Obama Fails to Secure European Troops for Afghanistan

U.S. President Obama appealed to European allies for more NATO troops in Afghanistan and failed to secure any meaningful commitments. Is NATO in America's interests?

President Obama will come away from his European tour without the NATO troop commitments that he had hoped to secure. Obama detailed the threat that an unstable Afghanistan posed to Europe, but European leaders turned their backs on the U.S. president. Of the European leadership presented with the challenges and needs in Afghanistan, the U.K.'s Gordon Brown was the only ally to offer any notable commitment. "Gordon Brown was the only one to offer substantial help," The Times reported. "He offered to send several hundred extra British soldiers to provide security during the August election, but even that fell short of the thousands of combat troops that the US was hoping to prise from the Prime Minister." Besides the U.K.'s troop gesture, Belgium offered 35 military trainers, and Spain offered 12. France refused President Obama's request outright. The commitment refusals by European leaders yields a bigger question on the status of the alliance itself. Given the provocation that NATO also represents to Russia, is NATO in America's best interest? “NATO is the most successful alliance in modern history,” President Obama said Friday at a joint press availability with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, according to an ABC News report. “The basic premise of NATO is Europe’s security is the United States’ security, and vice versa.” But NATO member states have been unwilling to commit troops to Afghanistan, where the September 11 attack on the United States is known to have originated. This unwillingness is increasing the skepticism among NATO critics on the viability of the alliance. "It's entirely unclear what NATO's reason for existence is after 1989 [the year the Berlin Wall came down]," Tarak Barkawi, of Cambridge University's Center for International Studies, told TIME. NATO runs a serious risk of becoming a shadow of the promise of its alliance, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned last year, in the ABC News report. "I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security and others who are not," Gates testified before Congress, reported ABC News. "And I think that it puts a cloud over the future of the alliance if this is to endure and perhaps even get worse." European leaders refused troop requests from U.S. President Bush throughout the many appeals Bush made, and they claimed the Bush Administration actively sought war. The Obama Administration presents an entirely different face - and has been offering to hit "reset" buttons with Russia and other countries. But still the NATO members refuse to heed Obama's troop request. NATO critics say the excuses no longer exist. Speaking to reporters earlier this week in Brussels, ABC News cited NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer who challenged the European leadership. "This is not President Obama's war," Scheffer said. "The allies need to ensure that they all do their part. No complaints about 'Americanization' of this mission, if the other allies don't play their role."