The spokesman's perspective:

Continuing our new series of video commentary, NATO Spokesman James Appathurai gives his personal perspective on recent articles discussing NATO. He invites you to write in with your own comments and opinions, which could be featured in the next installment.

E-mail comments to: press@hq.nato.int

Britain wants some of its NATO allies to start pulling their weight more in Afghanistan, International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said Sunday, ahead of crunch talks on the issue.

Germany and France are among the nations which have been criticised for failing to send forces to the areas where fighting is the most intense.

The growing crisis in Afghanistan is expected to come into the open this week as Nato allies argue over troop reinforcements and the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, visits London to seek a new UN "super-envoy", after Kabul rejected the choice of Lord Ashdown.

A spate of reports in the past week has warned that Afghanistan risks becoming a "failed state" and that there will be a "humanitarian disaster" unless aid and military efforts are better co-ordinated.

The new chief of the Hungarian secret services, who spent six years at the KGB's academy in Moscow during the 1980s, has become chairman of NATO's intelligence committee, a development that diplomats said could compromise the security of the alliance.

Sandor Laborc, 49, was personally chosen by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany of Hungary as director of the country's counterintelligence National Security Office in December, after a bitter dispute between the governing coalition led by the Socialists - the former Communists - and the main opposition party, Fidesz.

More than six years since the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan, the militant movement is being "contained," with some 70 percent of violence last year occurring in just 10 percent of the country, NATO said.

The upbeat assessment Sunday contrasted reports that a resurgent Taliban are challenging the U.S. and its allies. It also comes as several of NATO's European members are refusing to send soldiers to Afghanistan's south, the scene of most of the fighting, opening a rift with the U.S. and others that have borne the brunt.

For centuries, the Balkans and Europe's East have deserved their reputations for igniting wider European wars and have given to European history the place names of genocide and mass starvation. In 1949, the creation of NATO secured the post-World War II peace in Western Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, the alliance has played a transformational role in building a second peace -- this time in Central and Eastern Europe.

Now NATO has an opportunity to lay the foundation for a third European peace -- this time in the Balkans -- and to open a dialogue that could lead to a fourth: a more constructive relationship between Europe and Russia.

NATO says the Taliban insurgency is not spreading in Afghanistan and that 70 percent of the violence last year occurred in only 10 percent of the country, in contrast to more pessimistic pessimistic assessments.

Lt. Col. Claudia Foss, a spokeswoman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said three-quarters of Afghanistan suffered one violent incident per week.

Poland's foreign minister complained on Monday that some NATO members were not committing enough troops in Afghanistan and said there should be "no room for free-riding" inside the Alliance.

Radoslaw Sikorski said in a speech that the gap between what NATO wanted to achieve in Afghanistan and was in fact able to do "cannot have at its source the unwillingness of some counties to do their fair share".

Poland's foreign minister has attacked some Nato members for not committing enough troops to Afghanistan.

Radoslaw Sikorski said he would commit Polish troops and helicopters to assist Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. His criticism comes amidst warnings from Canada that it will pull out its troops from Afghanistan unless Nato reinforcements are sent.

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves on Monday lobbied for future NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, hinting the alliance shall resist pressure from Russia.

"If a country like Ukraine or Georgia has moved toward democracy, openness, rule of law and they want to join NATO, then there is no reason why we should not trust them," Ilves told reporters at the NATO headquarters.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flies to London Tuesday for talks with top British officials on an escalating row within NATO over troop levels in Afghanistan. The Bush administration wants NATO countries to commit more troops to Afghanistan, especially in areas of heavy fighting with Taliban forces.