Former President Donald Trump helped negotiate the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest foreign war. But now he believes the United States should retain its largest base in Afghanistan to help deal with future conflicts against China.
At this week’s Republican National Convention, speaker after speaker sought to transform “America First” from a slogan against foreign entanglements into an appeal more aggressive military power. This strategy appears to have been successful. A day after Trump’s running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance, condemned the war in Afghanistan as a failure, Trump himself called for Afghanistan to be used as a springboard for future conflicts.
“They also abandoned Bagram [Airfield], one of the largest bases in the world, the longest runway, the most powerful, hardened, thickened runway. We gave up,” he said Thursday night. “I don’t like it because of Afghanistan. I like it because of China. It’s only an hour away from where China makes nuclear weapons.
As we all know, China has nuclear facilities Located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which borders Afghanistan, although the facilities are approximately 1,000 miles from the border.
Like all politicians, Trump wants to have his cake and eat it too. He also boasted at the convention that no Taliban had attacked U.S. troops since his election. reach an agreement Withdraw troops from Afghanistan. But it’s hard to see how the United States can hold on to Bagram Air Base without restarting the war.
Trump’s speech appeared to confuse two criticisms of the Biden administration’s exit. Before the withdrawal, some hawks in Congress argued that Afghanistan of strategic value to China Therefore, abandoning the U.S. military presence there would be a mistake. After withdrawing, other members of Congress question Why did the US military evacuate troops only through Kabul International Airport instead of using the larger Bagram Airport?
The Biden administration insists it cannot safely evacuate people through Bagram Air Base.
“Preserving Bagram Air Force Base would require putting as many as 5,000 U.S. troops at risk to operate and defend it,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a conference. September 2021 Congressional Hearings. “That doesn’t add much to the mission we’ve been assigned: to protect and defend our embassy, which is about 30 miles away. The distance from Kabul also makes Bagram of little value in an evacuation.”
Austin added, “Staying at Bagram means staying in the war in Afghanistan, even for counterterrorism purposes.”
As for using Afghanistan as a cudgel against China, the idea was floated by Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., in the months before the withdrawal. “By abandoning Bagram Airport in Afghanistan, we will no longer have American airports in countries that border China,” he wrote in a May 2021 column. military timesadding that the airport would also be useful in a war against Iran.
Walz also said that “U.S. intelligence resources” at Bagram Air Force Base can support the Uyghurs in their resistance to the Chinese government and connect them with US support Afghan and other Muslim insurgents against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. “The campaign resulted in the Soviet army moving divisions from Eastern Europe to the Caucasus and Central Asia,” Waltz wrote.
Ironically, this part of Waltz’s argument underscores exactly why Bagram’s continued retention is dangerous. In this scenario, the United States would be more like the Soviet Union, withdrawing its forces from its most important front lines to defend isolated outposts in hostile territory. In a war with China or Iran, the U.S. presence at Bagram Air Base would make it easier for those countries to attack Americans, rather than the other way around.
Many Republicans have tried to thread the needle, arguing that withdrawing troops from Afghanistan was the right decision and criticizing Biden for how it was carried out. But Trump now seems swayed by a different idea: We should have troops in Afghanistan after all.
