NATO reluctant to help US in Afganstan

04-04-2009
http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-04-04/NATO_summit_seeks_to_build_bri...

The summit is not all about celebrations as there are quite a few challenges to be addressed, and NATO members dont certainly share the same views on some of them. It is likely the leaders of the 28 nations will disagree over Afghanistan and the alliance's future as they go into talks on Saturday.

Afghanistan is expected to dominate the second day of the summit. Nearly half the soldiers currently contributing NATOs mission in the Islamic Republic are American.


Read more

US President Barack Obama came to Europe to call on the alliances member countries to increase their roles in Afghanistan either with troops, money, aid, or even with diplomatic efforts.

In addition, he praised the summits hosts for their efforts in Afghanistan, but said these efforts need to be bolstered and made more effective.

European allies, however, are reluctant to follow these calls. Willing to contribute, Europe at the same time doesnt want its soldiers to get in harms way.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said his country is ready to send police into Afghanistan, rather than sending troops.

Relationships with Russia are also likely to stir the debate at the alliances anniversary summit. Moscow opposes NATOs expansion to the East and Washingtons plan backed by all the alliances members to deploy missile defence shield in Eastern Europe.

RTs military analyst Eugene Krushchev believes that from now on the Afghan War will increasingly become a US effort.

And thats exactly the reason that the US have to come up for the Afghan search with the same amount of extra troops that will compensate the European troops presence in Afghanistan, because they are totally incapable of coming up on combat terms with the US forces, he said.

Peter Lavelle, RTs political commentator, agreed, saying that Obama was expecting more from NATO and nobody wanted to raise their hands to offer more troops.

The British will do a little bit more when it comes to training. The French said they would train police officers there. But this is a clear defeat for NATO as an alliance, a clear defeat. An alliance that doesnt want to fight. It embraces the ideas of the United States, but it wont back it up, said the expert.

According to Lavelle, European members of the alliance are not committed to fighting this war.

Its like saying: We are all for you, America, we are right behind you. And thats right right behind, he said, adding NATO was the pace against the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union is gone.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• NATO
• US
• Afganstan
• Pakistan