Henry D. Fetter: Are U.S. Olympic Medals a Harbinger of Decline?
[Henry D. Fetter is a lawyer and writer whose work has appeared in the Journal of Sport History, The Public Interest, and the Times Literary Supplement.]
As the 2010 Winter Olympic Games drew to a close, the United States found itself leading , at least according to the most widely used tabulations, the overall medals table for the first time since 1932. But anyone tempted to invest that success with a significance that transcends the ski slope, the ice rink, or the half-pipe might first take a look back at the last Olympics held in Canada—Calgary 1988.
The Calgary Winter Games were dominated by the Soviet Union—29 medals, including 11 golds—and East Germany—25 medals, 9 gold. The medal haul for Team USA? 6 total medals, with 2 golds. No real surprises there for winter sports buffs. The Soviet Union had topped the medals standings at all but two winter games since first participating in 1956 and East Germany had trailed only the Soviet Union in 1972, 1976, and 1980 and led the field in 1984. As for the USA, 1988 was the worst gold medal showing since Grenoble in 1968 and the lowest overall medal total since Innsbruck in 1964.
Eastern Bloc strength and American weakness both fit comfortably within the reigning paradigm of the era's geopolitical punditry. That year's book to read was Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers with its best-selling diagnosis of a United States that was enervated by "imperial overstretch" like the Roman Empire and Imperial Spain before it. Meanwhile, East Germany was saluted for having made socialism work—"A Riddle for Communists: Why Does The East German Economy Prosper?" the New York Times was asking—and credited with a Gross Domestic Product greater than that of Great Britain or France by CIA analysts....
So as the USA has displaced the once mighty Soviet Union and East Germany at the head of the medals table, should we heed the paradoxical lesson of 1988 and join in historian Niall Ferguson's warning that the US is poised to be the next fiscally challenged Greece or even cite Olympic success as counter-intuitive evidence that The End of the American Era (as the title of a recent book proclaimed, is at hand?...
Read entire article at The Atlantic
As the 2010 Winter Olympic Games drew to a close, the United States found itself leading , at least according to the most widely used tabulations, the overall medals table for the first time since 1932. But anyone tempted to invest that success with a significance that transcends the ski slope, the ice rink, or the half-pipe might first take a look back at the last Olympics held in Canada—Calgary 1988.
The Calgary Winter Games were dominated by the Soviet Union—29 medals, including 11 golds—and East Germany—25 medals, 9 gold. The medal haul for Team USA? 6 total medals, with 2 golds. No real surprises there for winter sports buffs. The Soviet Union had topped the medals standings at all but two winter games since first participating in 1956 and East Germany had trailed only the Soviet Union in 1972, 1976, and 1980 and led the field in 1984. As for the USA, 1988 was the worst gold medal showing since Grenoble in 1968 and the lowest overall medal total since Innsbruck in 1964.
Eastern Bloc strength and American weakness both fit comfortably within the reigning paradigm of the era's geopolitical punditry. That year's book to read was Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers with its best-selling diagnosis of a United States that was enervated by "imperial overstretch" like the Roman Empire and Imperial Spain before it. Meanwhile, East Germany was saluted for having made socialism work—"A Riddle for Communists: Why Does The East German Economy Prosper?" the New York Times was asking—and credited with a Gross Domestic Product greater than that of Great Britain or France by CIA analysts....
So as the USA has displaced the once mighty Soviet Union and East Germany at the head of the medals table, should we heed the paradoxical lesson of 1988 and join in historian Niall Ferguson's warning that the US is poised to be the next fiscally challenged Greece or even cite Olympic success as counter-intuitive evidence that The End of the American Era (as the title of a recent book proclaimed, is at hand?...