The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has failed as a military coalition in Afghanistan as it sees a growing rift among its members, an analyst says.
"The effort to make NATO into a kind of worldwide military alliance has essentially foundered in Afghanistan," Conn Hallinan from Foreign Policy in Focus said in an interview with Press TV on Friday.
"In fact the war in Afghanistan has caused tremendous divisions and fissures in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization," he added.
The United States has announced plans to begin a gradual drawdown of its forces effective July 2011.
Although the target is 2014, the US has in fact made its withdrawal contingent upon defeating the Taliban, which is actually an impossible goal, Hallinan pointed out.
"I do not envision at this point that they are even thinking of withdrawing in 2014 and they may declare they intend to lead large numbers of residual forces," he said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has made 2014 the target year for Afghan forces to take back full security responsibilities from the US-led foreign forces.
The withdrawal of the US-led forces from war-ravaged Afghanistan is reported to be among the priorities that will be discussed when NATO leaders meet in Lisbon this week.
Afghan leaders are also expected to attend the two-day NATO summit in the Portuguese capital, which begins on Friday.