News of a hockey tournament with retired NHL players slated for March in Pyongyang – “a charity event to raise money for sports equipment for disabled North Korean athletes” -- prompted Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute to challenge some of the comfortable assumptions about “sports diplomacy.” His essay, “Is Engaging North Korea ‘Innocuous’?” was posted to the Commentary magazine website on January 31, 2016. For details of the hockey tournament, see the full article by Kent Boydston of the Peterson Institute for International Economics – and a back-and-forth between Rubin and Boydston -- here. These are some of Rubin’s key points on sports diplomacy in general:
- First, does sporting diplomacy really break barriers or come without a cost? The record is spotty.