No to Trump: Why Afghanistan’s neighbours have opposed US Bagram plan

Islamabad, Pakistan – Seated adjacent to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a sojourn to the United Kingdom successful September, United States President Donald Trump made wide helium was eyeing a crippled of onshore his country’s subject erstwhile controlled astir 8,000km (4,970 miles) away: Bagram airbase successful Afghanistan.

“We gave it to [the Taliban] for nothing. We privation that basal back,” helium said. Two days later, this clip opting to explicit his views connected societal media, Trump wrote: “If Afghanistan doesn’t springiness Bagram aerial basal backmost to those that built it, the United States of America, atrocious things are going to happen!”

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The Taliban, predictably, bristled astatine the request and stressed that nether “no circumstances” volition Afghans manus implicit the basal to immoderate 3rd country.

On Tuesday, the Taliban, who person ruled Afghanistan since their takeover of Kabul successful August 2021, won a singular amusement of enactment for their absorption to immoderate US subject instrumentality to the country, from a wide swath of neighbours who different seldom spot eye-to-eye geopolitically.

At a gathering successful Moscow, officials from Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan joined their Taliban counterparts successful coming down hard connected immoderate effort to acceptable up overseas subject bases successful Afghanistan. They did not sanction the US, but the people was clear, accidental experts.

“They called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their subject infrastructure successful Afghanistan and neighbouring states, since this does not service the interests of determination bid and stability,” said the associated connection (PDF) published by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs connected October 7 astatine the decision of the seventh variation of what are known arsenic the Moscow Format Consultations betwixt Afghanistan’s neighbours.

Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran had opposed “the reestablishment of subject bases” successful a similar declaration past period connected the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. But the Moscow communique brought unneurotic a overmuch wider scope of nations – immoderate with competing interests – connected a azygous page.

India and Pakistan person agelong vied for power implicit Afghanistan. India besides worries astir China’s increasing investments successful that country. Iran has often viewed immoderate Pakistani beingness successful Afghanistan with suspicion. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan person agelong feared unit successful Afghanistan spilling implicit into their territory. And successful caller years, Pakistan has had tense relations with the Taliban – a radical that it supported and sheltered for decades previously.

The confluence of these countries, contempt these differences, into a unanimous presumption to support the US retired of the portion reflects a shared determination presumption that Afghan affairs are a “regional responsibility”, not a substance to beryllium externally managed, said Taimur Khan, a researcher astatine the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI).

“Despite their differences, determination countries stock a communal presumption that Afghanistan should not erstwhile again big a overseas subject presence,” Khan told Al Jazeera.

That shared position, articulated successful Moscow, besides strengthens the Taliban’s hands arsenic it seeks to propulsion backmost against unit from Trump implicit Bagram, portion giving Afghanistan’s rulers determination legitimacy. Most of their neighbours are deepening engagements with them, adjacent though Russia is the lone state that has formally recognised them diplomatically arsenic the Afghan government.

A symbolic, strategical prize

The groundwork for the Afghan Taliban’s instrumentality to powerfulness was laid successful Doha successful January 2020, nether Trump’s archetypal administration; they yet took implicit the state successful August 2021, during the tenure of the medication of erstwhile President Joe Biden.

Yet successful February this year, a period aft taking the oath for his 2nd term, Trump insisted: “We were going to support Bagram. We were going to support a tiny unit connected Bagram.”

Bagram, 44km (27 miles) northbound of Kabul, was primitively built by the Soviet Union successful the 1950s. The basal has 2 factual runways – 1 3.6km agelong (2.2 miles), the different 3km (1.9 miles) – and is 1 of the fewer places successful Afghanistan suitable for landing ample subject planes and weapons carriers.

It became a strategical basal for the galore powers that person occupied, controlled and fought implicit Afghanistan implicit the past half-century. Taken implicit by US-led NATO forces aft the penetration of Afghanistan pursuing the September 11 attacks, Bagram was a cardinal installation successful Washington’s alleged “war connected terror”.

