Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
From deploying anti-missile frigates on the Thames, to sending ICE agents to Milan, hosting the Olympics is a high-stakes security operation. Former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove and Kate McCann break down the 2026 Winter Olympics and FIFA World Cup controversies on this week’s episode of One Decision: In Brief.
Sir Richard explains the security precautions that countries undertake as both hosts and participants in Olympic games, citing past examples from the games in London, Russia and Germany. Kate addresses the controversies that have already cropped up around the US hosting this year’s FIFA World Cup, from spectator screenings to the potential for overstayed visas.
They also discuss whether President Trump has overplayed his hand with ICE as an enforcement agency, and if the United States can handle the international scrutiny with regards to policing and violence.
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Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Mccann: Hello, and welcome to One Decision in Brief. I'm your host, Kate McCann, and I'm joined as always by my One Decision co-host, Sir Richard Dearlove. Morning, Sir Richard.
Dearlove: Good morning, Kate. How are you?
Mccann: I'm well. Thank you. There is so much going on in the world. We've talked about a lot of that on the podcast over the last couple of weeks. But I thought we could look at the Winter Olympics in Italy. Now I know that might sound like a strange departure for a foreign affairs defense podcast, but you know from personal experience, there is so much planning and so much of the kind of international community, the spy community, you know, defense and security that goes into a massive event like this. And there's already quite a lot of controversy around the Winter Olympics and, you know, Italians pretty frustrated, for example, about the deployment of ICE agents to bolster US security there and questions about whether the US athletes ought to be banned themselves. What goes into planning a big event like these Olympics?
SECURITY AND THE OLYMPICS
Dearlove: Well, a massive security exercise. You only have to cast your mind back to the Olympics in London where an anti-missile frigate was deployed on the Thames in order to provide overhead security. There was a great big counterterrorist exercise run by the security service. And similarly, you know, if you go back to when the Russians held the Winter Olympics in Sochi, there was a massive security dimension. Every time there's Olympic Games, whether it's winter or the ordinary, you know, fall games, there is a vast security dimension. Think of the one in China and all the paraphernalia around that. It's not just a sporting event. It's a shop window for the holders. Maybe a little less extent for the Winter Olympics, but there are still sort of prestige events which the governments running them have to have absolutely solid control. And, of course, you cast your mind back to some of the things that have happened. I mean, the Munich Olympics being the classic example of things going badly wrong. I mean, that was one of the worst security incidents at any sporting event historically.
Mccann: Can you just explain what you're talking about there with Munich to people who may not fully understand exactly what you're referring to?
Dearlove: Well, there was a Palestinian terrorist attack on the Israeli team. It was one of the first spectaculars mounted by Palestinian terrorists against Israelis. Because of what happened and the length of time that it went on for, because there was a siege, it was shown across the world's television channels live at the time.
Mccann: And so given that context then, a lot of planning, as you say, will go into these events, especially if you've got athletes from all around the world coming. How do you even begin to go about that? Especially given the nature of the threats nowadays, the number of countries who might be thinking about mounting a particular threat against one another. How do you even begin?
Dearlove: Well, you've got careful planning, deploying a lot of resources, having experienced people, drawing on knowledge of previous events. I mean, I would imagine the Italians have been working on it for a year or more full time, and they will have, you know, an enclave of people who are thinking through every aspect of it. Okay. The Winter Olympics are smaller and more contained, but it still would be a major problem. And then bear in mind that in the past, some of these teams that are coming particularly from autocracies, they bring their own security principally to stop defections. This was a big deal during the Cold War where individual athletes might try and, you know, do a runner and escape to the West during the events. So I'm sure that the Chinese now will have a huge security around their team working in Italy. I don't know whether there are any, for example, Iranian participants in the Winter Olympics. There probably are actually. But I wonder how they'll be controlled by their own people.
Mccann: Are the games also an opportunity to try and spy against other countries? Is it the case that you get people in these delegations who are there gathering evidence, who are there exerting soft power? Is that also an element of this?
