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Navigating the Vortex

Navigating the Vortex

By: Lucy P. Marcus & Stefan Wolff
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 We live in a complex and ever-changing world. To navigate the vortex we must adapt to change quickly, think critically, and make sound decisions. Lucy Marcus & Stefan Wolff talk about business, politics, society, culture, and what it all means.

www.navigatingthevortex.comLucy P. Marcus & Stefan Wolff Economics Political Science Politics & Government
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  • Donald Trump was always unlikely to win the 2025 Nobel peace prize – but he could be a more serious contender in 2026

    Donald Trump was always unlikely to win the 2025 Nobel peace prize – but he could be a more serious contender in 2026
    Oct 11 2025
    And the winner is … not Donald Trump. This is probably going to be the enduring memory of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.This year’s recipient is María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition movement. The Norwegian Nobel committee awarded her the prize “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.Machado’s efforts clearly are laudable, and she certainly deserves praise for her personal courage standing up to Venezuela’s strong-man ruler, Nicolas Maduro. Following the announcement of her award, Machado took to social media and dedicated her “prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!” This, and her previous gratitude to Trump for targeting the Maduro regime, might explain why the reaction from the White House has been relatively uncombative. Trump himself reposted Machado’s tweet praising him as one of her opposition movement’s main allies. Shortly afterwards, however, he could not help himself and thanked Russia’s president Vladimir Putin — a long-time supporter of the Venezuelan regime — for statements after the announcement of the award to Machado that questioned the Nobel prize committee’s choice and praised Trump’s peace-making efforts.The choice of this year’s winner aside, the entire process surrounding the award has been highly unusual in the way that it has involved very public lobbying for a particular candidate and that candidate’s self-promotion. Trump used every conceivable opportunity, including his speech before the UN general assembly on September 23, when he reiterated an earlier claim to have “solved seven wars”.These claims have been widely called into question. And with good reason, as tenuous ceasefires are the closest that Trump got in some of the actual wars in which he intervened.For more on the substance of Trump’s claims, listen to my interviews on:This would not necessarily have ruled Trump out from the competition — the criteria do not require success but also allow for effort to be rewarded. Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will specified that the peace prize should go to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.Yet even if the Nobel committee had prioritised effort over accomplishment, Trump’s chances for success were remote, given that nominations annually close on January 31, which was barely a week into Trump’s second term. By then he had arguably played a role in a temporary ceasefire in the war in Gaza, but most of his subsequent claims had yet come to pass.It is also questionable that Trump’s nominators did much to promote his cause. Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and the country’s army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, are unlikely to have had much, if any, influence on the Norwegian Nobel committee.There have been controversial choices for the Nobel peace prize before.Henry Kissinger won the prize in 1973 for ending the Vietnam war, together with Le Duc Tho, the principal Vietnamese negotiator who declined the prize. But while he negotiated the end of the war in Vietnam, he was, among other things, also notorious for a devastating bombing campaign against Cambodia from 1969 to 1973.Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded the 2019 prize “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea”. That, however, did not stop him from fighting a vicious civil war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front which has cost the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of civilians.Trump clearly would have looked better in comparison to Abiy and Kissinger. But compared to three past US presidents who won the prize — Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese war, Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for founding the League of Nations, and Jimmy Carter in 2002 for decades of work promoting peaceful conflict resolution, democracy, and human rights — his track record of success is shakier.While he deserves some credit for his efforts and at least some temporary successes, Trump himself has no spotless track record as a peacemaker. His eight months in office since he re-entered the White House for a second term in January 2025 are hardly an advertisement for “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”, as required by the prize criteria.Trump has threatened to annex Greenland, incorporate ...
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    5 mins
  • Europe wins, Russia loses as Moldovans deliver a clear message in crucial parliamentary elections

    Europe wins, Russia loses as Moldovans deliver a clear message in crucial parliamentary elections
    Sep 29 2025

    With almost all of the votes counted in yesterday’s parliamentary elections in Moldova, the ruling pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity of President Maia Sandu has achieved a slim overall majority of just over 50% of the vote.

    More importantly, perhaps, it has garnered more than twice the votes of the main pro-Russian opposition party Patriotic Bloc, which has just under 25% of the vote.

    While Sandu’s party, as expected, did very well in the diaspora vote with almost 80% of votes cast in its favour, it also convincingly beat the Patriotic Bloc in the vote in Moldova with 44% versus 28%.

    In another sign of the changing tide, the party also doubled its vote share in the Russian-controlled break-away region of Transnistria.

    Turnout in the elections, however, has been low again. Just over 52% of eligible voters went to the polling stations. This is slightly higher than in the three previous parliamentary elections in 2019, 2020, and 2021, but below the turnout in the second round of last year’s presidential elections.

