CHICAGO (MCT) — President Barack Obama and NATO allies on Sunday charted an outwardly confident path to a postwar Afghanistan, their talk tempered by a potential split in the coalition and warnings that bloodshed will continue, and perhaps escalate, when allied troops withdraw.

Obama, hosting the summit of NATO leaders in Chicago, worked to signal an election-year balance between getting the U.S. out of an unpopular war as soon as possible while insisting that the U.S. and NATO will stay long enough to assure some sort of stability in Afghanistan.