Most of the European members of NATO, while professing solidarity with the United States and NATO over Afghanistan and conceding that it's a make-or-break issue for the trans-Atlantic alliance, are not prepared to stay more than another two years, maximum three.

Supplying their, at best, weak troop commitments stationed in the quieter parts of Afghanistan (where there is little Taliban guerrilla activity) is more costly than anticipated. Countries like Belgium, Spain and Italy have limited airlift capacity, and their military transport aircraft are stretched to the breaking point. EU countries that are also members of NATO allowed their defenses to run down since 1989 when the Berlin Wall collapsed and money saved went into the gargantuan appetites of welfare states.

Most European "statesmen/women" concede the need to become more engaged in Afghanistan, but the man/woman-in-the-street questions the need to expend resources in a country that is still hovering between the 15th and 16th centuries. The Taliban was there before we came, argue most Europeans, and will be back even before we leave. With luck, they add, what will follow our withdrawal will accept the education of girls that the Taliban had rejected and ruthlessly stamped out when it ruled the roost between 1996 and 2001.

Afghan's opium poppy crop has grown steadily larger (now 8,300 tons a year, representing two-thirds of the Afghan gross domestic product) since the 2001 U.S. invasion that toppled Taliban's Torquemada, Mullah Mohammed Omar. The one-eyed enforcer of religious fanaticism is still burrowed in the mountain fastness of the Hindu Kush and from time to time still manages to get pronouncements onto the world's satellite TV networks.

Speaking not for attribution about the Afghan narcotics crisis, an Afghan "strategic thinker" said recently the situation was under control and getting better from year to year -- whereupon he was interrupted by a journalist who said he had heard from the intelligence community that almost every minister in President Hamid Karzai's government was "on the take, and if not the minister, his No. 2 or 3 on the minister's behalf, and that ministers were careful to keep their U.S. visas up-to-date in case a hurried exit was suddenly required." The nonplused Afghan smiled, then said, "I thought this was on the record." Advised that it was "off the record," he confirmed everything the journalist had just said.

The high geopolitical stakes and lack of European resolve is NATO's existential crisis. Five former top-ranking military leaders have produced a new NATO "Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World -- Renewing the Trans-Atlantic Partnership," hoping this would discourage heads of government from kicking the Afghan can down the road one more time at the Bucharest, Romania, summit April 2-4. NATO's former uniformed chiefs (Britain's Field Marshal Lord Inge, France's Adm. Jacques Lanxade, Germany's Gen. Dr. Klaus Naumann, U.S. Gen. John Shalikashvili and Holland's Gen. Henk van den Bremen) say experiences gained in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate that crisis management in the alliance is obsolete and needs an urgent update. This would have to include everything from prevention to stabilization -- "smart power" in the new geopolitical vernacular.

Unveiling their new strategic document at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the five military brains concluded there is no single organization capable of dealing with NATO's "out-of-theater" operations. The combined efforts of NATO, the United Nations and the European Union should be brought to bear. NATO needs EU support for its non-military capabilities, while the EU needs NATO for armed forces capable of managing a serious crisis. The United Nations, for its part, lacks the kind of heft that makes national entities pay attention to international political management. So the three entities should conjugate their efforts.

But what the five strategic thinkers skirted was (1) how to motivate awareness among European public opinion of current and future challenges and (2) how to spark political awareness of current and future challenges and political resolve to implement recommendations.

France, now half-in-half-out but more in than out, is banking on the ratification of a new European treaty that would give the EU the means to see itself as a coequal player with the United States, China and Russia. Hopefully, say Europe's strategic thinkers, this would give the EU a permanent president, a common foreign minister authorized to implement a single foreign policy. Common defense would take much longer. Small neighboring countries like Belgium and the Netherlands have separate procurement programs for their armies, navies and air forces. Until last week Belgium was without a government for the past nine months as its two principal ethnic groups -- hard-working, Dutch-speaking Flemish and welfare-dependent, not so hard-working, French-speaking Walloons -- argued over frayed constitutional links. Hardly a promising harbinger for the EU as a global superpower.

In any event, this could not be achieved in time to influence events in Afghanistan, where the clock is running out. The Taliban cannot win militarily. Nor can NATO. But could NATO, the EU and the United Nations build a viable state with modern infrastructure? Certainly not over the next three years. Hence, Carlucci's admonition to stick it out for 10 to 20 years if necessary. Chances of this happening? Slim to none.

Russia links help in Afghanistan to NATO expansion: report
Russia offered Friday to help out NATO's hard-pressed forces in Afghanistan, Interfax news agency reported, but linked this to the alliance halting membership bids by ex-Soviet Georgia and Ukraine.

Speaking ahead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's summit next week, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Interfax that Moscow was "considering the possibility of deepening" cooperation with NATO in its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The offer appeared to refer to ongoing negotiations over transit for NATO forces through Russia rather than Moscow sending troops -- something unlikely given the Soviet Union's traumatic defeat by Afghan insurgents in the 1980s.

However, Grushko warned this would not happen "if each other's lawful security interests are not taken into account," making clear that topping those interests was opposition to NATO expansion.

The statement came just ahead of a NATO heads of state gathering in Bucharest on April 2-4, where Afghanistan and expansion will be the main issues. President Vladimir Putin will attend the summit on April 4 for the NATO-Russia Council meeting.

Russian permission to travel overland to Afghanistan would be a significant boost for the alliance in Afghanistan, as well as an unprecedented gesture of support from the Kremlin for its former Western enemy.

But NATO has repeatedly rejected attempts to restrain its expansion plans, including for Georgia and Ukraine.

Both those ex-Soviet republics, which are on Russia's borders, are pressing to be granted Membership Action Plan (MAP) status -- a roadmap toward full membership -- at the Bucharest summit.

About half of the 26 NATO countries, notably Germany, have cast doubt on the Georgian and Ukrainian bids. But US President George W. Bush is a vocal supporter and is due to fly to the Ukrainian capital Kiev on April 1.

Poland is another strong supporter and Prime Minister Donald Tusk said during a visit to the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Friday that he "will absolutely support Ukraine's entry into the Membership Action Plan."

Grushko denied press reports that Moscow was bargaining with NATO. "There is no trade-off and there cannot be one," he told Interfax.

However, his statements were as negative on expansion as they were positive on Afghanistan.

"NATO's 'open doors' policy does not strengthen the security of NATO itself, nor the security of countries declaring their intention to join the alliance, nor, moreover, the security of Russia," Grushko said.

"This project is from the political past, and does not concern the real security demands of our day," he said.

Several NATO countries are concerned about provoking Russia, which is the world's biggest energy exporter and a vital source for oil and gas to the European Union.

NATO nations have also expressed concern about Georgia's crackdown on opposition unrest last year, as well as the country's conflicts with the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Georgian Foreign Minister David Bakradze on Friday said that he would not be happy with any half-measures from NATO aimed at appeasing Russia.

"Any artificial mechanisms... are unacceptable for us. Georgia deserves MAP and the decision should be very simple: either there is MAP or there is no MAP," he said on return from a trip to NATO headquarters in Brussels.

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