British military chiefs have warned that some troops are on the brink of exhaustion and NATO’s top military commander, Gen. James Jones, says he will urge member nations to send reinforcements when defense chiefs of staff meet in Warsaw this weekend to discuss the matter. “While some of [the violence] is predictable,” Jones said Thursday, “we should recognize we are a little bit surprised at the level of intensity, and that the opposition in some areas are not relying on traditional hit-and-run tactics.”

NEWSWEEK’s Ginanne Brownell spoke with Amyas Godfrey, a former British infantry officer and Iraq veteran who is now an associate fellow with the London-based defense think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), about NATO’s changing role in Afghanistan and whether the United States and Britain are shouldering an unfair burden there. Excerpts:

Amyas Godfrey

NEWSWEEK: Does NATO need more fighters on the ground in Afghanistan?

Amyas Godfrey: Yes. Only because the limited number we have are getting very close to getting tired, if not exhausted. The tempo they are being put against, the tempo of operations is exhausting. For an infantry battalion to conduct all these operations—I think we could probably ensure better quality and mitigate some risk if we doubled the amount of infantry on the ground.

Are some NATO countries not pulling their weight? Are the British and the Americans bearing the brunt of operations?

All countries will have rules of engagement that they operate on, and they will differ from country to country. There is also mentality. The Germans in Afghanistan do not want to take casualties [and] their posture on the ground reflects that. They do not patrol like the British do, talking to the locals, exposed. They patrol in armored vehicles, not getting out, driving as fast as they can. And yes, they show a presence of strength, but it does not work in counterinsurgency to do that. All the insurgent does is wait for you to pass by at high speed and carry on with subjugating the population, or he attacks you as you pass by in an ambush.

Military sources told The [London] Times that some NATO countries have equipment like attack helicopters and aircraft that could be integral to success on the ground but that they are not being offered to the mission in Afghanistan. What does this say about NATO?

It has been a recent disappointment in NATO that everyone seems a little more interested in their own worries [rather] than the concept of NATO. And the [United Nations] has suffered from this as well—no one has really put any effort into the force going into Lebanon … People are very worried about seeming to be in strong support of American foreign policy because [they fear] it will bring terrorism to their own shores … I think it is a factor in why people do not want to give all their assets to Afghanistan or all their assets to Iraq.

Lt. Gen. David Richards told me in an interview in March that the chief purpose of this NATO mission was to help the Afghan government and boost economic development. But that role seems to have shifted, with operations in the south largely focused on hunting down the Taliban. Was that unexpected?

No, the military would have known the entire situation they were getting themselves into. They would have had contingency plans. It is more the spin of the government and minister of Defense. In this instance [the government was] unwilling to say, “This is going to take casualties, this is going to be a tough fight.” It is deceitful. It is not realistic to make statements like that. It is very difficult for the military, they do not yet know what to tell the public.

How important is this mission for NATO. Is there a way out?

It is an extremely important mission, it is most important for NATO to see if they have any worth in the new world. You have to remember that NATO was designed for the cold war, not for [combat], so it is really finding its feet after its purpose ended. I think quite rightly this is far more important than Iraq. [Invading Iraq] is something we really shouldn’t have done at that time, it was done for probably very diverse reasons, but Afghanistan, we must remember, was done for the real issue. It was the origin, under the Taliban, through Al Qaeda, of years and years of attacks on the West. Not just 9/11, but going back to 1993 World Trade Center and all the attacks in Africa. Afghanistan is very much the focus of the war on terror and, in a way, by having troops there we are diverting Taliban and Al Qaeda assets. And therefore we should have invested everything we invested into Iraq into Afghanistan initially … We probably should have sorted out the one problem before we went into the other.

Will history see the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns as examples of military incompetence?

No more so than any war that has ever been fought. Even if we pick iconic classics like World War II, there were some horrible mistakes … I think a lot of the mistakes came from the government, because technically the military invasion of Iraq was genius. It was one of the most successful military operations we have probably seen in 200 years. Afghanistan you could argue in 2001-2002 was a great feat of arms; it was a brilliant counterinsurgency in that we fought the Taliban and various tribes using other tribes and special forces. Again, militarily it was highly successful. The real confusion comes from governments’ direction … There needs to be far more of a link between the government and the military, not just saying “Military, go and solve all my problems.” The military can only do half the equation.