The alleged use of special operations troops in the raid could signal a shift away from the controversial U.S.tactic of relying on long-range missile assaults to take out terrorist targets.

VOA: standard.2009.09.15

Paul Pillar,a former senior CIA intelligence officer now with Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, favors a shift away from direct combat operations to a concentration on training Afghanistan's army and police, and economic development.

VOA: standard.2009.10.15

"I don't think it is surprising that al-Qaida would want to shift attention away from the president's historic efforts, and continued efforts, to reach out and have an open dialogue with the Muslim world,"

VOA: standard.2009.06.03

His comments reflected what other officials have said that ending the F-22 program is just one part of the effort to shift the focus of U.S.defenses away from what they see as the relatively remote possibility of a war with a major power and toward the types of smaller-scale conflicts of recent years.

VOA: standard.2009.07.21