Sue Gordon, who served as the principal deputy director of national intelligence — the nation’s top career intelligence post — shared her big concern: What if America just doesn’t meet the moment? What if, coming out of the pandemic, America just fails to step up as great powers, adversary nations, partisan polarization, and rising income inequality upends the global system that has kept watch for 80 years? “Our institutions are not keeping up with the turn of the Earth, and they’re being devalued in the moment,” she told me. “Society requires government, yet we’re running out of the structures that make it work.”

As I wrote then, “There are massive economic, societal and security benefits that come from being the world’s leading superpower. What happens if we’re not anymore? Imagine a U.S. that doesn’t attract top talent. What if the next great innovations happen in Europe or Asia instead of Silicon Valley? What if Chinese venture capitalists get first crack at the hottest deals in the world?”