US President Donald Trump has announced his desire to regain control of the Bagram military base in Afghanistan, from where the Americans left in 2021. The Taliban have so far stated that they intend to keep the US military out of the country, but are ready for political and economic cooperation with Washington. According to experts, Afghanistan has become the point where the interests of Russia, India, China and other regional players converge. That's why America needed to return to Bagram. Will it work?
This week, the US president announced plans to regain control of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. According to him, the American government is taking appropriate measures. "We are going to keep Bagram, the largest airbase in the world. We gave her away for nothing. By the way, we're trying to get her back. Ok? It could be a bit of a sensation," Trump said.
He attributed one of the reasons for returning to Bagram to the need for the United States to counter its main rival, China, because the base "is located an hour from the place where China produces nuclear weapons." Earlier, Trump repeatedly criticized his predecessor Joe Biden for the chaotic withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in 2021, as a result of which a military facility came under the control of the Taliban government.
According to Trump, the base, which is located 40 kilometers north of Kabul, is still of strategic importance to the United States. Bagram Airfield, which served as the central command post and the largest military facility in Afghanistan until the withdrawal of American troops in 2021, was built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s and subsequently became a key center of U.S. operations for two decades.
According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Washington is considering the possibility of returning a limited military contingent to the airbase to conduct counterterrorism operations. The Trump administration is already in contact with representatives of the Taliban movement, having begun a dialogue on the return of Americans to the base.
Negotiations are at an early stage. The American side is led by Trump's special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Beler. It is expected that discussions on the terms and possible format of the military presence will continue in the near future.
The US president has already hinted that the Taliban may allow the US military to return because the Taliban "need something from us." However, the official representative of the Afghan Foreign Ministry, adviser to the Foreign Minister Zakir Jalali, excludes the US military presence in the country. "Afghanistan and the United States should cooperate with each other and can build economic and political relations based on mutual respect and common interests," Jalali said.
The diplomat recalled that the Afghans have historically not agreed to the US military presence – "and this possibility was completely rejected during the negotiations and the Doha agreement, but the door is open for further cooperation."
Negotiations on the base with the Americans were also rejected by the chief of the General Staff of the Afghan army, Fasihuddin Fitrat. According to him, the presence of even one foreign soldier on Afghan soil is "unacceptable for the Islamic Emirate," and Kabul will not enter into any deal with the United States or any other country on the issue of the airbase.
Currently, there are no official diplomatic relations between the United States and the Taliban, but earlier the parties held hostage negotiations. In March, the Taliban released an American who had been abducted more than two years ago during a tour of Afghanistan. Last week, it became known about the agreement reached between the United States and the Taliban on the exchange of prisoners as part of efforts to normalize relations between Kabul and Washington.
In April of this year, unofficial reports appeared about an American military aircraft operating in radio silence and with a blocked transponder, which allegedly flew from Doha towards Afghanistan. He was tracked in the Bagram airbase area, which led to speculation about the visit of the Americans or their temporary presence at the base.
The Taliban administration denied the transfer of the base or the landing of American troops there. According to the Indian news agency Indo-Asian News Service, for the United States, the Bagram base would be an ideal intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance center for monitoring South, Central and West Asia.
The facility "will allow for regional counter-terrorism operations, will become an aircraft transfer and refueling point for rapid regional response, and will also provide an advanced platform for monitoring events in the region," the newspaper writes. However, the article notes that the move would also entail spending several billion dollars on massive U.S. military commitments, significant defensive and support needs, repairs, upgrades, and permanent supplies to the landlocked air base.
Beijing has not officially commented on Trump's statements about his desire to regain control of the base, but Chinese and Hong Kong English-language media presented the US president's statements as geopolitically sensitive. According to Chinese experts, Beijing will consider any resumption of the US military presence in Afghanistan as a destabilizing factor for regional security and a potential escalation of US-Chinese rivalry. Today, Beijing views Afghanistan as a potentially important element of its global Belt and Road initiative.
Afghanistan has historically served as an important link of the Great Silk Road and several critically important transport routes may run through its territory.
