Using Olympics As Sanctions

by: Chris Bowers

One of the original purposes of the Olympic Games, I believe, was to allow for brief truces and / or cease fires between warring Greek city states. Additionally, that principle was also included during the organization of the modern Olympics, by finding a way for nations to come together--and compete--peacefully, rather than in war. Obviously, that is a tradition Russia has violated in Georgia. The reason I bring this up is that Russia is set to host the Olympics in a town not far from Georgia in 2014: Beginning a well-planned war (including cyber-warfare) as the Olympics were opening violates the ancient tradition of a truce to conflict during the Games. And Russia's willingness to create a war zone 25 miles from the Black Sea city of Sochi, where it is to host the Winter Games in 2014, hardly demonstrates its commitment to Olympic ideals. Now, given this interesting and ironic coincidence, one obvious sanction that it seems the international community could level at Russia would be to withdraw Sochi's award of the 2014 Winter Games. Really, this is probably the minimum that should be done, but it seems like it would be a harsh enough stick to potentially alter behavior. Countries really, really want to host these things, after all. More in the extended entry.

Chris Bowers :: Using Olympics As Sanctions

However, in the context of the still ongoing discussion as to whether China should have been awarded the current Olympic Games or not, I also wonder if using the Olympics as a political football makes any sense. After all, every country, no matter its political and governmental situation, is invited to the Olympics. If no discrimination is made in the participants, why would political discrimination be made among the host? Is the Olympics supposed to be a League of Democracies, or something? Don't think so. There is another worry, too. If nations are denied the Olympics because of actions taken by their governments, who determines which actions? Specifically, a case could be made that the U.K. and the U.S. shouldn't be allowed to host the Olympics because of what they did in Iraq. So, retroactively stripping Russia of the 2014 games could lead to campaigns to retroactively strip London of the 2012 games, or to deny Chicago the 2016 games. And then, the process could continue, in a reductio ad absurdum, to the point where no country could ever be deemed worthy of hosting any Olympic games, because of past actions by its government. So, while stripping Russia of the 2014 Olympics seems like a pretty obvious and straightforward sanction that should probably be taken, maybe it is best to leave politics out of such decisions. Or, perhaps it is impossible to ever leave politics out of something that involves every nation on Earth, and where citizens of virtually every country are encouraged to cheer for their own. It is a difficult choice, and I bring it up as a suggestion as to what could actually be done in response to the Russian-Georgian conflict which, as BooMan points out, there are no clear ways for us to mitigate.

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