The Blunder of the Past

For two decades, Bagram symbolised U.S. might—until it became a monument to surrender.

Approximately 40-50 km from the capital of Afghanistan, in the shadow of the Hindu Kush, lies one of the world’s largest air bases, Bagram. Built in the 1950s by the Soviet Union to strengthen its communist roots in Central Asia, Bagram was captured later and expanded by Americans in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and to dismantle Al Qaeda.

From 2001 to 2021, for over two decades, Bagram served as a command centre for U.S. and NATO troops, housing a large arsenal and heavy aircraft. It witnessed a stark demonstration of how a trained, well-equipped military could not counter the guerrilla tactics of the Taliban. It saw the militants celebrating the very weapons the deserters had left behind. Bagram unmasked the torch-bearer of human rights as they turned their backs on the Afghan people, abandoning the counterterrorism commitment they professed to uphold for so long. The base is a symbol of surrender, a history that America is now seeking to rewrite.

In July 2021, just a month before the fall of the US-backed Afghan regime, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) had identified a new Chinese missile base in the Xinjiang region across the Afghan border. The FAS report claimed that nearly 250 nuclear missile silos are under construction in China, which is more than half of the size of the entire U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile strength. Bagram air base is one hour away from China’s nuclear base.

Trump realised the biggest blunder of the past: the abandonment of Bagram Air Base, their strategic military asset in Central Asia. Now he wants Bagram back. “We gave it away for nothing,” he says, blaming Biden for the misstep. However, it was Trump who signed the poorly negotiated Doha Agreement, which Biden did not renegotiate. But how could a real estate mogul-turned-politician miss the politics of place? Despite all this, Bagram is called “Biden’s failure” and Trump’s promise to Make America Proud Again. For debt-ridden Europe, reclaiming Bagram means another burden of being a U.S. ally.

“Bad things are going to happen” is another threat by Trump to make the enemy foresee the worst and rush to the negotiating table. “They need things from us. “We want that base back,” he asserted. The Taliban seeks recognition to lift economic sanctions, unfreeze $9.5 billion in assets, and secure international aid for the rebuilding efforts. Meanwhile, by blocking India’s access to Iran’s Chabahar port, Trump has not just hampered India’s trade, but he has also choked off essential supplies to Afghanistan, too. The United States clearly gained leverage over the Taliban. However, reclaiming the base once lost is no cakewalk.

The Taliban sits atop vast untapped natural resources, including copper, iron, gold, rare earths, and significant oil reserves. The latest geological surveys seem to have reignited Trump’s interest in the land America once abandoned. Doing business with the Taliban is not that easy, as the heavily sanctioned, cash-strapped Taliban now runs the world’s biggest opium trade. Illiteracy, rampant corruption, and widespread crime further complicate any potential undertaking. Re-operating Bagram would require billions of dollars of investment, which brings in significant risks. Since the West’s exit, the geopolitics of Afghanistan has changed drastically. China has invested heavily in Afghanistan, securing over 200 mining contracts to extract Afghanistan’s natural wealth.

This investment dynamic positions China as a key player, resistant to any U.S. presence in Afghanistan. The resistance is especially strong given Bagram’s proximity to a Chinese nuclear facility and regions of ethnic unrest involving Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

For Iran, too, a possible return of U.S. control over Bagram would constitute a threat to the so far uninterrupted Iran-China trade, the revival of its nuclear programme, or the carrying on of other economic activities sanctioned by the West. The U.S. would use Bagram to monitor Iran, given its proximity to the Iranian border—closer than the Pakistani air base from which the U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear facilities during the peace dialogues. As a response, Iran had then fired a few missiles in Qatar’s skies, but now operating Bagram airbase would put the U.S. troops within striking range of Iranian missiles.

Russia would also not want NATO to re-enter its sphere of influence, whether in neighbouring countries or lands afar.

Reclaiming and operating Bagram would not only expose the United States to significant challenges and resistance from both within and around Afghanistan, but it would also highlight the blunder of the past.

(The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal.)