Although the administration has denied any shift in the strategy that Obama announced in December 2009, a renewed focus on the east will amount to a de facto change in the balance between the counterinsurgency tactics that have been central to the southern mission and the targeted counterterrorism that has marked U.S. operations in eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan. The switch has long been advocated by many within the White House, including Vice President Biden.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the outgoing coalition commander in Afghanistan, was already planning an increase in forces in the eastern provinces, although he had hoped to be able to shift them from the south without an early decrease in the overall number of U.S. troops.

One of the reasons Obama has had difficulty in sustaining support for his Afghan strategy has been the absence of al-Qaeda from the southern battlefields, which has raised questions about why the United States is fighting in Afghanistan. But if the administration identifies the fight more directly with the battles in the east and in Pakistan, the case for the war is likely to be easier to make.