When talking about the Eilenberg-Maclane space $K(G,n)$, we usually restrict our attention to the situation where $G$ is abelian. In that case, we get $\Omega K(G,n)=K(G,n-1)$, so we can call $K(G,n)$ a *delooping* of $K(G,n-1)$.


Since $\pi\_n$ is always abelian for $n>1$, it only makes sense to talk about $K(G,1)=BG$ for $G$ nonabelian anyways. So there definitely shouldn't be delooping of this space, because then it would have $\pi\_2=G$, which is impossible. From the previous paragraph, it seems like we should therefore be able to say that the nonabelianity of $G$ (i.e., the nontriviality of the commutator $[G,G]$) is the obstruction to delooping $BG$. But this isn't very satisfying, because I can't quite see what's going on with the actual space.


All of which motivates my (slightly open-ended/up-to-interpretation) question:


**How should I think about delooping? Is it nothing more than thing like "for the space $X$ that we care about, it just so happens that we've got $Y$ with $\Omega Y\simeq X$", or is there a definite way to measure obstructions? In the cases where a delooping exists, is there an explicit method for its construction?**



How should I think about delooping?
One possible answer: Stasheff proved that a (connected) space $X$ is (homotopy equivalent to) a loopspace if and only if $X$ is an algebra over the $A\_\infty$ operad (or rather I should say *an* $A\_\infty$ operad).


See for instance [this article](http://www.ams.org/notices/200406/what-is.pdf).


