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MUNICH, Feb. 10 - Defense Secretary Robert Gates challenged the European military leaders and lawmakers Sunday to revive flagging support for the international mission in Afghanistan, warning that if members of NATO were no longer willing to shoulder the burdens of war equally, it "would effectively destroy the alliance."

Gates's comments to the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy were the latest attempt by the Pentagon chief to persuade NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, especially in the southern part of the country where the fighting has been fierce and where the Taliban controls wide swaths of territory.

Gates said too many European countries have been content to participate only in less risky peacekeeping and training operations.

"Some allies ought not to have the luxury of opting only for stability and civilian operations, thus forcing other allies to bear a disproportionate share of the fighting and the dying," he said. He repeated comments made in Washington last week that NATO risked becoming a "two-tiered alliance" if certain countries, which he did not name, continued to shy away from combat.

Such remarks have irked some NATO members, who say the Pentagon is unfairly blaming its allies for the inability to win a lasting victory over the Taliban and other insurgents.

Germany, in particular, has taken offense. Berlin recently agreed to send 250 extra soldiers to Afghanistan as part of a "rapid reactionary force," but otherwise has resisted pleas that it extend its operations beyond its duties in the relatively peaceful northern part of the country.

During a question and answer session after Gates' speech, Reinhard Buetikofer, a leader of the Greens party in Germany, criticized the defense secretary for what he called "an attempt at leadership by fingerpointing and scapegoating," noting that Berlin has sent the third largest contingent of foreign troops in Afghanistan and that 26 of its soldiers have died there.

He also shifted the blame for the mission's shortcomings back on Washington. "Who was distracted from Afghanistan in 2003?" he asked Gates, referring to the invasion of Iraq.

In response, Gates said he wasn't trying to single out individual countries and praised Germany for the work it has done in northern Afghanistan. But he didn't let Germany entirely off the hook, either.

"I wasn't pointing at Germany at all," he said. "Germany, frankly, it seems to me has been a little overly sensitive, since Germany was never mentioned. The fact is we've got a number of countries there. And the countries that are not willing to go into combat know who they are."

The German Parliament has placed restrictions on the mission of its 3,200 troops in Afghanistan, with the result that most are not used in active combat.

Other U.S. officials have been more willing to point the finger.

In an interview published Friday by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, a Munich-based newspaper, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns singled out Spain, Italy, France and Germany as NATO members that needed to either provide more troops or loosen restrictions on their ability to fight.

"We need those countries to take their share of the responsibility," he said.

France has been discussing the possibility of sending troops to southern Afghanistan. French Defense Minister Herve Morin met with Gates last week in Washington and later in Vilnius, Lithuania, as part of a NATO ministers' meeting.

But in speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Morin made no commitments and downplayed the idea that the war in Afghanistan could be won on the battlefield alone.

"The solution is not just a military one," he said. "Military action is like the effect of a wave lapping at the sand."


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