Home pagePress CenterIn the Media Julianne Smith, director of the CSIS Europe Program, was quoted by the Washington Post, "Bush to Meet NATO Allies Divided over Adding Troops."
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Julianne Smith, director of the CSIS Europe Program, was quoted by the Washington Post, "Bush to Meet NATO Allies Divided over Adding Troops."
President Bush heads to Europe today to try to rescue the faltering mission in Afghanistan, and key NATO allies plan to meet his demands for more forces with modest troop increases, though not by as much as U.S. military officers say is needed to put down a stubborn Taliban insurgency.
France has signaled it will announce at this week's NATO summit that it will send another 1,000 troops to Afghanistan, while Britain plans to send about 800 more and Poland has already promised another 400. But Germany and others refuse to contribute additional ground forces, and the United States may have to increase its own commitment to make up the shortfall, U.S. and European officials and analysts said. [...]
At the heart of the discussion is whether NATO should even be projecting force so far from its own borders or return to its historical role of self-defense. "This is a debate we've seen inside the alliance for the last couple of years," said Julianne Smith, head of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "but it's really coming to a head over Afghanistan, because part of the alliance feels that Afghanistan should be a precedent for future missions and part of the alliance feels like it should be an exception, perhaps never to be repeated again."
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