#Winners and #Losers: Don't Rain On My Parade

The Week in Military Parades

Winner: North Korea—celebrates the 70th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean army with a massive military parade on the eve of the Olympic opening ceremonies. The parade is usually held in April, but was moved up for obvious reasons. Have to hand it to him: Kim Jong-un has a knack for timing. #CollateralSpotlight

Loser: The United States—Apparently, Trump wants the US to have a military parade “like the one in France.” If the US starts taking its military cues from France, we’re all screwed. #ViveLePomp

The Week in Postponing State of the Unions

Winner: Russian President Vladimir Putin—postponed this week’s scheduled address to Russia’s parliament, where he was expected to lay out his campaign platform ahead of March elections. Not that you really need a campaign platform when you’ve already won. #PowerMove

Loser: South African President Jacob Zuma—the 75-year old was forced to postpone his State of the Nation speech while members of his ANC party frantically pressure him to resign his post. The postponement of the speech was welcomed by both ANC members and the political opposition, which tells you pretty much all you need to know. #TheGreatUniter

The Week in Revisiting Old Wars

Winner: The Cold War—It’s back. Late last week, the Pentagon released its “Nuclear Posture Review,” which effectively paints the picture of US arms race with Russia. Except this time, the race is about finding innovative uses for low-yield nuclear weapons, not just quantity of nukes. Scary? Definitely. But here’s hoping this new Cold War ends as peacefully as the last one. #ColdWarsAndHotPeace

Loser: World War II— Polish president Andrzej Duda signed a law this week that bans people from saying Poland was complicit in any part of World War II, preferring to frame themselves wholly as victims of the Nazis. Guess history is no longer being written by the victors. #NeverForgetWhatWereRewriting

The Week in Double Takes

Winner: US Government shutdowns—a last minute curveball from Senator Rand Paul not withstanding, America’s legislative branch finally managed to get its act together and restart the business of governing. Keeping the US government open is not usually cause for congratulations, but… #SignOfTheTimes

Loser: Stock market corrections—The Dow suffered its worst single-day point decline (-1,175 points) in its history on Monday. Then it almost surpassed its own record on Thursday (-1,033 points). And to think, Trump kept pointing to a roaring stock market as proof of his incredible success. He did so at least 25 times in fact. In January. #UpsAndDowns

The Week in Monetizing Trump’s America

Winner: The New York Times—-revealed this week that it brought in its largest ever subscription haul, breaking the $1 billion barrier in 2017. #FakeNewsButRealMoney

Loser: Twitter—finally turned its first profit in its earnings report released this week. And all it took was a president who feels he’s best able to express himself in 140 (well, now 280) characters and no spellcheck. #PyrrhicVictory 

The Week in Mining Bitcoins

Winner: UNICEF—UNICEF is now recruiting gamers to mine bitcoins to aid Syrian children. #ForEveryChild

Loser: North Korea Sanctions— South Korea said on Monday that North Korean hackers stole millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoins last year. Hey, those military parades don’t come cheap. #OutOfSightOutOfSanctions

---------

Be sure to sign up for Signal, arriving in your inbox first thing every Tuesday and Friday morning: eurasiagroup.net/signal.

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, foreign affairs columnist at TIME and Global Research Professor at New York University. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.