The following is an edited transcript of a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria on "John King USA," talking about the NATO summit in Chicago and NATO's relevance in the world today.

KING: This year's NATO summit is in Chicago. And topping the official agenda is the transition in Afghanistan, but there are other giant issues for the 34 heads of state attending.

ZAKARIA: The truth is NATO was a defensive alliance. It was designed for, really, to protect against Russia, against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And ever since 1990 when all that ended, it's been flailing around looking for something to do.

But it is a very useful time when all these heads of state, heads of government get together, and there's always something or the other on the agenda that's pretty crucial. FULL POST

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst and the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad."

It's the diplomatic equivalent of hosting both the World Cup and the World Series in the same country on the same weekend.

On Saturday President Obama welcomes the leaders of the world's most powerful countries to the G8 conference at his country retreat at Camp David in Maryland. And the next day he hosts some two dozen NATO heads of state in Chicago.

The challenges of this Diplopaloozaa include some complicated logistics: How do you get eight world leaders and their delegations comfortably situated in the rustic wood chalets that make up Camp David, and which has never hosted this many heads of state before?

Read more from Peter Bergen about the challenges, the Syria question and the last-minute guest at the NATO summit: Pakistan.

(This is not a scientific poll.)

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Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.

France intends to withdraw its troops from NATO-led operations in Afghanistan by 2013. This is earlier than the previously agreed deadline of 2014. This announcement, coupled with signs that other allies - including the United States - may be rushing to leave Afghanistan, threatens to humiliate the alliance, with severe consequences for trans-Atlantic security.

Every generation of Western politicians has dreaded the possibility of NATO's demise. In the 1960s, governments assumed that the anti-Americanism generated by the Vietnam War would tear the alliance apart. A decade later, there were worries that detente would produce the same result. When the Cold War ended, politicians feared that the 'glue' provided by the Soviet threat would disappear. Yet NATO defied these predictions and survived with an increased membership and enhanced reputation. FULL POST

With the continued willingness and ability of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to brutally crush his country's opposition, the question about what options we might have to stop the slaughter grows increasingly haunting. I am not currently advocating military intervention, but it is worth surveying the tools at our disposal to contemplate what might come next - if not immediately, then perhaps down the road.

1. Invasion to carry out regime change

Let's start with the extreme option and then work down the list, so to speak. Invasion to carry out regime change, even if done with complete political correctness, a UN mandate, and strong Arab and other Muslim participation, is very unappealing. Syria is not dissimilar from Iraq in size, and as such one would have to think in terms of 100,000 to 150,000 troops for several years of post-invasion stabilization. Casualties to foreign forces alone could number well into the hundreds or low thousands, even if Assad did not use chemical weapons in response.

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Editor’s Note: James Joyner is managing editor of the Atlantic Council and blogs at OutsideTheBeltway.com.

 By James Joyner – Special to CNN's Global Public Square

As the Libya crisis has unfolded these last several months, some long-festering contradictions have come to light.

First, for a variety of reasons, many of us opposed American intervention in the conflict. As horrible as the potential humanitarian crisis in Benghazi could have been, preventing it did not strike us as a vital national interest worthy of going to war. Further, we had and continue to hold doubts about whether the end state — which the United States would have great responsibility for given our role in bringing it about — would be the stable, pro-Western democracy for which we would hope. Also, given fatigue from ten years of constant war fighting and the strains of the global recession, it’s clear there is little appetite for post-conflict reconstruction. FULL POST

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

Back in March, many neoconservatives in Washington were extremely dismissive of the way President Obama was handling the intervention in Libya. They argued that he was doing too little and acting too late – that his approach was too multilateral and lacked cohesiveness. They continuously criticized President Obama for, in the words of an anonymous White House advisor, "leading from behind."

But now that these critics are confronted with the success of the Libya operation, they are changing their tune and claiming paternity of the operation.  They are further arguing that if their advice had been heeded, the intervention in Libya would have been swifter and even more successful. But the Libya intervention is so significant precisely because it did not follow the traditional pattern of U.S.-led interventions. Indeed, it launched a new era in U.S. foreign policy. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Christopher R. Hill, a former US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Ambassador to Iraq and numerous other countries.He is now Dean of the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. For more from Christopher R. Hill, visit Project Syndicate or follow it on Facebook and Twitter.

By Christopher R. Hill, Project Syndicate

While NATO probably will not want to replicate its Libya intervention anywhere else anytime soon, it appears that the alliance, with a little help from its friends, has prevailed in Libya, succeeding in toppling Col. Moammar Gadhafi. This is a good moment for NATO, but one that evokes more a sense of relief than of celebration.

Given the mismatch of member states’ policy (topple Gadhafi) and a strategy to “protect civilians” based on a contested United Nations Security Council resolution, NATO can certainly take pride in managing a great challenge and strengthening its role as the preeminent Euro-Atlantic institution.

Now, however, comes the real hard part. FULL POST

By Jorge Benitez, Atlantic Council

Eight nations participated in strike sorties in NATO’s Operation Unified Protector (OUP) in Libya. These nations are the US, France, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway.

However, there are now only seven nations conducting strike sorties because Norway withdrew its aircraft as of August 1. Britain contributed four additional fighters to help offset the loss of the Norwegian jets. The US has also recently increased its contribution of aircraft and armed Predator UAVs. The U.S. and Germany have also provided bombs to allies with low stockpiles.

Aircraft from other countries, such as Sweden, Qatar, and the Netherlands, are participating in other missions such as enforcing the no-fly and surveillance, but are not involved in combat missions in Libya. FULL POST