The NATO Summit in Bucharest in April saw many hints of progress, but largely fell short on the most pressing question for the alliance: Afghanistan. On the upside, Albania and Croatia were invited to join, France announced its probable return to the NATO fold, and efforts continued to convince members to take a more active role in Afghanistan.

With the personal attendance of President Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan was expected to dominate the summit. Instead, old issues—including expansion, Russian influence, missile defence and French membership—took a significant share of the debate. A document entitled ‘Progress in Afghanistan’ was published to coincide with the summit and in a ‘vision statement’ NATO reaffirmed its ‘long-term commitment’ to the country. However, it is unlikely that the vision statement will bring much comfort to President Karzai or the Afghan populace.

The situation in Afghanistan verges on the existential for NATO, yet the summit failed to seriously debate, let alone resolve, the pressing issues of the strategic fragmentation of the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the national caveats which make the alliance a two- (or even three-) tier organization. If the organization cannot resolve what it actually should be, then admitting new members may not be a wise approach.

A raft of international assessments over the past six months have highlighted the lack of progress being made in Afghanistan, with specific criticism levelled at NATO’s performance. In January the Manley Report of the Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan referenced: ‘serious failures of strategic direction, and persistent fragmentation in the efforts of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and NATO’. Later that month the Atlantic Council of the United States gloomily reported: ‘Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan’. Perhaps bleakest of all was the conclusion of the European Council on Foreign Relations that ‘Failure in Afghanistan is now a realistic prospect’.

At the summit, strong concerns continued to be voiced by some member states claiming that other alliance partners were not doing enough to share the burden of fighting in the country. The United States continued to lobby for extra troops, with some US military commanders wanting around 10 000 more.

In the end, it was France that saved part of the day—certainly in public relations terms. While offers of small quantities of troops were received from Croatia, Portugal and Romania, the crucial ‘big battalions’ offer came from France, which pledged what NATO spokesman James Appathurai described as ‘a substantial military contribution to Afghanistan’. In practise this will probably amount to a battalion of perhaps only 700 new soldiers.

Furthermore, in a decision that appeared to reverse de Gaulle’s 1966 decision to withdraw from NATO’s military command, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced: ‘At the end of the French presidency [of the European Union] the moment will have come … to take the necessary decisions for France to take its full place in NATO’s structures’. This suggests that France is likely to rejoin the alliance’s integrated command structure in 2009.

Nonetheless, the Bucharest Summit is unlikely to be remembered as a significant milestone in Afghanistan’s development. Many issues equally as important as troop numbers could have been addressed—the performance and future of the provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), NATO’s potential for involvement in counter-narcotic activities, national caveats, and so on—but were either glossed over or ignored completely. The likely French reintegration in the NATO command restructure and additional contribution to the Afghanistan mission will be some grounds for encouragement within NATO. However, although the USA will now be able to re-shuffle forces to prop up the Canadians, the new contributions fall well short of its demands, almost certainly compelling the USA to carry any additional load.

The sight of a NATO summit scrabbling to raise a few hundred soldiers (compared with a total of 47 000 already in Afghanistan) and a handful of helicopters will not play well to the Afghan or global audiences and with probably encourage the insurgency. Recall too that many tens of thousands of ISAF soldiers in the country are unable to take a significant part in operations against the Taliban either because they are not trained and resourced for counter-insurgency operations or because the rules (caveats) imposed by their national government prevent them from doing so.

One thing is clear: Afghanistan remains vital for the credibility of NATO. However, ‘failure is not an option’ is a bold declaration that may return to haunt. Issues such as the national caveats continue to undermine—perhaps critically—NATO’s ability to perform. This is something of which the Afghan population, its government and the Taliban are becoming equally aware. Some April editorial headlines in Afghan newspapers may be suggestive of wider feelings: ‘Bucharest, a summit without achievement’ (Rah-e Nejat) and ‘NATO summit in Bucharest: support the presence or the start of a withdrawal?’ (Arman-e Melli). The Taliban, which is gradually moving away from crude statements based purely on body-counts, have made their own comments on the value of the Bucharest Summit, demonstrating growing understanding of the wider world and what makes the West tick. The gap between what NATO thinks it has achieved on the one hand and perceptions within key quarters of the Afghan population on the other is growing wider than ever.