A Cold War Echo Reverberates in Rio

For decades, the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union played out every four years on the Olympics stage. The demise of the USSR in 1991 may have cooled the sense of drama the confrontation between East and West generated. We live in a complex international system filled with many actors -- each of which possesses a unique set of interests and perceptions. In a perfectly natural human reaction to such complication, we cope in part by constructing narratives, both about ourselves and others. For half a century, the Cold War concept of a bipolar international system helped to structure our thinking and to flatten our learning curve....