NATO summit. Those who can’t fight, train

Some satisfaction for the Americans

AFTER two days when he was besieged by stone-slinging pacifists, stung by Gallic slurs and heard more bad news from Iraq and Afghanistan, George Bush left the NATO summit in Istanbul this week with a minimal offer of support from his country's oldest allies. Nonetheless, the Americans went home relatively pleased with what they had managed to achieve.

Most pleasing was an undertaking by NATO to train an Iraqi army. The alliance was answering a plea from Iyad Allawi, Iraq's new leader, backed by a surprise visit to Istanbul by his foreign minister. This was a triumph of diplomacy for the Americans who were, after all, in charge of Iraq when Mr Allawi made his request. But, at least initially, NATO'S commitment will be modest.

France and Germany agreed to the plan on the basis that they would only train Iraqis outside the country. But a suggestion by France's Jacques Chirac that no troops would operate in Iraq under a NATO flag is poppycock. Building on the work of the 16 NATO members with troops in Iraq, and on the recent UN Security Council resolution, NATO will lend to America's salvage efforts a moral support that was unthinkable before. NATO's leaders also vowed to consider “further ways to support the nascent Iraqi security institutions”. This will have sounded far sweeter to Mr Bush than the distant clamour of anti-war protests.

Yet NATO has a record of raising false hopes, as Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's leader, knows well. Mr Karzai came to Istanbul to beg NATO to keep its word to his broken country. Ten months after the alliance took over a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, it has posted only one garrison outside Kabul. In Istanbul, it announced a small increase to its 6,500-strong, mostly European force. With around 1,500 more troops, probably from Spain and Italy, NATO plans to plant three more garrisons in northern Afghanistan, where it will also take over two small garrisons now run by an American-led army that is fighting the Taliban.

Another 3,000 troops will be committed to protect elections due in September, though half will stay on standby in Europe. This seems odd, since the elections are threatened more by small-scale violence and coercion than by big battles. The past week has offered examples, such as the slaughter of 16 peasants after the Taliban found them carrying voter registration cards. Standing alongside Mr Karzai in Istanbul, Britain's Tony Blair insisted that Afghanistan remained the alliance's priority. Considering NATO's performance there, that does not bode well for Iraq.

Of 1.5m regular soldiers available to NATO's European members, fewer than 100,000 can actually be deployed. Over-sized and underused, most NATO armies were designed to hold off Soviet tanks until America could unleash nukes. Since the cold war ended, there has been much talk of transformation, but little action, as defence budgets have shrunk. This has left European armies largely incapable of the special-forces operations and distant peacekeeping missions that are now in demand. In Istanbul NATO's defence ministers vowed to make 40% of their forces deployable and 8% instantly deployable, a mark that only a handful can now meet.

In another effort to get members to honour their commitments, NATO is to review how it raises troops for its missions. Insiders want a predictive process that allows countries to plan troop contributions for NATO missions several years ahead, and to adjust defence budgets accordingly. Ideas like these are valueless unless European governments are willing to spend more, and more wisely, on defence. Yet that they, and a dozen other joint initiatives, are being developed suggests that NATO may be doing some things right.

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