Trump's Bagram Gambit Is All About China

2025-09-30 01:09:35

(MENAFN- Asia Times) On September 20, 2025, US President Donald Trump warned on Truth Social that if Afghanistan“doesn't give Bagram Airfield back ... BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!” Earlier that week at a London press event, the US leader described Bagram as“an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.”

While factually imprecise, the message was unmistakable: Washington sees renewed value in a forward option on China's western periphery, even if only as a coercive signal.

Kabul's answer was immediate and categorical. A Taliban foreign ministry official dismissed the idea of a US return to Bagram, citing sovereignty and the Doha Agreement peace deal. Relinquishing the very airfield that symbolized America's defeat would be political suicide for the Taliban regime; publicly, at least, there is no room for negotiation.

The strategic logic behind Trump's threat is geography. Bagram lies about 64 kilometers (km) north of Kabul, roughly 480 km from the Wakhan Corridor, 780 km from Kashgar and nearly 1,875 km from Lop Nur, China's historic nuclear test site.

The“one hour” claim is rhetorical, but the intent is clear: cast Bagram as a potential vantage point over Xinjiang and western China's military infrastructure at a time when Beijing is rapidly modernizing its nuclear arsenal and command-and-control networks.

From such a base, US airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms could shrink response times over western China. That would impose on Beijing a two-front dilemma: its primary maritime challenge in the Pacific and a new continental threat on its western flank.

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