Australia will become the lead country on NATO's winding down mission in Uruzgan, a province in Afghanistan where the country's 1,550 troops are currently deployed.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith said on Thursday that the country's National Security Committee gave its nod on the move, which will prompt Australian troops in the Afghan province to assume the lead role that until this week was held by the United States.

The decision represents a tactical advantage for the Diggers, Mr Smith said, which will commence withdrawal mode on 2013, en route to a 'total pull out' by the end of the following year.

"Australia taking on the leadership now ... puts us in a better position to manage the transition process," the Defence chief was reported by the Australian Associated Press (AAP) as saying.

The whole procedure will see Australia inheriting much of the responsibilities in Uruzgan from America, which in turn had assumed the lead role when The Netherlands ended its mission in Afghanistan two years ago.

But Mr Smith has assured that U.S. service members will remain operating in the zone, as well as troops provided by Singapore and Slovakia.

The mission, he stressed, maintains its multi-national make-up but with the Diggers taking up more responsibilities on ground.

Such development, according to the Australian Defence Force's (ADF) top man, Gen David Hurley, must be viewed by the country as a positive component of the NATO mission in the war-torn nation, which is scheduled to end two years from now.

As Australia prepares to exit the bulk of its military forces from Afghanistan, it could prove to our advantage that the country will have more say in how the mission will play out in the remaining months of NATO's stay in Uruzgan.

"What this decision does is put us in the driving seat to control the interaction with those processes over the next year or so," Mr Hurley told AAP.

As asserted by Mr Smith, the ADF chief reiterated too that the Diggers will not operate on its own in the province as he stressed that the U.S. and other partner nations will not "significantly reduce its commitment to the (combined team) coalition arrangement."

Mr Hurley hinted too that no surges on Diggers numbers is projected to happen with Australia now formally the lead nation on the Uruzgan mission but this was countered by Neil James, director of the Australia Defence Association (ADA).

While Mr James agreed that Australia taking on the driver's seat was a tactical advantage for the ADF, the emergence of "elements of increased risk," cannot be ignored as America's phasing out from the province would lead to lower troops presence for the U.S. military.

"Obviously our military planners are taking that into account and as we've said all along it may be that we have to increase the size of the force in order to withdraw it safely," Mr James told AAP.

But the additional deployment was both provisional and necessary in order to support Australia's logistic needs in the province as the country prepares for a total withdrawal on 2014.

"The Australian people shouldn't think that it is us getting sucked into a so-called quagmire because in effect it is the opposite," the ADA director clarified.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has hinted that she is open to provide elements of the nation's Special Forces after the regular forces of Australia have exited from Afghanistan, which purportedly will work with the commando units that the U.S. said will remain in the country to conduct anti-terror campaigns.