But the celebrations cannot mask NATO's doubts about how to pursue its long war on Islamist militancy in Afghanistan, and fears over extremism in nuclear-armed neighbor Pakistan.

But analysts warn against false optimism on the Obama plan, predicting a planned U.S. troop surge will be insufficient, and that its allies in NATO remain reluctant to contribute the troops, equipment, money and coordination needed to prevail..

"We don't have a blueprint ... We don't know how to do it and we have no proper assessment of the situation," said Kamp. "If you don't know where you are, how will you know where to go?"

Tarak Barkawi, of Cambridge University's Center of International Studies, called NATO's Afghan mission "a mess."

"Things don't portend well for the future at all. People are under the illusion that somehow Afghanistan is a less difficult country to fight in than Iraq and that's simply not the case."

"And in Pakistan, you are looking at a failed state with nuclear weapons and all the other military hardware. It's something no one quite wants to contemplate. It's a cauldron."

Andrew Bacevich comments at the LATimes that the US can best save NATO by leaving it.

"When he visits Strasbourg, France, this week to participate in festivities marking NATO's 60th anniversary, President Obama should deliver a valedictory address, announcing his intention to withdraw the United States from the alliance. The U.S. has done its job. It's time for Europe to assume full responsibility for its own security, freeing the U.S. to attend to more urgent priorities."

"The creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 remains a singular example of enlightened statecraft. With Europe's democracies still suffering from the ravages of World War II, and fearing the threat posed by Stalinist Russia, the U.S. abandoned its aversion to "entangling alliances" and committed itself to Europe's defense. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower came out of retirement to serve as NATO's first military chief. As U.S. forces arrived to take up their stations, the alliance soon found its footing. In its heyday, NATO possessed formidable capabilities and real (if never fully tested) cohesion. Its safety ensured, Western Europe prospered and remained at peace.

"Over time, the Soviet threat diminished and eventually disappeared. Since then, however, an alliance once regarded as the most successful in all of history has lost its way. 

"This program of enlarging both NATO's territorial expanse and its ambitions has now reached an impasse. Through its military punishment of Georgia last year, Russia has signaled it will not tolerate further encroachments into what the Kremlin sees as its legitimate sphere of influence. Meanwhile, through its ineffective performance in Afghanistan -- NATO's most ambitious "out of area" contingency -- the alliance has revealed the extent to which its capabilities and its cohesion have eroded. 

"The difference between 1949 and 2009 is that present-day Europe is more than capable of addressing today's threat, without American assistance or supervision. Collectively, the Europeans don't need U.S. troops or dollars, both of which are in short supply anyway and needed elsewhere. Yet as long as the United States sustains the pretense that Europe cannot manage its own affairs, the Europeans will endorse that proposition, letting Americans foot most of the bill. Only if Washington makes it clear that the era of free-riding has ended will Europe grow up."

And Katrina vanden Heuvel at The Nation writes about activists saying no to NATO.

"Beginning April 1, a diverse coalition of activists will participate in training camps, demonstrations, conferences, workshops, and non-violent blockades. At a moment when international cooperation on economic and human security interests is needed more than ever, the protestors view a US-led, expansionist NATO as destabilizing and dangerous. What was originally designed as a defense alliance against the Warsaw Pact has taken on a very different post-Cold War, global interventionist role.

"Activists see a NATO with bases on every continent; a military force that organizers say accounts for more than 75 percent of global military expenditures and drains resources that might otherwise address needs like education, job creation, and poverty; "out of area" operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, the Mediterranean Sea, and a training mission in Iraq; a destabilizing presence pushing a "missile defense" system, ignoring international law, expanding to Russia's doorstep, and maintaining a first-strike option -- all fueling a renewed arms race. (Recently, popular opposition to the proposed Czech-based radar system for US missile defense was a key factor in bringing down the ruling government there. Peace activistJan Tamas led a hunger strike that galvanized opposition and he will be speaking at the "counter summit" in Strasbourg.) 

"Elsa Rassbach, a US citizen and filmmaker who has lived much of the time in Berlin since the mid-1990s, is a member of the International Coordinating Committee that is planning many of the activities of this broad coalition. She said that the need to respond to the occasion of NATO's 60th anniversary has brought "a lot of different strands" together to collaborate since last June. "For example," she said, "in the German peace movement -- not only the large peace organizations and some Members of the German Parliament, but also smaller groups concerned about military bases used to conduct US/NATO wars, people concerned about atomic weapons...the social movements -- the fact that militarization is costing too much. German youth and people concerned with soldier resistance and conscientious objector issues.... We're bringing disparate movements and organizations together -- both large and small -- for the NATO action."

" 'American activists can see this anti-NATO protest as how Europe is protesting the Afghanistan War,' Rassbach said. 'But it's also more than that. It's against all the military costs and the military bases in Europe and NATO's nuclear first-strike policy that includes the proposed missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Cold War is over, so why should NATO continue?' "