Poiana Brasov, Romania ? NATO defense ministers discussed a U.S.-backed proposal Wednesday to merge Afghan peacekeeping and anti-terrorism operations under a joint command, despite criticism of the plan from Germany and France.

Though no decision was announced during an informal conference at this ski resort north of Bucharest, the capital, officials said most members of NATO would accept combining the 20,000 peacekeepers and 9,000 combat troops under a NATO flag.

U.S. officials, led at the conference by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, appeared optimistic that a joint mission could be under way in coming months. But German and French officials were adamantly against it. German Defense Minister Peter Struck told reporters that German troops would not participate in combat operations in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials expressed concern about one variation of the plan, in which countries could restrict the use of their troops for combat missions. U.S. officials cited possible confusion and limits on the abilities of commanders to deploy troops at their discretion.

While the Afghan peacekeeping operation focuses on reconstruction efforts, combat troops are hunting members of al-Qaida and remnants of Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban government.

At the conference in Romania, the newest member of the military alliance, U.S. officials were promoting a global effort to transform military forces into more deployable and efficient units, capable of responding to terrorist threats in a changed and unpredictable world.

Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, told reporters after the meetings that officials spent hours talking about how to make the 2.5 million European troops more capable of deploying outside of their home countries. NATO has set goals of having each member nation able to deploy at least 40 percent of its forces abroad with at least 8 percent of each nation’s military deployed at any given time. France, the United Kingdom and the United States are leading the effort.

“There has been some movement, but there is enormous room for change,” Burns said.