Afghanistan to Dominate NATO Summit

U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Ruben Romero, right, from Fort Benning, Georgia, is joined by soldiers from other NATO countries, as he poses with an new M4 weapon technology making use of a magnifying video camera and thermal imaging, during a demonstration on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Riga, Monday Nov. 27, 2006. The NATO summit, taking place in the Latvian capital Riga this week, will be dominated by the war NATO is waging against the Taleban in Afghanistan and by the concept that NATO should increasingly take on a global role. The other soldiers are, from left, Warrant Officer II Alan Moyle, from Britain, Major Michele Velon, from Italy, CSM Harald Weiss of Germany, Adjudant-Chef Stephan Heitz of France, and Corporal 1st Class Rick Smulders of the Netherlands.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth) (Kirsty Wigglesworth - AP)

Although all 26 nations have troops serving with the mission, those in the southern front lines _ mainly Canada, Britain, the United States and the Netherlands _ are irked that others _ primarily Germany, Italy, France and Spain _ have restrictions limiting their troops to the relatively peaceful north and west.

"Putting caveats on operations means putting caveats on NATO's future," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in Brussels before the summit. "At Riga, I will convey this message to our heads of state and government, loud and clear."

He may get some success. Poland says the 1,100 troops it is sending to Afghanistan in the new year can be used around the country. Norway and Portugal have quick-response units based in the north that can be sent wherever commanders think best.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, de Hoop Scheffer said he was confident all leaders would agree that their troops are able to rush to the aid of allies in trouble anywhere in Afghanistan.

Several non-NATO nations are supporting the Afghan mission, including Australia and New Zealand. Some in the alliance want to bring those countries, along with Japan and South Korea, into a "global partnership" to boost political and military cooperation.

Washington sees that idea as a priority in Riga. The United States also wants to see more spending by European allies to modernize NATO's military, build up the alliance's role as a political forum and keep the door open for nations in the Balkans who want to join NATO in 2008, and others in the former Soviet Union seeking membership further down the road.

However, the U.S. faces opposition from at least one European ally.

"To seek to involve the alliance in nonmilitary missions, ad hoc partnerships, technological ventures or an insufficiently prepared enlargement could only distort its purpose," French President Jacques Chirac told a meeting with his country's ambassadors based around the world in August.

Although both sides are keen to lay to rest the ghosts of their Iraq war disputes, France and the United States hold fundamentally different views of NATO's role. Paris is wary of what it sees as Washington's attempts to use NATO to expand its influence at the expense of a more independent EU.

Many blame continued tension between France and United States for the relatively limited ambition of the Riga agenda and expect more for the next summit in 2008, when there'll probably be a new president in Paris, or the one after in 2009, when there will certainly be a new president in Washington.