Afghanistan’s rugged, mountainous terrain means determination are constricted sites susceptible of serving arsenic ample subject logistics hubs. That scarcity is wherefore Bagram retains its strategical significance, 4 years aft the US withdrew from the country.

Kamran Bokhari, elder manager astatine the Washington, DC-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, said helium was sceptical astir the US earnestly readying immoderate redeployment of forces to Afghanistan, contempt Trump’s comments.

“The caller US geostrategy is astir subject retrenchment. There is nary appetite successful Washington for immoderate specified subject commitment, which would beryllium a large logistical undertaking,” Bokhari told Al Jazeera. “Even if the Taliban were to hold to let the Americans to regain Bagram, the outgo of maintaining specified a installation acold outstrips its utility.”

At the aforesaid time, Bokhari said that the Moscow conscionable worked arsenic an accidental for Russia to amusement that it retains power successful Central Asia, a portion successful which its footprint has been eroded by the warfare successful Ukraine and by China’s rising geoeconomic presence.

But the concerns astir immoderate renewed US footprint successful Afghanistan aren’t constricted to Russia, oregon adjacent China, America’s biggest semipermanent rival. Amid heightened tensions with the US and Israel, Iran volition not privation an American subject beingness successful Afghanistan.

Other determination nations – India and Pakistan among them – are besides anxious to amusement that the neighbourhood tin negociate the vacuum created successful Afghanistan by the withdrawal of US information forces, Bokhari said. Though a adjacent spouse of the US, India’s ties with Washington person frayed during Trump’s 2nd term, with the American president imposing 50 percent tariffs connected imports from India, successful portion due to the fact that of New Delhi’s continued acquisition of lipid from Russia.

And past determination are the Central Asian countries that stock long, porous borders with Afghanistan – and fearfulness their ungraded mightiness beryllium utilized by convulsive groups energised by immoderate instrumentality of the US, militarily, to Bagram.

Blast walls and a fewer buildings tin beryllium seen astatine the Bagram airbase aft the US subject near the base, successful Parwan province, northbound of Kabul, Afghanistan, successful 2021 [File: Rahmat Gul/AP Photo]

Central Asia’s information calculus

The 4 Central Asian countries that were portion of the Moscow Format – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – unneurotic with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, signifier a bloc of six landlocked nations whose geography gives them a unsocial vantage constituent successful determination politics, portion besides compelling them to question entree to warmer waters for trade.

Analysts reason an American beingness successful the portion would beryllium “undesirable” for galore of these nations.

“This is not knee-jerk anti-Americanism,” Kuat Akizhanov, a Kazakh expert and lawman manager of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Institute (CAREC) said.

“A US basal would enactment big states connected the beforehand enactment of US-Russia-China rivalry. Moscow and Beijing person some signalled absorption to immoderate renewed US presence, and aligning with that statement reduces coercive unit and economical oregon information retaliation connected our overmuch smaller economies,” Akizhanov told Al Jazeera.

He added that determination actors present similar determination groupings specified arsenic the Moscow Format, oregon adjacent the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) led by Moscow and Beijing, for practice connected information and the neighbourhood’s stability, to immoderate US presence.

What bash the Taliban and Afghanistan’s different neighbours fear?

Many of Afghanistan’s bigger neighbours person their ain concerns.

“They fearfulness that a revived US subject beingness could perchance reintroduce quality operations, substance instability, and erstwhile again crook Afghanistan into a proxy battleground,” Khan from the Islamabad-based ISSI said.

“This is the lens from which determination countries present presumption Afghanistan: a abstraction that indispensable beryllium stabilised done determination practice and economical integration, and not done renewed Western involution oregon strategical containment efforts,” helium added.

For the Taliban, meanwhile, Trump’s Bagram demands airs a dilemma, accidental experts.

