...From July 7–9, as the Nixon Center’s executive director and moderator of the discussion Paul Saunders said, the world’s heaviest hitters will meet to discuss the most-pressing problems. Former ambassador to Germany and current managing director at McLarty Associates, Richard Burt, and Flynt Leverett of the New America Foundation met at the Nixon Center on Wednesday to look at an even-more-basic issue: whether the G8 still matters. Or, as Ambassador Burt asked, if it ever did.

The G8’s purview is simply too broad to be effective, Burt argued. The group should return to its roots, economics, if it hopes to retain relevancy in today’s world of global markets and interconnected states. Leverrett agreed, but put the future of the group in even-starker terms: developing a strategy of global economic governance is “imperative” for the G8’s survival, and U.S. interests in a rapidly changing world. Failing to adapt, he said, is simply an “abrogation of responsibility...” LINK to article and LINK to C-SPAN video