Italy is to send about 1,000 extra troops to Afghanistan.
The move comes two days after US President Barack Obama announced that the US is to send 30,000 more forces to fight the Taliban.
Mr Obama has asked NATO allies to increase their deployments in Afghanistan. Italy currently has 3,200 soldiers serving there.
Meanwhile, Mr Obama's former election rival, Senator John McCain, has said the decision to send extra troops is the right strategy and expressed his belief that the plan would succeed.
However, the Republican politician warned that US and NATO casualties will rise.
Mr McCain criticised President Obama for announcing that US troops will begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in just over 18 months, but the Obama administration has said that the July 2011 target date for withdrawal of troops is not set in stone.
'I do not believe we have locked ourselves into leaving,' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a key committee.
She said the goal was 'to signal very clearly to all audiences that the United States is not interested in occupying Afghanistan.'
Defence Secretary Robert Gates said the extra troops President Obama had ordered to Afghanistan would be in place in July 2010.
He said a December 2010 review of the war effort would shape the pace of the withdrawal, and that the target date could change.
