Asymmetric Power Relations (Athens 2004)

This above statement was made in 2010 by the Minister of Defense before the Greek Parliament’s investigation committee in the lead-up to the 2004 Athens Olympics. The committee was investigating the security scandals involving Siemens and the security system called Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Information (C4I).2 In some respects, it could perfectly sum up asymmetric power relations between Greece, the host country of the first post-9/11 Summer Olympics, and what could be qualified as a United States-led hegemonic group3 of Western countries (Australia, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Israel, and Spain) that sought and eventually managed to shape the Greek Olympic security dispositif. To highlight what lies beneath this rather unusual official confirmation of fierce left and radical left denunciation of the “Olympic fiesta that endorses collaboration between domestic bosses and multinational firms, foreign political command centers and security agencies,”4 one has to go back in time. Unraveling the way 21st-century concerns over security threats mingle with protection of economic, political and geopolitical interests in the Athens Olympics’ context cannot be achieved unless this web of interactions is seen inter alia in light of the evolution both of security policies and international relations in the postwar era.