    At the end of the day, the results also reflect the long-standing, and by most accounts, deepening polarisation in Moldova between the pro-European and pro-Russian camps. The fact that Sandu’s party achieved an overall, and only slightly reduced majority again, indicates that its support base has held up remarkably well amid unprecedented Russian election interference and the serious economic problems that Moldova has faced for many years, but especially since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

    While slightly weakened compared to the 2021 parliamentary elections, achieving more than 50% of the vote — and probably gaining 55 seats in the 101-seat parliament — is a remarkable achievement for Sandu’s party in these circumstances. It demonstrates the strength of support for the country’s European path among the general population. If the results of other parties and party blocs that claim to be pro-European are taken into account, this means that a solid majority of Moldovans favour membership in the EU over closer ties with Russia.

    The outcome of the parliamentary elections yesterday, as well as of the presidential elections last year, also demonstrates the limits of Russia’s influence campaigns.

    Despite spending millions on vote buying and disinformation, Russia has not been able to turn Moldova into a country in which a majority of the population would want to jeopardise their European future.

    This is an important signal well beyond Moldova and will be noted with significant relief in Chisinau, Brussels, and other European capitals.

    We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:

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    4 mins
  • As Trump looks set to abandon Ukraine peace efforts, Europe must step up to face Russian aggression alone

    As Trump looks set to abandon Ukraine peace efforts, Europe must step up to face Russian aggression alone
    Sep 26 2025
    Donald Trump appears to have had a major change of heart regarding Ukraine. On the face of it, it looks like he has embraced outright optimism that Kyiv “is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form”.However, this came with the message that Europeans will need to be in the driving seat to make this happen. According to Trump, a Ukrainian victory depends on “time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO”.The only US commitment is “to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them”. Most tellingly, Trump signed his Truth Social missive off with: “Good luck to all!” This is perhaps the clearest indication yet that the US president is walking away from his efforts to strike a peace deal.It also suggests that he has given up on a separate deal with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. But this is where the good news ends — and where the European-led coalition of the willing will need to deliver security and stability for the continent in an ever more volatile environment.After several weeks of Russian incursions into Nato airspace, drones — thought highly likely to be linked to Russia — twice disrupted Danish airspace in the vicinity of Copenhagen airport. It felt like a presentiment of the dystopian drone wars predicted by Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in his speech at the UN general assembly in New York on September 24.Putin’s continuing provocations are a brazen challenge to Kyiv’s European allies. At the heart of this coalition of the willing, the European Union certainly has demonstrated it is willing to flex its rhetorical muscles to rise to this challenge. EU institutions in Brussels have never left any doubt about their determination that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine “needs to end with a just and lasting peace for Ukraine”, as Ursula von der Leyen, the EU commission president, put it most recently in her state-of-the-union address.Beyond rhetoric, however, the coalition of the willing is facing a number of potential problems. Individually, none of them is insurmountable, but taken together they illustrate the unprecedented challenge Kyiv’s European allies are facing.To begin with, the coalition of the willing is not a coherent body. Its membership includes members of Nato and the EU, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. But the United States is not among their number.It grew from eight countries plus the EU and Nato in February 2025, to 33 participants in April, and 39 in September. Its relationship with the 57-member Ukraine Defense Contact Group of countries supporting Kyiv with military equipment, which held its 30th meeting in early September, is not entirely clear.The lack of coherence in membership in the coalition of the willing is mirrored by different levels of commitment, whether that’s the willingness to deploy a reassurance force after a ceasefire in Ukraine — or the capacity to do so.It’s also not entirely clear whether the leaders of the EU and Nato are speaking for all members of their organisations. Among EU and Nato members, Hungary and Slovakia, for example, have taken ambiguous stances when it comes to defending Ukraine and Europe against Russia.These different levels of commitment also reflect partially conflicting priorities. European members of Nato are deeply — and not wrongly — concerned about US abandonment. Add to that fears of a disastrous trade war, and placating Donald Trump becomes a priority.Doing so by buying US arms may please Trump and plug gaps in Europe’s ability to supply Ukraine. But it is perhaps not the best way of ensuring the urgently needed development of an independent European defence-industrial base.Trump’s return to the White House swiftly ushered in the end of US largesse in support of Ukraine. Europeans have only partly filled that gap, with Germany taking the lead and the EU mobilising over €10 billion (£8.7 billion) in its current budget to 2027, with the aim to supplement efforts by member countries.But it’s not clear how long these efforts will be sustainable in light of inflation and domestic spending pressures. France’s public finances are in distress, while Spain has openly defied Nato’s 5% spending target.Part of the solution to these problems would be much swifter defence-industrial cooperation across the coalition, including with Ukraine. Over time, this could help to build the indigenous defence-industrial capacity needed to produce military equipment at the scale required. But making up for critical gaps in manpower, dealing with the Russian drone threat, strengthening air defences and long-range strike capabilities, and replacing the potential loss of US intelligence support will not happen overnight.Individual countries and the various multilateral forums in which they cooperate will need to decide how to balance three only partially aligned priorities. ...
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    7 mins
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