2012 Chicago Summit

2012 Chicago Summit NATO Summit Chicago 2012
Logo of the 2012 Chicago Summit
Host country	United States
Date	20–21 May 2012
Venue(s)	McCormick Place
Cities	Chicago
Website	NATO Chicago Summit 2012

The 2012 Chicago Summit was a meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, held in Chicago, Illinois, on 20 and 21 May 2012. This was the first time ever that a NATO summit was held in the United States outside of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. The event was originally scheduled to coincide and be held after the 2012 G8 summit in Chicago as well, but the G8 summit was later rescheduled to be held at Camp David.

The previous summit was the 2010 summit in Lisbon, Portugal. The summit in Chicago discussed the impact of recent events since then, such as the Arab Spring, Libyan Civil War, as well as the global financial crisis, and transition for NATO forces in Afghanistan, and a missile shield system for Europe to seek routes out.

NATO is planning to craft specific resolutions concerning the Middle East. Issues to address include the organization's continuing military support of active insurrections in the region, as well conflict with Iran. The group is going to make plans for defending certain areas, such as the Strait of Hormuz.

NATO will also discuss missile defense and nuclear deterrence more generally.

NATO's secretary general Rasmussen has confirmed plans to proceed with ballistic missile defense, a system that would alter the longstanding balance of mutually assured destruction between the United States and Russia, but yet protect NATO-member nations from missile attacks from rogue nations such as Iran or North Korea. Many years prior, NATO member the United States had informed Russia on several occasions that if Russia didn't limit its cooperation with the Iranian missile program, the defense shield would be necessary. Rasmussen announced that a successful test had been conducted in April 2012 of the missile defense system, and that further details about existing "interim capability" would be announced at the Chicago summit. This position has been changed since the Lisbon Summit, during which NATO powers ordered the creation of a "Deterrence and Defense Posture Review" (DDPR)—a document expected to express and discuss conflicts some of the wide-ranging conflicts on the topic within NATO.