Afghan surge

In the wake of US President Barack Obama's long-expected announcement of 30,000 more combat troops for Afghan war deployment , NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has further pledged a new "substantial" contribution by European alliance members to bolster the US-led move on the ground.

But while the US buildup is meant to begin in early 2010, despite Rasmussen's declaration only the UK thus far, which provides the second-largest international military force in the Hindu Kush, has announced relatively token British reinforcements for Afghanistan of some 500 soldiers to join the current British contingent of 9,000. Obama has expressed the hope of 10,000 more European soldiers from within NATO to strengthen the US contribution which will exceed 100,000 soldiers, once the new reinforcements are committed.

Germany with the third-largest force in Afghanistan has already made it clear it will forego any decision until further multilateral strategic talks on the Afghan war are held.

European allies reluctant to make firm commitments

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would wait for the London conference set for January 28th, before making any announcements on Berlin's military posture in Afghanistan. French President Nicolas Sarkozy who said he would continue to provide "strong support" for Washington's lead in the Afghan war effort stated he would also not confirm any plans for fresh French forces to be deployed until after the London meeting.

French forces, in particular special operation units, have often been at the forefront of combat action alongside US troops, unlike the German contingent which has enjoyed a relatively peaceful engagement in the north of Afghanistan.

Though many of the European formations in Afghanistan have suffered losses, the Italian and Spanish contingents, like Germany have not seen much ground action, deploying their soldiers on reconstruction and security duties in safer sectors.

Where the fighting has been at its fiercest in recent years, Afghanistan's southern and eastern provinces, the brunt of war fighting has fallen on US, British, Canadian, Dutch and Danish units. This imbalance in the apportioning of shared responsibility for fighting the war, led US Defense Secretary Robert Gates to warn against the evolution of a "two-tier alliance" where some NATO members fought, while others stood by.

Thus far the relatively muted European response to Obama's new troop commitment points to an ongoing absence of consensus between Washington and the rest of the transatlantic alliance. At the heart of the issue is a sharp difference in how the war is perceived and what long term aims might be.

It is a difference that for some has endured since the Multinational Coalition invaded and toppled the Taliban in 2001, following the 9/11 attacks. According to Michael Williams, a long-time lecturer on strategic affairs at the Royal Holloway University in London, the failure of cohesive US leadership in the previous White House, has been to blame for the disharmony within NATO.

"George W. Bush abdicated any constructive leadership role in Afghanistan, leaving the Alliance relatively muddled. The US and British led invasion of Iraq in 2003 prompted further doubts among the Europeans," Williams told Deutsche Welle.

US and Europe still divided over Afghan approach

"Washington's rhetoric of the 'War on Terror,' was very unpopular in Europe. The Europeans were keen to stay out of Iraq but recognized Afghanistan was important and wanted to be seen to be doing something to help their partner. It seemed like a peacekeeping and reconstruction effort that they were good at, nation building, not war fighting, but when they understood that the Taliban insurgents had merely been displaced, there was never the same understanding of the threat Afghanistan posed."

"Europeans are more post-modern they don't value the use of force as America does and many understand the western military presence as acerbating the situation not ameliorating it, as helping to provoke terror attacks not preventing them," he added.

Obama has clearly made Afghanistan the lynchpin of his strategic policy and has continued to defend the military campaign as crucial to confronting global terror, countering the nexus between the Taliban and Al Qaida, so Afghanistan is never more a base of operations to launch terror attacks against the West and beyond.

Read more on the struggle in Afghanistan

A war on several fronts

But the battlefield in South Asia is far greater than Afghanistan itself. The nerve center of the Taliban and Al Qaida as well as other radical Islamist armed groups remains in the predominantly Pashtun tribal territories of Pakistan, where the Pakistani military is now embroiled in a full scale military effort to crush the enemy within in what has become a regional civil war in all but name.

The sensitive issue of Pakistani sovereignty and the divisions within a larger Pakistani society that extend to the armed forces and security services themselves over the Taliban, deprives Obama and indeed NATO of any military solution on the other side of the Durand line, the invisible frontier that separates Afghanistan from Pakistan.

Cross-border "hot pursuit" of the insurgents, is not an option for NATO. As matters stand the Taliban is able to strike at will into Afghanistan and then retreat to its sanctuary in the territories, where its communications, logistics and command structures, as well as a broad base of popular support are entrenched. The US has opted for repeated unmanned missile strikes against key insurgent and terror leaders into Pakistan, but these too often have negative repercussions on the diplomatic front with Islamabad when the attacks provoke civilian casualties.

Afghanistan at a crossroad

In the aftermath of the recent Afghan elections, the notion of an Allied effort meant to secure and promote the greater democratization of Afghanistan has also started to ring hollow. Afghan government institutions remain notoriously corrupt, the lot of the average Afghan, remains one of poverty, hunger and insecurity leaving the US and NATO in its partnership with Karzai, embarrassed, often angry at what many decry as an unviable pairing unlikely to achieve success.

Of the untold billions spent on reconstruction and the many more needed to continue prosecuting the war, the massive costs have also made the Europeans shy away, not just the consistently heavy combat casualties. "European politicians follow public opinion closely and in light of the economic crisis they're more inclined to assign that money to social spending than the war," said Williams.

The manner in which the war is fought has also been undergoing review and adjustment. General Stanley McChrystal, has emphasized the need to provide greater security for the Afghan civilian population and stressed the need for more effective hearts and minds efforts in spurring reconstruction.

But McChrystal's approach is a labor-intensive one and it will mean a steady stream of casualties which increasingly have stirred public opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, when a clear-cut military victory in Afghanistan, delivered anytime soon, seems all but impossible.

And herein lies the crux of Afghanistan's great strategic question, the United States and its European allies, despite diplomatic niceties, simply do not yet posses a common vision of what allied goals might be in the Hindu Kush and certainly do not agree yet on an equal sharing of the burden, though neither in Washington nor any European capital with soldiers in harm's way, is there much enthusiasm for a prolonged and open-ended war.

The one refrain all can agree on is that international soldiers will stay on in Afghanistan long enough for the Afghan national army and national police to carry the main weight of ensuring security and fighting the war so the Taliban may be contained.

While Obama has made it clear that the new troop surge is to "get the job done," the new commitment has also come with an endgame and the announcement that US forces will begin to withdraw in July of 2011. The whispering in European corridors of power is if Afghanistan ultimately means retreat, then why should it cost more in treasure and men?

As one defense analyst close to the German Ministry of Defense told Deutsche Welle on the condition of anonymity, "we cannot further nor more deeply commit ourselves to a strategic concept that is not completely and tightly ironed out. What constitute the parameters of the mission objective, what means success or defeat and is it worth the cost?"

It is a question Obama himself is trying to answer.

Author: Chris Kline
Editor: Rob Mudge