The Afghanistan war is often said to be the critical test for the Atlantic alliance. Europeans must dearly hope the truth is otherwise. If the test is failed – as it well might be – they have a lot more to lose than the Americans.

Barack Obama’s strategy to defeat the Taliban has turned the prospect of certain defeat into the possibility, no more than that, of success – or at least of success as now carefully redefined.

The US counter-insurgency plan explicitly abandons nation-building ambitions. The Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s blatant vote-rigging sullied fatally what remained of the goal of creating a Western-style democracy. The impatience of American voters – and the corresponding threat to his re-election in 2012 – has persuaded Obama that an Afghan state capable of defending itself and keeping out al-Qaeda is the best that can be hoped for.

If there are reasons nonetheless for modest optimism, it is because the latest plan makes an effort to match an intelligent political and development strategy with significant, if still insufficient, military resources. It leaves the impression that someone has actually thought the issues though – something of a novelty after the Bush years. Pakistan rightly looms large in every calculation. General Stanley McChrystal has not got all the troops he wanted, but Obama has given him enough to have a decent shot at counter-insurgency.

On the other side of the scales sits the central contradiction of US, and thus NATO policy. In setting a timeframe for success – and thus for the withdrawal of its troops – Obama is encouraging wavering Afghans to hedge. If the president is to be believed that winning the war is absolutely vital to US security, how can he promise to begin quitting the field within 18 months?

The Taliban may be on the back foot, but Afghans will be calculating how things might look three, four or five years from now. Will the Afghan army really prove its worth? It is no accident that the favourite Taliban refrain is that while the Americans have the expensive wristwatches, they have the time.

Europeans often sound as if they believe them. Britain apart – as host to large numbers of ethnic Pakistanis it has a unique problem – the Obama surge has been met in most of Europe with praise through gritted teeth. Up to a dozen governments are committing small numbers of new troops. Most political leaders still mouth the NATO mantra that failure is not an option. Everyone knows they don’t have their heart in it.

The problem, European diplomats will tell you, is political. European voters are against the war; they want the troops brought home. What was intended as a gesture of solidarity with the US in the wake of the destruction of the twin towers has become an impossible political burden.

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