European states will likely offer only a lukewarm response to calls by Barack Obama for more troops for Afghanistan, testing ties with the new US President early in his administration.
Mr Obama has committed to send more US troops to try to turn the tide of the Taliban insurgency. One of the first decisions he faces after taking office will be on a Pentagon proposal for an increase of up to 30,000 over the next 12 to18 months.
Washington now has more than 33,000 troops in Afghanistan.
The European allies have 27,000 troops in the Nato -led International Security Assistance Force and small numbers of special forces in a separate US-led anti-terrorism force.
Analysts say Europe is caught between a wish to please Mr Obama, and a reluctance to risk soldiers' lives for a mission which its leaders acknowledge as vital, but which in public opinion is often lumped together with the unpopular Iraq war.
Germany faces a politically sensitive time before elections later this year, while France has long complained its troops are already overstretched in missions from Kosovo to Africa. Other European nations have soldiers tied up in international missions such as the UN security operation in Lebanon.
One senior European diplomat said European capitals had little doubt Mr Obama would urge them to send more troops and lift many of the existing restrictions - known as "caveats" on where they can be deployed and what they can do.
"More difficult to answer is how the Europeans will respond. Initial speculations are not fantastically positive, but when you get to first round of meetings between Mr Obama and his European counterparts, that may change. It's hard to say."
The pressure has been gradually mounting for months.
After Mr Obama's election last year, Nato's top commander of operations, General John Craddock, explicitly said he hoped that a new US push to get Afghanistan on track would also encourage allies to commit more forces.
Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer joined that call this week and close US ally Britain, which has the second biggest foreign force in Afghanistan, has urged an end to what it called "freeloading" on the backs of the Americans.
However, at Nato talks last week to raise troops to protect presidential elections later this year, only Finland and Germany offered more - and those for the relatively safe north. The Finnish and German offers will amount only to hundreds.
Expectations within Nato of big commitments are being scaled down. Recognising the difficulties in persuading European states to send more troops, Mr de Hoop Scheffer said allies should at least offer more assistance for development and reconstruction.
At a minimum, Nato officials want to see European Union countries honour their commitments in vital areas such as police training and to step up support for UN development efforts. Despite taking on the task of police reform, EU states have not yet sent all the trainers promised and left the bulk of the cost to Washington. Some EU trainers had "no transport, no armoured vehicles and no money", one Nato official complained.