By DPA
Munich : US Defence Secretary Robert Gates Sunday ought to overcome European scepticism over NATO’s role in Afghanistan by saying defeat could destroy the alliance and embolden terrorists.
“We must not, we cannot, become a two-tiered alliance of those who are willing to fight and those who are not,” Gates said.
“Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would effectively destroy the alliance,” Gates told delegates attending a high-profile security conference in Munich.
Gates bemoaned the fact that many Europeans were questioning the merits of NATO’s role in Afghanistan and were calling for their troops to be pulled out, arguing that there was a direct link between the fight against the Taliban and the broader fight against Islamic terrorism.
“With safe havens in the Middle East, and new tactics honed on the battlefield and transmitted via the Internet, violence and terrorism worldwide could surge,” he said.
NATO’s efforts have been frustrated by divisions over strategy, with some experts warning that the rift could have a disastrous impact on its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Many NATO members argue that NATO should focus more on reconstructing Afghanistan and empowering its military and are refusing to send their troops to the country’s volatile south, leaving the United States, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands to bear the brunt of the fighting against the Taliban insurgents.
Sceptical ISAF members include Germany, where a recent poll suggested that 84 per cent of voters oppose German troops moving south and 63 per cent of them saying the Afghan mission does not serve their country’s interests.
In a concession to US calls for more commitment, German officials signalled over the weekend that the country was willing to increase the upper limit of contributions to ISAF, from the current 3,500 to 4,500 forces.
In Munich, Gates also dismissed the view that the military and civilian components of the NATO mission could be separated.
The annual roundtable in Munich’s luxurious Bayerischer Hof hotel was attended by a handful of presidents, dozens of ministers and hundreds of security experts from some 50 countries.
The conference’s theme – “A World in Disarray – Shifting Powers Lack of Strategies” – saw delegates exchange views on a broad variety of issues, such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the widening rift between the West and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.