I'll let you know when I'm through kicking around the G8

Posted By Daniel W. Drezner Tuesday, July 8, 2008 - 8:21 PM Share

My latest Newsweek International column has some fun at the G8's expense:

In the good old days, summit meetings were held in big cities—London, Tokyo, Venice, Toronto, Paris and so on. Ever since the 2001 meeting in Genoa, which attracted more than a quarter of a million protesters, the leaders of the Group of Eight have held their yearly confabs in ever-more remote locations. When leaders met in the resort town of Heiligendamm, Germany, last year, only 25,000 protesters showed up. This year's meeting, in Toyako on Hokkaido Island, has so far drawn far fewer. The resort strategy appears to be working. Of course, there might be another reason why fewer protestors are bothering with this year's G8 summit: It matters less. It's not hard to see why. Half of the leaders involved—Gordon Brown, George W. Bush, Yasuo Fukuda and Nikolas Sarkozy—are deeply unpopular at home. Beyond these individuals, however, the G8 countries are simply less powerful than they used to be. At this rate, a philosophical question might be in the offing: What if the great powers held a summit and no one cared?

Go check it out!

EXPLORE:INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, PERSONAL, G8 SUMMITS, SELF-PROMOTION

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ROBERTL

11:34 AM ET

July 11, 2008

The G-8 reminds me somewhat

The G-8 reminds me somewhat of when Arafat was run out of Lebanon by the Israelis in the early 80's. He turned up in Tunis (if memory serves me correctly) and proclaimed his great victory. Some hapless Palestinian noted that with a few more victories like that they'd be holding their next party meeting in Fiji.