The Chicago shuffle is a jazz beat which requires a drummer to play both hands together at the same time at different beats. NATO leaders meeting in Chicago on 20-21 May 2012 will find themselves having to perform the political equivalent of the Chicago shuffle - finding a way to do more with less with no clear agreement over priorities.

Video of speech given by General Bartels, chairman of the NATO Military Committee at the CIOR Mid-Winter Meeting on February 9th 2012 in NATO Headquarters.

Dear All. I wish first of all to thank you for a very productive Mid Winter Meeting (MWM) last month in Bruxelles. We have, in my humble opinion, achieved quite a lot, but we can of course improve further. There is however a balance between the demand for quality and structure of our governance and output and the fact that most of our members do this during their free time, without any compensation and some even pay their own expenses for attending our gatherings.

Find the newsletter 1/2012 in the newsletter archive.

Several months have now passed since we said goodbye to more than 50 very engaged junior officers in Warsaw. In the meantime, the YRO (Young Reserve Officers) Committee has worked to identify lessons learned and to improve the concept of YROW in order to deliver an even better product in Copenhagen in 2012.