There are two key questions about Canada's effort to get more help with its difficult mission in Afghanistan's volatile Kandahar province.

• Will the 1,000 soldiers make a practical difference, conceding that every little bit helps?
• What does this squabble say about the alliance?

NATO has about two million soldiers spread amongst its members, but coming up with an extra 1,000 to help Canada seems to be exceedingly difficult. That number was the minimum set out in the Manley panel's report -- and was accompanied by the threat that Canada end its mission by February 2009 if no nation came through.

"If we can't come up with that miniscule number from our allies ... then where do we really stand on what this is buying Canada?" Dan Middlemiss of Dalhousie University's Centre for Foreign Policy Studies told CTV.ca on Monday, referring to whether this country's sacrifice results in increased status with allies.

Eighty-one Canadian soldiers and a diplomat have died in Afghanistan since 2002.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a policy forum in Bucharest on Wednesday that he was "very optimistic" NATO would come through with more troops and additional equipment -- primarily helicopters and unmanned aerial drones.

He pushed the House of Commons to pass a resolution on extending the mission to December 2011 so he could show the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania there is domestic support for the mission.

However, in recent days, his key ministers on the Afghan file -- Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier and Defence Minister Peter MacKay -- had been working to downplay expectations of a significant announcement.

That happened even though France had previously hinted it would send more troops to Afghanistan. 

• Update: CTV News reported late Tuesday that the U.S. will guarantee 1,000 more combat  troops in southern Afghanistan. Harper wouldn't confirm the story when asked in Bucharest on Wednesday; however, the PMO confirmed late Wednesday that NATO would provide more soldiers, with the French stepping up. CTV News had also reported in late February that U.S. President George Bush had guaranteed more troops.

Wednesday's development aside, the overall reluctance by some of Canada's NATO allies to join the fight (this plea for more help predates the Manley report) has raised questions about their commitment to the Afghan mission.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned in February: "We must not -- we cannot -- become a two-tiered alliance of those willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would effectively destroy the alliance."

Canadian experts suggest that NATO isn't playing to win in Afghanistan.

"NATO is currently fighting for a draw," retired Maj.-Gen Lew McKenzie has said. University of Calgary professor Rob Huebert, associate director of the school's Centre for Strategic and Military Studies, agrees.

In Kosovo, "people weren't saying, 'we're only going to send this many troops,'" he told CTV.ca on Tuesday. "They were saying, 'what is necessary to prevent the type of genocide that we were seeing in Bosnia?'"

At its peak involvement in Kosovo after 1999, NATO had about 50,000 soldiers in the now-former province of Serbia that is 11,000 square kilometres in size and has a population of about two million.

NATO has about 47,000 troops for all of Afghanistan, which is 647,500 square km. in size and 25 million in population. The most conflict-ridden areas are in the east and south.

NATO has lost sight of the objective in Afghanistan -- building a relatively stable country that isn't a haven for Islamist extremists. Instead, it has been playing a numbers game, with members essentially saying, "'we'll help, but only so much'," Huebert said.

NATO members "treat the Afghanistan mission as just one further indicator of whether or not you support NATO," he said.

Everyone agrees about the nature of the security threat emanating from that region of the world, but no one wants their troops to pay the price, Huebert said, noting many NATO countries place significant restrictions on their troops.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer rejected criticisms of his organization.

"We have all 26 NATO members in Afghanistan," he told the policy forum. "I have to be quite honest -- I do not see a two-tiered alliance."

De Hoop Scheffer said his choice was forces with caveats rather than no forces at all, adding there has never been a military operation in history without caveats.

Is 1,000 enough?

There's no doubt Canadians are in a tough fight in Kandahar. Several studies have put their risk of dying as being substantially higher than either their British or U.S. counterparts, who are in high-conflict areas themselves.

"I'm one of those guys who said we need a lot more than a thousand ... but 1,000 is a start, thank you very much," McKenzie told reporters in Kandahar on the weekend.

In a Feb. 18 appearance on CTV Newsnet, McKenzie called for 10,000 more troops in southern Afghanistan, with 3,000 more in Kandahar.

"The extra air cover and a thousand additional troops isn't going to make a significant difference in our ability to win the war in Afghanistan," Anthony Salloum of the Rideau Institute, which opposes the war, told CTV Newsnet on Monday.

"(Kandahar) is the second-largest urban area and one of the largest reconstruction areas, and the numbers aren't anywhere near what's required," George MacLean of the University of Manitoba's Centre for Defence and Security Studies told CTV.ca.

Here are some comparisons to show apparently under-resourced the Kandahar mission is:

The British have about 7,300 troops in neighbouring Helmand province, which has an area of about 58,500 square kilometres, for about 125 troops per 1,000 square kilometres.

In Kandahar, Canada has 2,500 soldiers, or 46 troops per 1,000 square km., in a province with 900,000 people scattered over 54,000 square km (Nova Scotia is 55,000 square km. in size). Even then, only about one in four Canadian soldiers are involved in "outside the wire" security operations at any one time, and Canada concentrates on only five key districts out of 13.

Another 1,000 troops would bring the ratio up to 65 per 1,000 square km. -- slightly more than half the ratio for Helmand province, where the British are in tough themselves.

Compare that to the Swat Valley of Pakistan. The Pakistani army claimed some success earlier this year in taming an Islamist insurgency in the Swat Valley. They sent 20,000 soldiers into an area of about 1,800 square km.

If Pakistan had deployed troops at the same ratio as NATO has deployed troops in Afghanistan, it would have sent 131 troops into the Swat, not 20,000. If it used Canada's ratio in Kandahar, Pakistan would have sent about 83 troops there.

What are the consequences of this? A February report released by the Senlis Council, a think tank that does extensive research in Afghanistan, said large areas of Kandahar province are under almost exclusive Taliban control. It has called for the overall NATO force to be doubled to 80,000.

"Sooner or later, you get to the point where you ask, 'are we making progress, or are we just marking time?'" MacLean asked.

The Manley panel agreed NATO should do more, but added the Afghan National Army would bear ultimate responsibility: "In the end, the counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan will have to be won by Afghans. (Few counterinsurgencies in history have been won by foreign armies, particularly where the indigenous insurgents enjoy convenient sanctuary in a bordering country)."

De Hoop Schaffer said at the end of the day, the military approach isn't going to determine success in Afghanistan -- development and reconstruction will.

"For development and reconstruction to take place, we need military force ... because there are 'spoilers' (who) don't want to see reconstruction."

Harper said military success isn't building NATO forces up to the level where the insurgency is snuffed out, "that wouldn't be realistic.

"What would be realistic is yes, we'll build up our troop levels, but we will also mentor and train the Afghan forces so they can manage the security environment going forward -- manage it, not necessarily eliminate the insurgency.

"... I don't think it's realistic that we'll eliminate all violent conflict within the space of two or three years," the prime minister said.

But if Afghan forces take the security lead, allowing the international community to work on development and help the Afghan government improve its governance, "that would be the definition of mid-term success," he said.

Will it be achieved by 2011? "We always start these things with the determination we will achieve our benchmarks," Harper said. "We will do our best to achieve those, or at least show some progress in short order."

Philippe Legasse of the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs told Newsnet on Wednesday that based on the goals Harper has set out, the prime minister plans for Canada to be in Afghanistan for the long haul.