There's already been a lot of coverage about the summit. Steve Walt, who called the summit a "useless waste of time, money, and fuel" had by far the funniest comments (I don't think he intended to be funny). Anyway, what some may not have been aware about was the NATO "counter-summit" which took place at the same time in Chicago. Since the "Battle of Seattle" in 1999, parallel counter-summits have often accompanied global summits (i.e. G-8 Forum, IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting, etc...). Counter-summits are organized by peace and global justice activists who use this media platform to voice their concerns and views about peace, global capitalism, the environment, human rights etc... This particular NATO counter-summit focused on ending the Afghan war; moving U.S. tax dollars from the Pentagon to meet human needs at home, and dissolving NATO. A longer list of reasons to oppose NATO (although many of the points are only marginally related to NATO if at all) and the counter-summit conference agenda and daily schedule can be found in the provided links. And here is information about the Network for a NATO-Free Future.
I'm trying to understand how and why activists and government officials come to such radically different conclusions about peace and security, and what international relations theory might tell us about these divergent worldviews. For most of the world (or at least the West), NATO is an organization which provides security, protection, peace and stability. Yet, peace activists see NATO largely as an organization that bombs, maims, and destroys. So is NATO good or bad? Or is this nothing but a contest about the meaning and interpretation of NATO? World leaders met in Chicago to work on an exit strategy so in some ways it was ironic to see protests against the Chicago summit.