Ibraheem Bahiss, a Kabul-based elder expert for Crisis Group, said helium believed that Trump’s Bagram request was chiefly driven by the US president’s “personal inclination” alternatively than immoderate statement wrong the US strategical establishment. “There mightiness beryllium a consciousness that Afghanistan remains an unfinished concern for him,” the expert told Al Jazeera.

For the Taliban, surrendering Bagram is unthinkable. “Kabul cannot connection Bagram arsenic it would antagonise their ain enactment basal and mightiness pb to absorption against their ain authorities if [the] US comes here,” Bahiss said.

At the aforesaid time, Bokhari, of the New Lines Institute, said that the Taliban cognize planetary sanctions are a large obstacle to governance and economical recovery, and for that, they volition request to prosecute the West, and particularly the US.

“The Taliban are asking for sanctions relief, but the question is, what bash they offer? Washington is much funny successful Central Asia, to which it does not person casual entree to. The portion is different blocked by Russia, China and Iran,” helium said.

Trump has cited Bagram’s proximity to China and its rocket factories arsenic a crushed for wanting to instrumentality backmost power of the base. Bagram is astir 800km (about 500 miles) from the Chinese border, and astir 2,400km (about 1,500 miles) from a rocket installation successful Xinjiang.

“It is not successful the US involvement successful allowing China to monopolise the region,” Bokhari said.

Against that backdrop, the Bagram request mightiness beryllium a awesome from the US that it is anxious to research caller ways to bash concern with the Taliban, Bokhari and Bahiss agreed.

Washington isn’t the lone 1 reaching retired to the group, which until a fewer years agone was mostly a planetary pariah. In fact, the US is precocious – the Taliban person already been making large headways, diplomatically, successful its neighbourhood.

Engagement, not recognition

Since taking power of a state of much than 40 cardinal radical successful August 2021, the Taliban person faced planetary scepticism implicit their benignant of governance.

Afghanistan’s rulers person imposed a hardline mentation of Islam and person placed several restrictions connected women, including limits connected moving and education.

International sanctions person further weakened an already fragile economy, portion the beingness of aggregate equipped groups – including Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) – continues to alarm neighbouring states. The Taliban importune that they bash not enactment the usage of Afghan ungraded to onslaught neighbours.

Pakistan, erstwhile seen arsenic the superior benefactor of the Taliban, says it has grown progressively frustrated implicit the past 4 years astatine what it sees arsenic the Afghan government’s inability to clamp down connected militants.

The twelvemonth 2024 was 1 of the deadliest for Pakistan successful astir a decade, with much than 2,500 casualties from violence, galore of which Islamabad attributes to groups that it says run from Afghan soil, allegations rejected by Kabul.

On Wednesday, several soldiers were killed successful an ambush by the TTP adjacent the Afghan borderline successful the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Still, Pakistan upgraded diplomatic ties with the Taliban successful May. That month, Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi hosted his counterpart from Pakistan, spoke connected the telephone with India’s overseas minister, and flew to Iran and China for summits.

Muttaqi was successful Moscow for the caller determination consultations that produced the disapproval of Trump’s Bagram plans, and connected Thursday is owed to get successful New Delhi for a historic, weeklong sojourn to India, a state that viewed the Taliban arsenic a Pakistan proxy – and an force – until a fewer years ago.

Bahiss said the compulsion for determination nations to woody with the Taliban is driven by shared, pragmatic goals, which see keeping borders calm, guaranteeing counterterrorism assurances, and securing commercialized routes.

Akizhanov, the CAREC analyst, meanwhile, said that the wider determination enactment with Afghan officials “normalise moving channels [with the Taliban] and reinforces their communicative that determination futures volition beryllium decided locally, not by extracurricular militaries”.

However, “legitimacy remains conditional successful capitals of each country, hinging connected counterterrorism guarantees, cross-border security, economical connectivity, and basal rights, particularly for women and girls,” said the analyst, who is based successful Urumqi, China.

ISSI’s Khan agreed.

“What we are witnessing is not ceremonial recognition, but a functional knowing that Afghanistan’s isolation serves nary one’s interests,” helium said.