WASHINGTON: Coalition leaders say otherwise, but experts warn that NATO's decision to limit joint operations with Afghan forces threatens the alliance's strategy to hand over power and withdraw by 2014.
Announced on Tuesday, the move marks a setback to the US-led strategy for containing an 11-year Taliban insurgency, as a phased withdrawal of Western troops hinges on training and advising Afghan forces to take their place.
The decision was taken in a powder keg environment as protests sweep the Muslim world, and after an uptick in insidious blue-on-green attacks that have seen 51 NATO personnel shot dead by their local colleagues so far this year.
"It's a serious challenge to the strategy," Stephen Biddle, a George Washington University professor specializing in Afghanistan, told.
NATO aims to train 350,000 Afghan soldiers and police by the end of 2014 as it transfers all security responsibilities to President Hamid Karzai's local forces.
The alliance is gradually withdrawing the 112,600 troops remaining in its ISAF force. The Pentagon said last week that there are currently 77,000 US troops in Afghanistan.
Jeffrey Dressler, senior research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said the effect on NATO's drawdown strategy depends on how long the limitations on joint operations remain in place.
"It's a minor setback at this point, but the significance of it obviously will increase with the length of time that the order stands," Dressler said. "If it continues for months, then it's definitely going to have an impact."
Australian Brigadier-General Roger Noble, deputy to ISAF's operations' chief, admitted the recent string of green-on-blue attacks had been dispiriting.
"The problem with the insider attack is it strikes right at the heart of our resolve," he told Pentagon journalists from Kabul. "It's one thing to be killed in action by the insurgents. It's quite another to be shot in the back of the head at night by your friends."
Noble said the decision to scale back joint operations was "just normal military business and common sense," and insisted it would not derail the drawdown effort.
"The bottom line is that beneath the noise and turbulence of day-to-day operations and events, the campaign remains on track to achieve its objectives," he said.
President Barack Obama's administration is under pressure from some to rethink its strategy, with three leading senators asking for a "strategic pause" to troop withdrawals.