Photo Courtesy ISAF Media

Two years into President Obama’s first term in office, America still has a large and involved presence in Iraq and Afghanistan that grows increasingly complicated as private contractors and State Department armies replace clearly delineated military boots on the ground.

In Iraq, combat troops were technically withdrawn at the end of August 2010, but nearly 50,000 troops remain on the ground and are permitted to be in the country until the end of 2011. 

In Afghanistan, NATO extended the withdrawal date for the international coalition of troops serving in the country to 2014, with the option for an extension should conditions on the ground – political or security – warrant another extension. 

Prior to the NATO extension, President Obama and Vice President Biden were vocal about sticking to a withdrawal deadline of July 2011.  Talk of that milestone has largely faded from the political dialogue on the war.

With an estimated 25 to 35 percent of American Gross Domestic Product (GDP) going to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the involvement of the U.S. foreign policy machine – from the military corps of the Department of Defense to the diplomatic corps of the Department of State – is a costly endeavor to a nation struggling to emerge from a recession.

As political realities force the withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, American diplomatic and political corps abroad are increasingly turning to private security firms and contracted force themselves.  The State Department is increasingly acting like the Department of Defense. 

The problems inherent in such a situation are numerous. 

In Senate hearings over the summer of 2010, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq heard the following testimony:

The State Department lacks the personnel, equipment, experience and training to take on some of the security functions that have been provided by DoD. These could include quick-reaction combat teams, route-clearance capabilities, recovery of wounded personnel and damaged vehicles, the counter-rocket and counter-battery teams that return hostile indirect fire within seconds and the experts and vehicles that detect and dispose of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

That the State Department needs to consider issues such as the dismantlement of IEDs and the recovery of wounded personnel speaks to the entrenchment not only of the conflict, but also the rapidly blurring line between civilian and military responsibilities in these conflicts.

From Iraq to Afghanistan

President Obama triumphantly announced the formal withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq on August 31, 2010, marking the official end of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  That announcement was misleading, however, as close to 50,000 troops remained deployed on the ground in Iraq in an “advise and assist” capacity, charged with assisting government and private security forces in creating a stable political and security climate.

Many of the troops who were withdrawn from Iraq have since been deployed to the war in Afghanistan, where President Obama controversially increased the American troop presence by 30,000 in a shift in policy in Afghanistan at the close of 2009.

While the Obama administration was originally touting July 2011 as the date by which American troops would be out of Afghanistan, the NATO coalition of forces shifted the withdrawal date to 2014 in a Nov. 2010 meeting in Lisbon.

Even the 2014 withdrawal date is conditions-based, meaning that if the security situation fails to improve, troop presence could be extended.  Some commentators are already projecting a prolonged presence in the country past the 2014 milestone.

One thing is certain: American troop presence in Afghanistan is going to extend beyond President Obama’s first term in office.

War is Ugly

Basic accountability for the dispersion of funds for the wars has been called into question by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which cited “serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense (DoD) that made its financial statements unauditable.” 

Reports of planeloads of cash disappearing in the war in Iraq were not uncommon, and the difficulties GAO has had in monitoring DoD finances suggests that the problem may be endemic in Afghanistan as well.

The counterinsurgency strategy being implemented in southern Afghanistan – the main Taliban stronghold in the country, near to the border region with Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, a militant stronghold – purports to win the hearts and minds of the local population, but commentators question the efficacy of the tactics used. 

Blogger and former intelligence analyst Joshua Foust has questioned the razing of entire villages in regional capital Kandahar, which has become a flashpoint for debate in the policy community. 

As Iraq’s domestic politics become embroiled in divisions and the operations in Afghanistan see a steadily blurring line between civilian and military, both theaters of conflict have grown larger and more complicated than ever imagined at the start of the Bush administration.

For more from Neon Tommy's special series examining Obama at the midpoint of his first term, click here.

Reach Executive Producer Mary Slosson here.  Follow her on Twitter here.