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NATO Summit

The Secretary of State made an announcement that contains some good things. The NATO response force announcement was good, too, and good news was announced about the C17s. On a point that has just been raised, the ringing declaration that, in an emergency, NATO countries would support each other implies that if there was no such declaration, that might not have happened. Was it not deeply disappointing that there was not a much greater commitment from the larger European NATO countries to Afghanistan? If the Secretary of State is right to say that NATO’s credibility was at stake, does he not agree that one small step is not nearly enough, and that NATO’s credibility has been rather damaged by the disappointing summit?