And the president has quietly embarked on another such project—in Syria, where the U.S. has put down roots and is making plans to stay.

Officials in Washington remain tight-lipped about the exact outlines of the effort in the Kurdish-dominated northeastern corner of the country, where some 2,000 U.S. troops—joined by a growing army of diplomats and aid workers—are overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of reconstruction and security projects. What they do insist on, as the White House’s envoy to the anti-isiscoalition, Brett McGurk, did recently, is that “we are not engaged in nation-building exercises and long-term reconstruction.” And in the most expansive public comments by an American official about the U.S. strategy for Syria to date, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Wednesday that the United States is committed to “maintaining an American military presence in Syria until the full and complete defeat of isis is achieved.” In his remarks, delivered at Stanford University, he offered no timetable for when that might be.

Still, American officials say what they are doing in northeast Syria looks nothing like the wholesale changes they made in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. forces overthrew existing governments and then helped rebuild new institutions. In Syria, Assad’s government still stands, even if by Tillerson’s reckoning it only controls half the country—importantly, not the Kurdish areas that remain the focus of U.S. efforts. This is a key difference, and leaves the U.S. in the position of helping build parts of a new governing structure in patches of the country, even while the old still stands elsewhere. And the U.S. plan seems to count on Assad’s eventual departure, too. “A stable, unified, and independent Syria ultimately requires post-Assad leadership in order to be successful,” Tillerson said Wednesday. “Continued U.S. presence to ensure the lasting defeat of isis will also help pave the way for legitimate local civil authorities to exercise responsible governance of their liberated areas.”

The SDF’s Kurds emerged as the most lethal fighting force for countering the Islamic State in 2016, and partnered with American and nato special-operations forces to retake the cities of Tabqa and Raqqa over the past two years, pushing the terrorist army to the Iraqi border. The Pentagon plans to spend $500 million in 2018 to continue training and equipping them, sending thousands of small and heavy arms, tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, mortars, and vehicles, all against the long-standing opposition of the Turkish government, which views the Kurdish fighters as terrorists. There’s also the question of whether the fighters will eventually turn their weapons on Syrian government forces once isis has been fully defeated and Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad begins to follow through on his promise to retake “every inch” of Syria back.

Beyond the military strategy and its risks, it’s hard to get details about the U.S.-sponsored reconstruction work in Syria. One State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that more U.S. aid workers and diplomats are heading for the Kurdish-dominated northeast this year, and they plan to spend approximately $400 million on economic assistance and stability work. The money might seem a relatively small investment compared to the hundreds of billions Washington has spent in Iraq and Afghanistan on reconstruction over the past 16 years, but it does raise the question of what exactly the spending supports.

“We have now entered the stabilization phase of the Trump strategy in Syria, but it remains unclear what that strategy is,” said Nicholas Heras, of the Center for New American Security who studies the Syrian conflict. “The rebuilding in areas the SDF has recaptured like Aleppo and Manbij has been quite slow, with a lack of funding from both the U.S. and international community. … Donors from around the world want guarantees that the U.S. will stay on the ground in Syria, and they won’t have to work through Damascus—and the longer the American position remains unclear, the more unstable some of these devastated areas may become.”

“Right now the key foreign policy interest is stabilizing these areas and creating a sense of hope in these communities that were brutalized by isis,” said Stan Brown, director of the office of Weapons Removal and Abatement at the State Department. Brown’s office hired the contractors to do the de-mining work, and has trained roughly 120 locals to help with the monumental task. He said the sheer volume of explosives left behind in northern Syria will take years to clear.

Repeated requests to the State Department for a more detailed breakdown of the number of American government employees involved in these efforts, exact projects underway, the number of contractors hired, and the estimated price tag in 2018 went unanswered.

Some elements of the endgame may be coming into focus, however. American military officials have acknowledged that elements of the SDF have made some initial contacts with Syrian forces across the Euphrates in what some believe could lead to a larger effort by the Kurds to eventually rejoin Syria while trying to retain some elements of autonomy. The Russians, Assad’s largest benefactor, have also reached out to SDF leaders in a series of small engagements, offering promises of stability—as opposed to the Americans, who have pledged to leave at some point.

As these larger geopolitical puzzles wait to be solved, the Americans, with thousands of troops, deep pockets, and regular rotations of drones and military aircraft overhead, remain a serious force on the ground in Syria. And they’re building. While no one in Washington appears willing to answer how long this state of affairs will last, it appears that despite the White House’s aversion to nation building, the rest of the government may have other plans.