Typing out that title seemed weirdly redundant, like calling an article “Water: good cure for thirst”. It is so abundantly obvious that stripping Russia of the 2018 World Cup is the least that should happen post-MH17. Yet a Tory MP described the DPM’s call for this as “pretty amateur” adding that “a great deal is going to happen between then and now”. I am trying to decipher this last quote and I’m still struggling. So is this an allusion to a possible “Russian Spring”? And if that seems likely, isn’t holding the World Cup somewhere that we aren’t even sure will have any sort of functioning state at the time of the event not the greatest idea in the world? Perhaps I misunderstood what the MP meant.
Which isn’t much of a surprise, given that obfuscation is the name of the game when discussing Russia these days. Putin and his regime should be punished, certainly – just not too much, goes the line, said in as many different permutations as the English language can muster. So beyond anything else, I’m glad Nick has said something unequivocal about the situation in Ukraine. Because I’ll say it again: the World Cup should be taken away from Russia. Western powers, as I alluded to, are looking for ways to punish Putin without having to get into anything military; I can’t think of anything better than taking Putin’s prize toy away in terms of something that will upset the regime in Moscow without being overly aggressive and possibly starting a war no one wants.
Of course, all of this is academic anyhow, and perhaps that’s what the Right Honourable Gentleman was referring to when he mentioned naivety. The World Cup is not any government’s to give or take. It is for FIFA to decide, and the likelihood of the Blatter Bunch reallocating the Russian World Cup is about as likely as the next president of said organisation being elected in a fair and transparent way next time the hot seat is free. Just not going to happen.
But that doesn’t stop Clegg’s statement from being any less true. While governments don’t have the ability to decide where the World Cup goes and where it does not, echoing Nick’s line certainly doesn’t hurt any. Who knows, perhaps it might even cause more people to take it up as a good idea, and FIFA might even then come under pressure to at least state why they feel Russia should keep the world’s biggest sporting event. Because while I accept that the West cannot get into a military tussle with Russia, one that would be tantamount to World War III, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least win the war of words.
Instead, we hear constantly about sanctions, sanctions, more sanctions. This one will really sting, we hear. Imagine if through constant harping about it from western governments the World Cup really was placed elsewhere for 2018 and Putin really did lose his favourite prize. Wouldn’t that be something?
Good post and it goes to the heart of the situation with Putin taking the p*** by setting up the US against EU. Meanwhile the Ukrainian government takes tactical military advantage of Putin trying to distance himself from the MH17 tragedy and in the process it disrupts the crash site investigations but the West is relatively quiet on that which just goes to show how out of control that part of the world has got.
It is in danger of getting further out of control if we do either too little or too much. Taking away something culturally significant but ultimately unimportant like the World Cup is just the right thing to do – embarass but don’t provoke.
Nobody I’m the real world gives a flying fuck about the World Cup.
The truth of the matter is that an elected government in the Ukraine was overthrown by a bunch of Neonazis working on behalf of the US and EU.
That (illegally ousted) government is now being supported by Russia, which is somehow seen to be morally indefensible, while we back the rabble who threw them out, which is apparently ok.
And, by the way, we still don’t know who shot down the airliner, but the last few decades in the history of he West fucking up everything it touches suggests it was probably the CIA.
In regards to David’s comment above, see article here:
https://nicktyrone.com/rise-putinistas/
In the 80’s we had a boycott of Olympics in Moscow by western nations and a title for that boycott of Los Angeles Olympics by Russia(known as Soviet Union).
Thatcher tried to get GB to boycott Moscow but it was left to individual sports to decide.
I believe that if you play/attend a games/event, you are not showing approval of a regime. Are we not allowed to have a conscience? We have had a winter games in Russia recently, no boycott there.
Not caring about “soccer” made reading this a tough go but it was necessary to get to the real issue you were tap dancing around:
“Putin and his regime should be punished, certainly – just not too much, goes the line, said in as many different permutations as the English language can muster”
Indeed as modern foreign policy culture attempts to develop the language to articulate the concept of surgically punishing a regime; leaving the actual state (not just) intact but more or less none-the-worse for wear, perhaps we find that ability to verbalize to be elusive because the policy itself is disconnected from the world we actually live in. But if you view this objective from within the only ideology that exists anymore within the halls of power (global market capitalism) we can see the merits, especially given the 20TH century’s pathetic history of imposing embargoes and other such economically blunt political instruments.
We can look to the embargo imposed by the U.S. on Cuba to see the pattern; complete failure to deliver on any policy goals, cementing the cult of Castro to the Cuban people’s political identity and a decades long domestic political status-quo that the Republican Party cynically mined for ideological brownie points to carry Florida’s electoral votes for several generations of presidential elections.
We now live in the era of the myth of surgical precision both in traditional warfare as well as the economic variety. The idea that we can punish sovereign states without the legacy resentment of the populous SEEMS a bit far-fetched but I remain optimistic in light of the wretched blow-back the traditional alternatives often result in. Now getting to your suggestion that we should take away Putin’s’ ability to provide bread and circuses:
“I can’t think of anything better than taking Putin’s prize toy away in terms of something that will upset the regime in Moscow without being overly aggressive and possibly starting a war no one wants.”
Your suggestion that embarrassing Putin in front of his public would . . . what? Placate the West’s sense of righteous indignation? Because aside from that little bit of Schadenfreude it will do little else. What’s more I don’t think that German concept of “shameful joy in others misfortune” translates too well into Russian (I think it’s the shameful bit of it). We should also do well to no longer assume that a hot war in eastern Ukraine is necessarily (however ghastly from our point of view) the least objectionable outcome to the parties involved. Within the tenets of global market capitalism a long economically depressing and inflationary (given the fossil fuel trade war that lies at the heart of this) tit for tat COLD war may seem to those at the reigns of power the least desired outcome.
Ever since Catherine the Great Russia has seemed to reflexively define itself as pretending to not care what the West thinks. That perverse sense of national identity is carried even further by the popular political Kremlin culture of Russians who admire a leader who cares not a whit what the Russian public actually think of him. It’s all enough to give me pause when considering policies to modify the behavior of a culture with such a strongly embedded ‘bunker’ mentality. Besides, maybe it is because I don’t follow the game, but I’m reluctant to interrupt FIFA as it develops into a brand that despot douches can garishly flaunt like they are showing off their Walmart-sized garages full of Lamborghini’s.
“We should also do well to no longer assume that a hot war in eastern Ukraine is necessarily (however ghastly from our point of view) the least objectionable outcome to the parties involved.”
. . . I meant MOST objectionable