A Call to Arms

MANISH SWARUP / AP

ALLIED FORCE: In Afghanistan the business of fighting is shared

It was, at first blush, the same old depressing script. When U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave a major speech on the need for NATO members to step up their efforts in Afghanistan at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy last week, a quick scan of the headlines would have made you think we were back where we were five (or, to be honest, 25) years ago. That is to say: an American policymaker comes to Europe and lectures the Allies on the need to recognize that it's a dangerous world out there, that the comfortable folk on the...

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