Living relatively close to Celtic Manor we could not help but notice the NATO summit. Whilst we live in difficult times I wonder if there ever was a period of 'not difficult' times. Men seem to have a predilection towards macho positioning, their own self-importance, greed and very unfortunately war. There are very few female tyrants in the history books.

I was astonished by the television coverage that either colluded in the embellishment of the event or were manipulated. Why go to the cost (whether the Government, NATO or the arms industry) of placing military aircraft outside the front of the hotel? Surely at a time of trouble everything we can do to defuse world aggression should be the order of the day.

Why interview everyone and pose for pictures with multi-million pound attack aircraft as a back drop? Why have tanks and missile defence systems as the back drop to David Cameron?

I see no sense either in the cost involved or the message it sends. Why not a neutral or scenic back drop or even perhaps an ambulance. Unfortunately this is the shortcoming of the male of the species. All this on the heels of a one hundred year anniversary that was supposed to show the futility of war and the millions of lives lost. The War that should have ended all Wars.

Unless we as a society can rid ourselves of this constant need to show power I cannot see how peace will ever follow. I am not a pacifist by nature but as I grow older I realise that it is a very brave man who says 'No' to war.

Someone somewhere will have paid tens of millions of pounds for the summit which could have been channeled into alleviating poverty and suffering where these wars are taking place today. I wonder what was achieved at the conference that could not have been achieved in a few phone calls.

To balance the argument Prime Ministers and Presidents have very difficult paths to tread but I hope one day we might find more leaders like Ghandi or Mandela that do what is right ahead of their own or party's re-election. Wars are created by men not religion, nationality or creed. Most also distil back into individual greed no matter how good or well intentioned they start out.

Power most definitely corrupts.