Dearlove: Well, certainly during the Cold War, I think it's true that you would have had KGB officers traveling to the country where the Olympics was being held and possibly being active in the margins. And they would use it, let's say, as cover for intelligence activity. I think it was a sort of one-way street. I don't think the West bothered to think like that or did it. But it certainly happened in the past. And I certainly remember from my own career, and this is a long time ago when one was looking at the identities and traces on the Russian officials accompanying Russian athletic teams overseas, and they often contained people who are well-known KGB officers.
THE WORLD CUP IN AMERICA
Mccann: I'm sure that might continue to an extent, maybe not quite to the extent that happened during the Cold War. Shall we talk finally about the World Cup? Because the World Cup is in America. There's already been a lot of controversy around it from the ticket prices to the access to the security requirements for fans to the idea that Donald Trump's administration might be screening spectators' social media over the last five years in order to let them in. I mean, Sepp Blatter has apparently urged a boycott of the World Cup over the Trump administration's recent policies. It's a very political thing, isn't it?
Dearlove: Well, I mean, come on. Soccer's the biggest sport globally. The World Cup is huge. It's bigger than the Olympic Games. It's rather a joke that Blatter should be taking a moral position in relation to the World Cup in the United States given Blatter's own record and the fact that he's been prosecuted in the Swiss courts for corruption. And I'm not quite sure where that stands at the moment. But, you know, he's not exactly a figure to invest in morally, or that's the way I think I would express it subtly. But this is a huge event in the United States. It will have a massive global following. So Trump will, I'm sure, use it, and he's already paid an awful lot of attention to the current head of FIFA, who, of course, recently presented him with his own, quote, unquote, quasi Nobel Prize, which was really a bit over the top, I think, if we have to make a judgment. But, I mean, it gives you an idea of the profile of this event, which politically will be really important for Trump personally, for the Trump administration, for the United States, for TV companies.
Mccann: I mean, it's also a risk though, isn't there? There is a bit of a spotlight now on America in terms of the way it polices, you know, these big events, the way it deals with civilians, the way it copes with flare-ups of trouble or violence or, you know, potentially football hooliganism. There'd be a lot of eyes on America during this tournament.
Dearlove: The issue of illegal immigration comes up with people piling in to the United States to support their teams. Will they overstay their visas? I mean, there are all sorts of other aspects to it. And, of course, South America is football mad. Yeah. And travel from South America to the United States in support of football teams is pretty straightforward and easy. But how are the Americans, how is ICE gonna manage all of that?
ICE AND US POLITICS
Mccann: So there is a heavy political dimension to this as well. We referenced ICE there, and there's a lot happening. And I don't, you know, I don't really want to get into all of the ins and outs of what's going on with ICE, but it does feel like Donald Trump has recognized there has been an overstepping of the mark. Do you think this is something that he can put back in the box?
Dearlove: I think ICE has massively overplayed their hand. I think Trump has realized that it's very damaging to him personally. I've even seen speculation that this is a sort of Rubicon that his administration have crossed, and he's gonna have to rein himself in, not just on ICE, but on other issues. So I think we should watch politically in the United States now over the coming weeks exactly what impact this is gonna have, particularly with the midterm elections advancing because it switched an awful lot of people off. It's not just Minnesota.
Mccann: Yeah. That's so interesting and no doubt one we'll come back to in future episodes. Richard, lovely to speak to you as always.
Dearlove: That's great, Kate. Very enjoyable and interesting discussion today on a number of important topics.
Mccann: That is it for this episode of One Decision in Brief, and do join us on Thursday. We'll have a full-length episode for you. Really interesting conversation with an expert on Greenland about what is or is not in that potential deal with America. You won't want to miss that. And you can get more, of course, on onedecision.com and on our YouTube page. I'm Kate McCann joined as always by Sir Richard Dearlove. Thanks very much for listening.
