The battle against the Islamic State group is likely to remain the center of attention into 2016, but it is unlikely to expand into an all-out ground war in which U.S. soldiers and Marines slug it out with the militants.

No one thinks the Islamic State group will be defeated anytime soon, and defense officials acknowledge there is no firm timeline for ousting the militants from their strongholds. And exactly how the battle will be waged, and possibly expanded, in the months ahead remains unclear.

On a rare visit to the Pentagon on Dec. 14, Obama reiterated that his administration remains focused on fighting IS on multiple fronts, but revealed little new information about his strategy.

Flanked by top military advisers, including Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Obama recommitted to the existing strategy and stated that the U.S. is hitting the militant group "harder than ever."

Although Obama recently authorized the deployment of about 100 special operations ground troops to Iraq, some of which may become involved in direct combat strikes against IS, the president continues to show a marked reluctance to authorize any large-scale expansion of ground operations there.

Instead, the expectation is that the U.S-led air campaign will further intensify, with commanders using more airstrikes to target more IS infrastructure and weaken the group's hold on key cities and towns inside Iraq and Syria.

That would leave the bulk of the burden resting on the Air Force and the thousands of pilots and airmen who are running the day-to-day operations of the intense airstrike campaign against Islamic State targets.

But expanded ground operations are not totally out of the picture. The New York Times recently reported that Pentagon officials have sent a proposal to the White House to establish a string of new military bases in Africa, Southwest Asia and the Middle East.

The bases would use by special operations troops to gather intelligence and carry out strikes against IS and its growing roster of far-flung affiliates, to include a new and particularly brutal offshoot that is wreaking havoc in Yemen on a scale outpacing even al-Qaida, experts say.

Meanwhile, Americans seem increasingly willing to deploy more U.S. ground troops to take on IS. A new Associated Press-GfK poll of more than 1,000 American adults conducted in early December shows the percentage who favor that move has risen from 31 percent to 42 percent over the past year.

And a majority of respondents, 56 percent, said the U.S. military response to IS has not gone far enough. That's up from 46 percent since October 2014.

About Andrew Tilghman

Andrew Tilghman is the executive editor for Military Times. He is a former Military Times Pentagon reporter and served as a Middle East correspondent for the Stars and Stripes. Before covering the military, he worked as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle in Texas, the Albany Times Union in New York and The Associated Press in Milwaukee.

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