Obama's decision again redefines America's support role in Afghanistan's grinding conflict, more than a year after international forces wrapped up their combat mission and shifted the burden to Afghan troops.
The shifts in missions and tactics partly reflect adaptations by the Taliban.
Not only have the missions and goals in both Iraq and Afghanistan shifted over the years of combat, Ms. Schake said, but in advance of D-Day, the United States government summoned "thousands of economists and captains of industry" to plan the occupation.
The centralized strategic decision making that characterized the Agency in the first part of the decade was being shifted to missions and the role of Global projects was changing dramatically.
But once the submarine puts to sea for its cold war and Falklands missions, the tone shifts.
Kathleen Sweeney, who teaches courses about viral media at the New School, told me, "There's a difference between 'I want to change the world' and 'I want to change the world, and along the way I want to make millions of dollars.' You can start off with one mission, but then you start to notice, We get way more traffic when we put up cat videos, and your mission shifts".
In May, American Atheists, the venerable secular organization founded by the late Madalyn Murray O'Hair, announced that they're opening a Washington, DC office and shifting their mission to emphasize "voter engagement, political action and legal advocacy".
The shift in language echoes a shift in the agency's budgets toward space projects and away from earth missions, a shift that began in 2004, the year Mr. Bush announced his vision of human missions to the Moon and beyond.
The advisers' extreme caution lays bare the steep challenge ahead after the official end of the American troop "surge" on Friday and as the mission shifts toward the next chapter of the war: preparing the Afghans to fight on their own.
With the loss of the Uzbek base, Bagram will pick up additional C-130 missions, a shift that was likely to have happened eventually, senior officers said.
