  Summation over hard thermal loops, by themselves and as insertions in higher
order Feynman diagrams, is important in thermal perturbation theory for Quantum
Chromodynamics, so that all contributions of a given order in the coupling
constant can be consistently taken into account. I review some of the basic
properties of hard thermal loops and how the generating functional for them is
related to the eikonal for a Chern-Simons gauge theory, and using an auxiliary
field, to the gauged Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten action. The Hamiltonian
analysis of the effective action and a discussion of plasma waves are given. It
is also pointed out that a possible expression for the magnetic mass term can
be written in a closely related way.
