Is Bagram Air Base a strategic linchpin of US power projection? Why is Donald Trump so 'obsessed' with that? | Explain

Taliban’s highest leader Hibatullah Akhundzada on Saturday condemned US President Donald Trump’s attempt to regain the air base in Bagram, four years after the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan again condemned the Taliban air base. Trump renewed his attempt to regain the vast military facility. On Saturday, Trump expressed his desire to establish a US presence at Bagram, claiming that we were ‘now talking to Afghanistan’ about the possibility, although he provided no further details about these discussions. “We won’t talk about it,” Trump said. “We want it back, and we want it back immediately. If they don’t, you’ll find out what I’m going to do. ‘ Despite the lack of formal international recognition, the Taliban has established diplomatic ties with countries such as China and Russia and is still asking for a broader global involvement. Earlier, the staff chief of the Ministry of Defense, Fasihuddin Fitrat, addressed Trump’s remarks. “Even dropping an inch of our land for everyone is out of the question and impossible,” he said during a speech broadcast by Afghan media. In August last year, the Taliban celebrated the third anniversary of their takeover in Bagram with a large military performance of abandoned American hardware and the eye of the White House. Trump repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for his ‘gross incompetence’ during the withdrawal of the American forces after the longest war of the country. It was under Trump that the US mediated an agreement with the Taliban in Doha in 2020, that by May 2021, the US would withdraw all its troops in exchange for various security guarantees of the militants. Last week, during his state visit to the United Kingdom, Trump hinted that the Taliban, who has struggled to the power in 2021 with an economic crisis, international legitimacy, internal rifts and competitive militant groups since their return to power in 2021, could be to allow the US military to return. “We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump said about the Taliban. While the US and the Taliban have no formal diplomatic ties, the parties had hostage conversations. Donald Trump negotiated an agreement with the Taliban that laid the foundation for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, the final excerpt took place under former President Joe Biden and was commonly seen as chaotic and mismanagement. The rapid collapse of the US-backed Afghan government, a deadly bombardment that killed 13 US service members and 170 others, and the cruel scenes of thousands of Afghans who grew the airport in Kabul were a grim end to the 20-year-old presence of America. This relief became a major political blow for Biden a few months after his presidency, with critics, especially Trump, who accused him of “weakness and poor leadership”. Trump claimed that the disorderly withdrawal not only humiliated the US, but also penetrated Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine in 2022. “He would never have done what he did, except that he did not respect the United States leadership,” Trump said. “They just went through the total disaster of Afghanistan at all. We would leave Afghanistan, but we would leave it behind with power and dignity. We would hold Bagram Air Base, one of the largest air base in the world. We gave it nothing to them. ‘ Bagram -Air Base: From the Soviet -‘Outpose’ to the American ‘Fortress’ Bagram air base, just north of Kabul, has long had strategic significance. The airport itself has deeper roots, originally built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. When the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to support the country’s communist regime, Bagram became its primary military center, which served as the central basis for its operations during the decade -long occupancy. Over the years, Bagram has developed from an outpost of the Cold War era to one of the most strategically significant military installations in the region. With two runways (including an air strip of 12,000 feet), more than 100 reinforced aircraft parking, a hospital with 50 beds and massive logistics infrastructure, it was considered one of the most advanced military facilities in the region. The proximity of important geopolitical hotspots, about 400 miles from China and 500 miles from Iran, made it invaluable for intelligence collection, air power projection and against terrorism missions. In the early years, Bagram was also notorious for his prison complex, which was eventually handed over to the Afghan authorities in 2012. Among many Afghans, the base became synonymous with fear, second only in Guantanamo -Bay. Why does Donald Trump want Bagram Air Base in 2025? In 2025, Trump’s calls to regain control of the proximity of the site “just an hour of China’s nuclear weapons production” efforts to counter Beijing’s regional expansion, according to a report by the Orion Institute policy. Strategic facilities such as Rop NUR, located 2,000 km east, improve Bab’s deterrent value, giving it an edge on US bases in the Philippines, which are 3,000 kilometers from Xinjiang. Yet the refusal of Taliban escalation was threatened, with suggestions for ‘episodic access’ by coordination cells against terrorism that emerged as a possible diplomatic compromise. China’s growing defensive power China, meanwhile, is awarding the world’s second largest defense budget to the United States. In the Victory Parade held this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China is ‘unstoppable’ in a speech that kicks off a massive march in Beijing that has been 80 years since the end of World War II. To drop even an inch of our land for everyone is out of the question and impossible. “Mankind is again confronted with a choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, and win-win outcomes or zero-sum games,” he said. The military parade was characterized by the presence of the JL-3, a new ballistic rocket (SLBM) capable of wearing a nuclear power head. According to an assessment of the defense intelligence agency of 2024, Beijing is engaged in the fastest and most ambitious nuclear modernization in its history, powered by long-term strategic competition with Washington. This effort involves a major expansion of rocketlos and the development of mobile, air-skipped and submarine-based nuclear delivery systems.