By Lan Jianxue
Recently, US President Donald Trump stated that he hopes to see Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan returned to US control.
Bagram Airfield is Afghanistan's most important military airport. Established in the 1950s, it became a key military hub during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After launching the Afghanistan War in 2001, the US seized the base from the Taliban and expanded it into the largest and most capable US military facility in Central Asia.
The US' remarks about taking back Bagram were promptly and firmly rejected by the Afghan government. An Afghan official stated that any dialogue between Afghanistan and the US must exclude the option of US troops returning to Afghanistan. On September 21, the Afghan government issued a statement urging the US to earnestly fulfill its commitments under the 2020 Doha Agreement, including the pledge of non-interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs.
The international community also expressed concern that renewed US military intervention in Afghanistan could repeat the tragedy of aggression, destruction, and regional destabilization. According to the US Costs of War Project at Brown University, NATO military operations led by the US claimed the lives of approximately 47,000 Afghan civilians well as 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan military and police personnel, and more than 11 million people were displaced. The US spent over $2 trillion in the Afghanistan War without achieving any of its declared strategic objectives. In recent years, scandals involving NATO forces killing civilians and abusing prisoners in Afghanistan have been repeatedly exposed, prompting growing calls internationally to hold the US military and its allies accountable for war crimes.
It should be acknowledged that since the withdrawal of foreign troops and the Taliban's takeover of power, the security situation in Afghanistan has significantly improved. According to the Global Terrorism Index 2024 by an Australian think tank, Afghanistan is no longer ranked as the country with the highest terrorism index globally for the first time since 2019. The Taliban authorities have taken strict measures to restore security, gained basic control over the entire national territory, significantly reduced the frequency of terrorist attacks, shortened waiting times at security checkpoints in cities, allowing ordinary people to begin rebuilding their homes in a relatively stable environment. Despite facing numerous challenges in internal governance and capacity building, the Afghan society is striving to explore a development path suited to its own national conditions.
However, Afghanistan still faces extremely severe external challenges in its economic and social development. The US and its Western allies have not only failed to honor their aid commitments but imposed stringent sanctions on Afghanistan. They froze nearly ten billion US dollars of the Afghan central bank's overseas assets, causing a depletion of Afghanistan's foreign exchange reserves and a financial collapse. According to a report of the World Bank in April 2024, Afghanistan's real GDP fell by 26% over the previous two years. Due to prolonged conflict, the purchasing power of the Afghans has steadily declined, and the country faces persistent deflation. If this trend continues, economic growth may remain weak, further exacerbating poverty.
During his first presidential term, Donald Trump made a high-profile promise to end wars and built an image as a non-war president. His current advocacy for a US return to Afghanistan suggests three possible motives. The first is to project strength abroad and cultivate a strongman image to gain voter support. The second is to use military means to pave the way for US capital to control Afghanistan's rare earths, lithium, copper, and other mineral resources. The third is to turn Bagram Airfield into an outpost for monitoring Central Asia and deterring China and Russia, thereby serving the overall deployment of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy and sustaining US hegemony in Asia.
Under the current international situation, the people of Afghanistan and the region cherish the hard-won peace and firmly oppose any country playing geopolitical games or reviving military intervention. What the US should truly learn from is the 20-year Afghanistan War that ended in a hasty withdrawal. The US should cease all interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs, lift illegal sanctions, return Afghan assets, and earnestly shoulder its responsibility to help Afghanistan rebuild its economy and alleviate the humanitarian crisis. Only by respecting Afghanistan's sovereignty and the will of its people can we make a genuinely constructive contribution to regional peace and stability.
(The author is the director of the Department for Asia-Pacific Studies, China Institute of International Studies)
Editor's Note: Originally published on huanqiu.com, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.