NATO will not offer any extra troops for the organization's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, where military commanders on the ground have called for more support.
Members of the military alliance met Wednesday in Brussels.
The appeal for more troops was launched by NATO's top operational commander, U.S. Gen. James Jones, who has said that extra troops could help deliver a decisive blow to the Taliban in the region.
But an emergency meeting of senior NATO officials convened in Brussels has broken up without a commitment of more troops for the campaign.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that Afghanistan "could come back to haunt us" if the West once again allowed it to fall back under the influence of the Taliban.
In addition to the United States and Britain, other countries with troops in southern Afghanistan include Canada and the Netherlands, with smaller contingents from Romania, Denmark and others.
Many NATO countries feel they're already doing enough, or are committed to other peacekeeping deployments.
France and Italy recently committed to a leading role in the United Nations mission in Lebanon. Germany is playing a leading peacekeeping role in northern Afghanistan, and last week, Turkey's chief of staff ruled out sending combat troops to supplement 900 Turkish soldiers already helping with reconstruction in Kabul.
NATO defense ministers are slated to meet at the end of September to finalize offers of more troops. In that case, any actual deployment would likely have to wait until October.
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