President Obama is joining the leaders of allied countries in the annual G8 Summit, this year hosted by Italy. The G8 is not a formal alliance, it was not founded by a treaty and it does not have a permanent headquarters. It’s merely an informal gathering to discuss major international issues and try to chart a coordinated path amid the storms of economic and political turmoil that beset world affairs. Although initially focused exclusively on economic policy the agenda now includes such contemporary issues as nuclear nonproliferation, terrorism, hunger, and global warming. This report in The New York Times highlights many of the new issues being discussed in Italy, while this report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace takes us back to the beginning and examines how well the G8 is responding to the global economic crisis. Can the G8 really do it all? The one issue that has been neglected is reform of the group itself. Since the U.S. was a founding member of the group, perhaps it will fall to the U.S. to draft a plan to expand the membership and scope of the G8 to meet the needs of the 21st Century.
Photo Credit: CEIP
