The American Secretary of State joins the NATO meeting in Brussels today, urging the Alliance to commit more men and money to the fight in Afghanistan. Washington’s wary allies will hear Hillary Clinton repeat President Obama’s call for a troop surge to take on the Taliban, and that strong action will produce results.

The US commander in Afghanistan wanted 40,000 more troops; Obama is sending 30,000 and wants NATO to make up the rest. So far, 7,000 have been pledged, the biggest contingent coming from Italy. NATO chiefs are optimistic they will get more solderis, but admit they urgently need specialists to train the Afghan army and police force. The Alliance also repeated its demands that Kabul does more to clean up its act. Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store said: “We are very clear in our message to the Karzai government that they need to improve governance, fight against corruption, fight against drug trafficking, cleaner governance. But I also believe that the Afghans can have a better expectation of our ability to coordinate better, be more coherent, speaking more with one voice.” And NATO issued a grim warning: if alliance members don’t support the troop surge, Afghan security may never be strong enough to meet President Obama’s hope of bringing the soldiers home from 2011.More about: Afghanistan, NATO, USA

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