Many people, myself included, hoped that Barack Obama’s popularity abroad would enable the administration to get increased cooperation from our allies, thereby making key US foreign policy objectives easier to achieve. These hopes took a major blow recently when European NATO allies rejected the Administration’s call to send more troops to Afghanistan:
US hopes of securing more troops for Afghanistan from its Nato allies were disappointed on Thursday as European countries refused to offer up many more soldiers despite pleas from Robert Gates, US defence secretary.
At a two-day meeting of Nato defence ministers in the Polish city of Krakow, Mr Gates said the new US administration