NATO: Alliance Of the Unwilling

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Reconstruction as a goal is fine, but NATO officials note that it is only possible where there is a peace to keep. As to which, consider this: the Taliban recently ordered four cell-phone companies in the country to shut down at night to prevent the U.S. military from tracking cell-phone-carrying insurgents, although the military says it doesn't actually do so. Zinni puts the situation in context. "European countries saying that, 'We contribute to NATO because we're involved in reconstruction,'" he says dismissively, "is like saying, 'I'm in charge of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.' "

Speaking to TIME, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer denies that the rift between NATO members is "a question of Europe vs. America." De Hoop Scheffer says he will ask for 10% more troops at Bucharest, and stresses that Europeans have suffered casualties. But he acknowledges that he will "keep pushing" all the allies to do more. He needs to. The U.S., its armed forces already stretched like a piano wire, is now being forced to dispatch another 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan. The Canadian government of Stephen Harper took the unusual step of threatening to pull out of Afghanistan if NATO did not produce additional reinforcements for operations in the south of the country, though it has since agreed to extend beyond 2009. To keep pace with increasing demand, Britain is being forced to keep its troops in place for longer and redeploy them sooner. Says Bastian Giegerich, an analyst at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, "There's thinking about how training might have to happen on a faster schedule ... This is not good for morale."

But morale will continue to fall while Europe avoids an honest debate about what its men and women in uniform are supposed to do. That lack of clarity can manifest itself in unexpected ways. Winfried Nachtwei, a German Green Party defense expert and critic of his government's policy in Afghanistan, believes nonetheless that Germany's lack of military capacity "restrains German foreign policy." The Bundestag has failed to debate the situation in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, he says, because it is nervous about feeling obliged to dispatch German troops to help out. Most Europeans acknowledge that if the current government in Kabul of Hamid Karzai is allowed to fail and the country returns to Taliban rule, the resulting instability could create new safe havens from which the Taliban and al-Qaeda could threaten Europe as well as the U.S. Yet it seems all too easy to ignore the consequences of Western inaction. "There's a total failure of political leadership," says Jonathan Eyal, director of international security studies at London's Royal United Services Institute. "A failure of all European politicians to say that this is the moment when we need to spend more, rather than less, on the military. Everyone seems to accept that it is impossible to make that case to the public."

Things could change, of course. There will be a new Administration in Washington next year, conceivably one whose temper and tone will be such that European public opinion will swing behind the need to fund its military establishments properly (though don't count on the latter ever happening). Meanwhile, it is clear that NATO is facing a test in Afghanistan that is unlike anything it has encountered, and one that it may not survive. U.S. frustration with some of its European partners could compel Washington to establish other coalitions of the willing instead, says military analyst Michael O'Hanlon, at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "America might decide these aren't the most important allies. That's certainly a possibility."

That would hardly be good for Europeans — especially those without military forces large enough to ensure their own security. One of the virtues of being part of an alliance like NATO is that it allows small countries to leverage their capabilities to form part of a coherent whole — provided they are willing to ante up their share of battle-ready troops. "NATO has its problems, of course," says Britain's General Jackson. "But believe you me, there is nothing to match it." Back in Uruzgan, tribal leader Khan would certainly agree. The question is whether Europeans looking on from half a world away do so, too.

With reporting by Lisa Abend/Madrid, Aryn Baker/Kabul, William Boston/Berlin, Rory Callinan/Brisbane, Leo Cendrowicz/Brussels, Bruce Crumley/Paris, Muhib Habibi/Kandahar, Catherine Mayer/London and Mark Thompson/Washington

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