For weeks, military officials have been laying the groundwork to request additional troops. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, warned in a classified assessment that the Afghan mission risked failure if more troops were not sent. A declassified version of McChrystal’s assessment became public after it was leaked to the Washington Post website this week.

In part, the shift in the White House stance came after Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to help with last month’s Afghan national election, a ballot widely seen as fraudulent. But the debate goes deeper than troop levels.

Obama has questioned whether McChrystal’s broad counterinsurgency strategy — combating corruption, improving government and economic development — is worth committing the extra troops it requires.

Appearing on CNN on Sunday, Obama asked, “Are we pursuing the right strategy?” On NBC, he said he would expand the counterinsurgency effort only if it contributed to the goal of defeating Al Qaeda.

“I’m not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan . . . or sending a message that America is here for the duration,” Obama said.

After Obama approved the strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, military officials moved to implement a counterinsurgency approach. At the same time, Pentagon officials replaced the former top Afghanistan commander, Gen. David D. McKiernan, with McChrystal.

McChrystal had led special operations forces against Al Qaeda leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he quickly outlined a strategy to expand efforts to protect the Afghan people from the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

“He, of all our military leaders, understands the Al Qaeda threat,” said a former military official who has advised the Obama administration on Afghan policy. “When he comes back with a broad-based, counterinsurgency mission, it is extraordinarily credible.”

It is not yet clear how many more troops McChrystal’s strategy would require.

But several top administration officials have harbored doubts about the wisdom of a stepped-up counterinsurgency plan.

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