never will. Too much going on, including the 55th anniversary of Woodstock, where the author of this newsletter was present, away from home you might say. Here goes.
Running & Resignation
At Home, the news is mostly political. The polls continue to show a shift toward the Harris-Walz ticket that Republican attacks have been unable to halt. It turns out the decisive event of this political season was less the attempted assassination of Donald Trump than it was the delayed decision by Joe Biden not to seek re-election. For the record, the Elon Musk-Trump conversation (whatever it was, it was not an interview) on X did not affect the course of history, although I will confess to more than a little schadenfreude when technology glitches prevented it from starting on time.
The Republicans are being hurt by their candidate’s seeming inability to stay focused on the policy issues that should buttress them, above all immigration and the fact that the cost for food and other basics is well above where they were four years ago. (This still matters for voters even with the recent news that inflation is now under 3%.) We will know more, though, after the Democratic Convention next week…and a lot more after Labor Day (when Americans traditionally start to pay more attention to the election), and should any debates come to pass.
One other Home story: the resignation of Columbia University President Minouche Shafik just months after her counterparts at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania were forced out. I was actually relieved for her, as she was not the right person for the moment. That said, I am not sure there is a right person. Running a university is arguably on the short list of the worst jobs in America given the multiple constituencies (including tenured faculty, boards, alumni, students, etc.) over whom presidents have at most limited sway…and divided, politicized Columbia is on the short list of that short list.
What in the World?
The two big Away stories continue to be the Middle East and Ukraine. Regarding the former, the world is still waiting to see what—if anything—Iran does in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh at a government guest house in Tehran earlier this month. While Iran has hinted that it may not retaliate if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza, the chances for such an outcome appear slim. Meanwhile, there are growing debates in Israel over whether to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon or to go to the source and hit Iran directly—and if it is to be the latter, what ought to be the target set. One could imagine venues associated with its nuclear program, military sites, and economic targets, above all energy-related installations.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region has gone better than expected, certainly better than what Putin and his top generals expected. The question is what comes of it. Does Ukraine try to expand the Russian territory it holds? Sit on it? Pull back (and focus on defense) now that it has made a point? As of now, what has taken place represents a tactical, but not strategic, change in the situation as Russia still enjoys advantages in equipment and manpower. But the incursion (beyond being a boon for Ukraine’s morale) is forcing the Russians to shift some resources from offense to defense and to redeploy some troops from eastern Ukraine.
The question is how—if at all—Ukraine’s gains affect Russian calculations as to the pros and cons of continuing the war and, if there is a new interest in diplomacy, how it affects both Russian and Ukrainian requirements. It opens up possibilities not just for prisoner exchanges but also land swaps. Here, as in the Middle East, questions far outnumber answers.
A third Away story merits mention as well: the announcement by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that he will not seek his party’s endorsement when it meets next month. Despite his relatively brief tenure as prime minister, Kishida has proven to be a major figure, negotiating a breakthrough in Japan’s ties with South Korea and expanding Japan’s regional security role and capabilities. Japan is not just the world’s third-largest economy but is arguably this country’s most important ally, pivotal to security and stability in Northeast Asia, where the United States and others must contend with China, Russia, and North Korea, three nuclear-armed authoritarian powers that are increasingly acting in concert.
All that Glitters
The Paris Olympics are now history. I wasn’t interested in them until they began, and then I got hooked. Ping pong—excuse me, table tennis—will never be the same for me. Go watch some matches if you missed them. The serving is beyond cool. A few broader reflections:
It is difficult to single out a short list of favorite performances, but it would be hard not to include Steph Curry’s in the basketball semifinal against Serbia and then the gold medal game against France. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the four 3-pointers he made in the final two-and-a-half minutes of the gold medal game, but each and every time I can’t believe what I am seeing, especially the last one over four seriously long outstretched arms.
One other basketball-related thought. For reasons of age and retirement, you are unlikely to see Curry, or LeBron James, or Kevin Durant in Los Angeles in 2028. My sense is the United States will be vulnerable then, and anything but a shoo-in for the gold. In part, it may be that the U.S. side can’t replicate this year’s excellence. But even more it is the rise of others, the rise of the rest as Fareed Zakaria has written (albeit in another context).
This brings me to a related, larger point. Yes, the United States garnered the most medals, 126—unless Jordan Chiles reclaims the bronze medal she deserves for the floor exercises, which would make it 127. But that is 126 out of the thousand-plus total medals awarded. So yes, this is a world in which the United States enjoys a position of primacy, but it is not hegemony or anything like it. This is a world in which capacity and power and influence are increasingly distributed. And for the record, none of the above is meant to detract from the impressive performance of the U.S. team.
The United States and China tied for the most gold medals (40) and China came in second for overall medal count at 91. The Olympics, like much else, underscore that these are the two dominant countries of this era.
The Olympics also highlight the fundamental difference between the American and Chinese systems. As all else in China, sports are run from above, by the government or government-controlled entities. Things in the United States are much more bottom up and loosely organized, if they can be said to be organized at all. Both systems can work and often do. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses. Sort of like the American and Chinese approaches to AI, their economies, and a whole host of other issues.
I’m also struck by how well Europe did. EU countries won over three hundred medals, and the number gets close to four hundred if you add the UK (65) to Europe’s total. (You can decide for yourself whether this affects how you think about Brexit). Australia won medals (53) at the rate of one for every half a million Australians. India, by contrast, managed just one silver and five bronze, or one medal for about every 235 million people. All in all, a pretty good showing for the West.
Now that I’ve had my geopolitical say, let me end on something more human. In Paris, you had stars such as Curry and LeBron and Durant totally invested in their games. They wanted to win and took joy in it when they did. The same for Scottie Scheffler in golf and Novak Djokovic in tennis. It is a treat to see multi, multi-millionaires so into the competition and patriotism. There is a purity about the Olympics that all the corruption, and nationalism, and double standards cannot undo. The only problem now is figuring out what to do with the free time that for the last few weeks was more than filled. Golf (given how poorly I have been playing of late) may not be the answer.
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens