President Barack Obama has been campaigning in Europe in recent days -- how else do you characterize having a "town hall" event in France? -- and the media covered with much aplomb his ability to get NATO to cough up 5,000 troops for this summer's elections in Afghanistan.

For those who haven't been paying much attention, let's refresh your memory on the standard line on why NATO hasn't been volunteering troops to fight the "good war:" George W. Bush and Guantanamo. President Obama was the solution to both those problems and he's managed to get 5,000 troops.

Obama himself has authorized sending more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops over to actually fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. NATO's troops will be doing a necessary, but less dangerous, job of providing security and training.

Let's do a quick refresh on the numbers:

U.S. Population: Approximately 306 million

U.S. Troops in Afghanistan: (With announced increases) Approximately 60,000

Rest of NATO Population: 589.2 million (breakdown by nation after the break) (I added the figures up in my head, if I'm wrong, tell me.)

NATO troops promised: 5,000

Now, there are NATO troops there already, and some countries are pulling their weight (mainly the Brits and Canadians), but nations with nearly twice the population of the U.S. can only muster 5,000 more troops and we're lauding this as some sort of great accomplishment?

Maybe it is based on the fact that many of these nations spend next to nothing on their militaries, counting on the U.S. to protect them. But we shouldn't be lauding that either.

Population of NATO member countries:

Albania:. 3.1 million

Belgium: 10.7 million

Bulgaria: 7.6 million

Canada: 33.6 million

Croatia: 4.4 million

Czech Republic: 10.4 million

Denmark: 5.5 million

Estonia: 1.3 million

France: 65 million

Germany: 82 million

Greece: 11.2 million

Hungary: 10 million

Iceland: .3 million

Italy: 60.1 million

Latvia: 2.3 million

Lithuania: 3.4 million

Luxembourg: .5 million

Netherlands: 16.5 million

Norway: 4.8 million

Poland: 38.1 million

Portugal: 10.6 million

Romania: 21.4 million

Slovakia: 5.4 million

Slovenia: 2.1 million

Spain: 45.8 million

Turkey: 71.5 million

U.K.: 61.6 million