NATO DEFENCE ministers meeting in Budapest are considering renewed pleas from the United States for extra troops in Afghanistan to boost the alliance's military effort there against the Taliban.
It is a contentious issue, made even more difficult by the world financial crisis, which severely constrains military budgets. Even without that pressure there is more and more open talk among leading Nato commanders that the war is unwinnable.
This welcome new realism about the conflict recognises that it will need to be resolved in political talks with the Taliban. In an interview the British military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, frankly recognised this and acknowledged that Nato's Taliban enemy is a broad coalition rather than the uniform terrorist organisation portrayed in most military propaganda. It follows that political efforts to make progress should distinguish between pragmatic and fundamentalist opponents of the Karzai government, with the former more willing to reach an agreement to end hostilities and attempt to reconstruct the country.
There is a growing realisation among Nato leaders that the existing government is riddled with corruption, incapable of expanding its authority beyond the Kabul region and widely regarded as a puppet of foreign military occupiers. Warlords elsewhere in Afghanistan have thrown in their lot with the Taliban, partly for nationalist reasons, and partly because that is the best way to protect the immense riches they gain from the booming heroin trade in which their country now supplies more than 90 per cent of world output. Such a huge resource mocks Nato's military efforts to destroy the trade's infrastructure and explains why its forces are struggling to contain Taliban successes.
These uncomfortable realities are accepted more easily by European Nato members than by the US. But they have surfaced in a draft national intelligence assessment on Afghanistan, leaked to the New York Times this week, which portrays the military campaign in very pessimistic terms. When completed it will be put before the new president-elect next month and will probably set the terms of his response. This is complicated by Pakistan's role in the war, as the haven for Taliban leadership and an increasing target of US attacks.
In all these circumstances getting agreement on a Nato military surge prior to a major political initiative will be much more difficult in Afghanistan than Iraq.