Left Flank

Beijing Olympics: sigh of relief; next up: South Africa's 2010 World Cup. What could South Africans get for its five sports stadiums, costing over a billion dollars?

There's little evidence, though, to suggest that investing in a major sporting event does much to help transform a country's economy. Commentators now even commonly refer to an «Olympic hangover» when overheated economies decline after hosting the games. In fact, since 1956, Olympic hosts have seen their GDP growth fall by an average of nearly 7 percent in the two years following the big event.

The money that South Africa is spending on the five stadiums alone could have increased its 2008 healthcare funding by 3 percent, expanded education funding by 8 percent, or paid the salaries of 80,000 Johannesburg police officers - investments that would undoubtedly have paid dividends long after the stadiums have fallen into disuse.

After that, it's Poland's and Ukraine's 2012 Euro Cup. Oh, and there's another Russian Olympics in 2014 nations can fight over boycotting in 2014.

Joshua Keating also offers a succinct post-mortem on Beijing's Olympics:

China's debut as an Olympic host was hardly the unqualified public relations nightmare that many people expected, especially after the Tibet riots and the subsequent torch-tour fiasco. If China's goal was simply to host a fantastic Olympics, its $40 billion was well spent. In terms of sheer spectacle, impressive facilities, and the host country's athletic performance, the games were without peer in Olympic history. But if the goal was to change international minds about China, its success was mixed at best.

With the deceptions during the opening ceremonies, the arrest of eight American demonstrators, and China's failure to keep its promises about political openness, the Olympics have only reinforced the conventional view of the Chinese state as capable of outstanding feats of organization and social engineering, but also secretive, repressive, and hostile to basic human rights.

Finally, good advice for confident leaders in developing countries.

In truth, events like the Olympics and the World Cup are the farthest thing from appropriate showcases for economic progress—they're more likely to highlight a developing country's faults. Yanking a country like South Africa out of any historical context invariably emphasizes the areas where it falls short, rather than the progress it has made. Once the dazzle of a spectacular opening ceremony or high-tech stadium fades, the world will remember a developing country struggling with less glamorous challenges such as pollution, crime, and crumbling infrastructure. In the long run, emerging countries that bet their reputations on a sporting event may wish they had spent a little more time boosting their number of exports or college graduates rather than playing games.

Not only will the economic benefits fall off, but the respectability boosts will also dwindle, if the G& ever acknowledges any regard for the shrimp among whales.

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Washington should be wary of a family quarrel.

«The Eastern Europeans totally saw this [Russian resurgence] coming,» says former US ambassador to Romania, James Rosapepe. «In Romania the attitude was, we have to get into NATO before Russian power returns.»

German officials and many European NATO officials argue that it is simply unrealistic to provoke Russia by allowing its immediate neighbors into the alliance. They say Russia's actions in Georgia vindicates this point. Berlin takes a very careful and consistent position on the importance of understanding Moscow, one Western diplomat points out.

Yet Polish officials are quick to point out that Germany was the most powerful and insistent voice throughout the 1990s for getting Poland into NATO - as a way to create a buffer zone between Germany and Russia. Now that Poland is in NATO, Germany has changed its tune, they say, showing indifference to Poland's own interests in a similar buffer zone. They argue it is in Germany's commercial interest to advocate balanced restraint and sensitivity to Moscow.

Along with the non-Russian provinces of Ukraine and the Baltic trio, as well as the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Romanians, eastern Europe hardly includes the sort of dependable, responsible friends the US wants to have as allies. It's more like a gaggle of goslings waiting for a meal. Without Germany, Washington doesn't need such fair weather buddies feeding an addiction for bad strategy.