In addition to the Wakhan Corridor in Badakhshan province (it is often called the "strategic core" of Eurasia), we are talking about the Central Asian-South Asian corridor connecting Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with Pakistan and India, as well as the Trans-Afghan corridor, which should link the European Union, Russia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the group of Southeast Asian nations. Asia.
"Statements about returning to the Bagram base are a declaration of intent. Earlier, Trump had the idea to pocket Greenland and return the Panama Canal, but all this is still hanging in the air. While it is not possible to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, there is a return to the old proven model of planting American military bases all over the globe," says Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In his opinion, today in the United States, instead of a clear foreign policy strategy, there is "a system of impulses or urges that come from Trump." "All of Trump's efforts are aimed at erasing the Democrats' foreign policy legacy. Greenland was returned to Denmark in 1945 by the Democratic Truman administration, and the Panama Canal was transferred to Panama in 1979 by the Democratic Carter administration. The United States withdrew from Afghanistan also under the Democrats, although an agreement in principle with the Taliban was worked out during Trump's first term, but it is not a fact that if he had remained in power, the Americans would have really left the country," the expert recalled, adding that also under Trump, US support for Taiwan and Ukraine began to weaken.
If desired, the United States will be able to negotiate with the Taliban to return to Bagram.
"The United States can pay the Taliban government and they will hand over the territory. The Americans have worked out the security of military bases to the smallest detail. The most reliable thing is to enclose the perimeter with reinforced concrete shields. This is enough to protect against terrorist attacks," said military expert Andrei Koshkin, head of the Department of Political Analysis and Socio-Psychological Processes at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics.
At the same time, a possible return to the airbase should not be regarded as a second US invasion of Afghanistan. As the expert recalled, in 2021, the United States fulfilled the Taliban's demand to leave the country on time. "It was the Taliban who kicked the Americans out of Afghanistan. So the return to the base can only happen by nonviolent means, the parties will agree. But the reason for the return can only be geopolitical – control of a specific area in the region. Bagram could indeed become a center for intelligence and surveillance of the situation in South, Central and West Asia. This is a very advantageous geopolitical point," Koshkin emphasizes.
"According to Trump, the US agreement on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan stipulated that the Americans would continue to use the Bagram air base. But it turned out that under Biden, they just ran away from there and abandoned the airfield. In other words, the point is to return to the framework originally envisaged," says orientalist Kirill Semenov, an expert at the Russian Council on International Affairs.
In his opinion,
The Taliban may give in to the Americans, but they will demand the complete lifting of international sanctions against them and the unblocking of accounts in Western banks.
"I do not think that the United States will have to conduct a military operation, as many write. The Americans will lose this war very quickly," the expert believes.
According to Koshkin, returning to Bagram will not allow the United States to interfere with the plans of Russia, China and India to build logistical routes, but the Americans will be able to "keep their finger on the pulse." "Conducting reconnaissance is more than enough. For the United States, this is a kind of foothold, but a full–fledged invasion of Afghanistan, of course, will not happen," the speaker predicts.
Vasiliev notes that talks about the return of the United States to Afghanistan appeared after the bombing of Iran and against the background of the formation of a strategic alliance involving Russia, India and China. This should also include the uneven relations of the United States with nuclear Pakistan and the military rise of China.
"All this forces Americans to reconsider their foreign policy. Today it turns out that the ideas of the beginning of the 21st century that Afghanistan is the soft underbelly of Russia and an enclave of American influence or invasion in Central Asia have started working again. Today, the fulcrum in Afghanistan is a return to the old policy of expansion in Central Asia," the American expert explained.
According to him,
the return of the United States to Bagram "can be considered as a possible return to Afghanistan" in general, the airfield will become the "Trojan horse" of the United States in the region.
Semenov agrees that the United States is interested in putting additional pressure on China.
"This base should violate the interests of all local players, including Russia. According to Trump, who has his own geography, the base is located a short distance from the place where China manufactures nuclear weapons. Apparently, this refers to the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region," the orientalist explained.
In his opinion, after returning to the base, the United States can deploy drones there and conduct reconnaissance over Chinese areas. "Another thing is that the base is isolated and in case of any serious conflict it will be destroyed immediately. In reality, it has no military value as an element of pressure on China, but in general it has geostrategic significance," Semenov believes.
Andrey Rezchikov
