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NATO defence ministers will study ways to confront a hotly expected Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, amid growing US pressure for the allies to commit more troops and resources.
The ministers, meeting in Seville in southern Spain from 1415 GMT for two days of informal talks, will also discuss developments in Kosovo with tensions quietly simmering over its future status.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates and NATO's new military chief US General Bantz Craddock face a baptism of fire with their first official meeting, and both are expected to push the allies to do more.
Gates told lawmakers this week that an objective of his trip was to prod his partners to put up promised troops and other military capabilities for the 35,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
“And one of my requests of those folks, and one of the issues that I'll be pressing very hard, is that they meet the commitments that they made at Riga and help us out in this,” Gates said.
A senior US defence official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity said Craddock has drawn up a new set of requirements for the Afghan mission that will be discussed at the meeting in Seville.
Afghanistan is the world's leading opium producer and its lawless border regions with Pakistan are the major breeding ground for international terrorism.
NATO has taken a major gamble by trying to help spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai's weak central government throughout the country, faced with ever-bolder Taliban-led fighters.
Some 4,000 people were killed in the insurgency last year and US officials say suicide attacks have increased four-fold since 2005. In recent days, the Taliban has held control of a town in southern Helmand province.
Yet despite the US pressure, NATO officials played down expectations that the 26 allies would come to the meeting with specific troop contributions in mind, even as commanders on the ground call for force increases.
“Neither the secretary general nor General Craddock are going to be handing around the begging bowl looking for contributions,” said John Colston, NATO's assistant secretary general for defence policy and planning.
On the eve of the talks, Germany announced that it plans to deploy six jet aircraft but for surveillance and not combat missions.
Discussions on Kosovo — NATO's other major mission — come a day after the alliance announced that its forces there would conduct exercises later this month as moves to grant the Serbian province a new status gather momentum.
NATO waged a bombing campaign against former strongman Slobodan Milosevic's regime in 1999 to stop a Serbian crackdown on the separatist ethnic Albanian majority there.
The ministers will also hold a regular council with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, against a backdrop of US moves to widen its anti-missile defence system in Europe.
Also on the agenda is the NATO Response Force — the flagship contingent maintained on standby for deployment to the world's hotspots — which has struggled with funding woes and to find troop contributors.
