NATO is one of the most successful military alliances in history, and a decade and a half after its bloodless victory over the Warsaw Pact, it is bigger than ever. But while it has grown in membership, it has not assumed a much more forceful place in world affairs.

That's partly because the United States government, under President Bush, has insisted on doing more than ever, often unilaterally. But it's also because Europe declines to take the steps necessary to enlarge its global influence.

The Bush administration has erred by not doing all it can to maintain good relations with governments on the other side of the Atlantic. Its policies in Iraq and the broader Middle East have also damaged the American image across the continent.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, our allies agreed that something had to be done about Afghanistan, and several sent forces to support the invasion and handle peacekeeping afterward. But today, as the Kabul government struggles with a growing insurgency, some European governments are squeamish. France, Germany, Italy and Spain insist on confining their troops to safer parts of Afghanistan, leaving the nasty jobs to the U.S., Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. That's no way to win a war that has to be won.

Europeans may reply that America spends more because it insists on doing more. But by the same token, European governments can hardly expect to attain a voice commensurate with their size and economic heft by skimping on defense outlays.

Armed power is the coin of the strategic realm. If Europe wants to take a bigger role and persuade Washington to take a smaller one, it has to show it has the military strength and resolve to back up its diplomacy. Otherwise, it leaves a vacuum that other nations are bound to fill.

Many European governments disagree with Washington on various international issues. The question for our allies at this summit is simple: Do they want to be players or just critics?

This constraint for the duration of the period that the US or the nations of the European Defense Community have formally declared war or are enforcing a UN Security Council resolution supported by 2/3 of the UN General Assembly.

This must be like a liver cell of a drunk feels like. We need an intervention to help us kick the foreign bases habit ... it is far too addicting, it would seem, for the US body politic to give up on our own.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

What is the purpose of Nato? I thought that originally it was to contain the Warsaw Pact. Rather than sholder it's share of Nato, why not leave? Nato now decreases our security, not increases it by causing fear amonst 3rd world countries. The result of this fear will probably be wide spread nuclear weapons.

Rather than participate in the spread of empire, we need to contain leaders and countries that believe in empire.

_{aspiring to genteel poverty}

NATO is now irrelevant and should be shut down.
Europe do not need any strong army since noone will invade us any more and i do not see the point to invade any other country, not in my name.

We need a strong kind of FBI at European level and some well trained, well equipped peace-keepers for UN that's all.

France, Germany, Italy and Spain, who sparked a row by refusing calls in September to send troops to the Taliban's heartland in south Afghanistan, promised to send help to trouble zones outside their areas in exceptional cases, officials said.

"The President (Jacques Chirac) confirmed the possibility, on a case-by-case basis and on request, to send French troops outside their zone if necessary," French officials said after talks in the Latvian capital Riga.

Madrid's pledge was yet more guarded, with a Spanish official saying Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had offered use of Spanish helicopters in exceptional circumstances to help evacuate wounded NATO solders, and not for combat.

France has a contingent in the capital Kabul and Spanish troops operate in the relatively calm west. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, whose country also has soldiers in the west, said it would only move troops "in extremis".

Asked whether it was a failure for the summit that four large countries had not completely lifted restrictions on their troops, known as caveats, Prodi said: "No, it's a clear position and it was an obvious position."

Translation into even plainer English of core-European position in Nato: "If you Atlanticist globocopping eejits find your troops are being cut into very small pieces on the ground by irate Pashtun tribals after overindulgence in airstriking southern Afghani homes and villages we'll (maybe) send in a few helicopters to fish you out - apart from than, keep whistling...

"Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami