By any measure, this is not just about an airbase. In a week that folded Gulf shock, South Asian deterrence, and great-power signaling into one tight knot, President of the United States Donald Trump warned Afghanistan that “bad things” would happen if Bagram air base isn’t returned to the United States, while refusing to rule out sending troops.
At the same time, reporting indicates US officials have sounded out the Taliban on re-establishing a counterterrorism footprint from Afghan soil, an idea Kabul’s rulers publicly reject. And in the background sits a new Saudi–Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement, signed on September 17, pledging a joint response to aggression, timed days after an Israeli strike in Doha rattled Gulf security assumptions.
Welcome to Great Game 3.0: less about maps and mountain passes, more about forward bases, missile envelopes, and alliance math.
What Trump Wants—and Why Now
Trump’s public line is blunt: Bagram was built and run by America; give it back—or else. He framed the base as a strategic asset “an hour away” from China’s nuclear complex and brushed off questions about sending troops: “We won’t talk about that.” The message lands as coercive ambiguity: keep adversaries guessing, press the Taliban for concessions, and reinsert U.S. power projection on China’s western flank.
There’s also a timing logic. After the Israel–Iran “Twelve-Day War” in June and Israel’s September strike in Doha targeting Hamas leadership, the region’s air-defense maps and crisis ladders are being redrawn in real time. Washington may see limited counter terrorism access near Afghanistan as one way to hedge against ISIS-K, al-Qaeda regeneration, and Iranian power-projection lanes that now demonstrably reach into the Gulf.
But the operational reality check is harsh: former and current U.S. officials caution that retaking and holding Bagram would look like a re-invasion, needing 10,000+ troops and high-end air defenses—hardly a “light footprint.” Even with Taliban acquiescence, a U.S. garrison would face ISIS-K/al-Qaeda threats and long-range regional missiles. Translation: any “return” is likely to be covert access, overflight, or episodic counter terrorism staging, not a 2009-style surge.
The New Board: Riyadh–Islamabad’s Security Fuse
The Saudi–Pakistan pact shifts the chessboard. Its core clause, treating aggression against one as aggression against both, formalizes long-lived ties and builds joint deterrence into treaty text. It also arrives amid Gulf doubts about U.S. reliability after the Doha strike. Analysts are already gaming out whether a “Pakistan nuclear shadow” now enters Middle East calculus; Islamabad, for its part, stresses the pact is defensive and not aimed at any third country.
For Pakistan, the upside is leverage: deeper Saudi security, economic, and diplomatic ballast at a moment of regional flux. The risk is entanglement—being pulled into escalatory Gulf dynamics when its core fight is still at home against TTP/IS-linked militancy and along the Afghan frontier.
Russia, China and the Taliban’s New Diplomatic Cover
Moscow became the first capital to recognize the Taliban government in July, after delisting the movement as a terrorist organization in April. Recognition isn’t charity; it’s security arithmetic after ISIS-K struck Russia in 2024. That decision gives Kabul political oxygen and complicates any overt U.S. basing return: Russia won’t welcome an American air hub reappearing inside the ring of states it courts for influence. Beijing, nursing BRI ambitions and stability concerns in Xinjiang, likewise has no appetite for a U.S. runway back on its near-west.
The Taliban position is consistent: engagement, yes; foreign bases, no. As one foreign-ministry official put it, ties with Washington should be “political and economic,” not military. That stance has hardened after the Doha strike shifted regional threat perceptions and made Kabul wary of becoming a target basket in someone else’s war.
India and the Near Neighbors: Reading the Ripples
India will read a U.S. drift back to Bagram as a mixed bag: a check on terror safe-havens and China, good; a revived US–Taliban tango and a Saudi–Pakistan mutual defense pledge, complicated. New Delhi will work to firewall its growing Saudi ties from Islamabad’s new treaty while doubling down on maritime power and Iran corridor hedges (Chabahar). Iran, fresh from the summer’s exchange with Israel and staring at a possible U.S. air presence just beyond Herat, would likely widen its missile and proxy deterrence nets eastward. Central Asian states, and Russia, will decry any American “return,” even as they quietly fear ISIS-K spillage.
Afghanistan’s Calculus: Sovereignty Versus Security
For Kabul’s rulers, the idea of a U.S. flag once again flying over Bagram would be nothing short of a political earthquake. Even the hint of a counterterrorism arrangement carries enormous risks. The Taliban, who built their legitimacy on driving out foreign forces, cannot easily explain why American troops, or even a reduced presence, would be tolerated on Afghan soil. Domestic rivals would brand them as collaborators, while militant factions would seize the opportunity to attack the base to prove their relevance. Worse still, a U.S. footprint could make Afghanistan once more the battleground of other people’s wars, inviting missile or proxy retaliation if the wider Middle East erupts again.
And yet, doing nothing carries its own costs. ISIS-K remains a stubborn spoiler, staging attacks that embarrass the Taliban and unsettle regional neighbors. The Afghan economy, starved of recognition and investment, cannot escape isolation on goodwill from Russia alone. Moscow’s formal recognition and delisting of the Taliban offer diplomatic cover, but Western sanctions and aid blockages remain immovable so long as decrees restricting women and girls stay in place. In this dilemma, Kabul’s least-bad option may be to bargain hard for sanctions relief, aid corridors, and trade access—without crossing its publicly declared red line against hosting foreign bases. It is sovereignty at stake, but also survival.
Pakistan’s Stance: Defensive, Regional, Realistic
For Pakistan, the Saudi–Pakistan Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement is a milestone—but one that needs careful handling. The state narrative must remain disciplined, projecting the pact as defensive, strictly tied to rules of engagement, and not as a nuclear umbrella in disguise. Strategic ambiguity has its uses, but loose rhetoric about deterrence could inflame both adversaries and allies.
At the same time, Islamabad knows its core battles are closer to home. Countering the TTP insurgency, reinforcing border fencing, and limiting cross-border frictions with Kabul are priorities that demand steadiness rather than spectacle. Diplomatically, Pakistan will have to walk a triangular line, synchronizing moves with Riyadh and Beijing, both of whom will be watching any US–Taliban counterterrorism overtures warily. It must also keep quiet channels alive with Tehran and Doha, since spillover from Gulf escalations could ignite fires Pakistan does not want to fight.
Perhaps most importantly, Islamabad must convert this defense moment into economic ballast: secure energy deals, attract Saudi investment, and ease foreign-exchange pressure. Deterrence without development, as Pakistani officials know all too well, is performance without substance.
What’s Next
What actually unfolds in the months ahead will not be the stuff of Hollywood invasion scripts but the more ambiguous theater of twenty-first century geopolitics. The most likely outcome is that Washington and Kabul, despite public bluster, settle into discreet counterterrorism understandings, occasional overflights, intelligence exchanges, perhaps episodic use of regional facilities. The Taliban will insist no permanent US flag is raised at Bagram; Washington will claim it has secured options.
A harder but conceivable path would be a narrow facilities-access deal, framed around the ISIS-K threat, where US aircraft use Bagram for pre-cleared missions but no troops are stationed permanently. Kabul could preserve its sovereignty narrative, while the US could quietly restore some reach into Central Asia.
The least likely, but most dramatic, scenario is a unilateral US seizure of Bagram or full-scale re-occupation. The costs would be immense, tens of thousands of troops, advanced air defenses, and the certainty of violent resistance. Even those in Washington who champion a return admit it would look less like counterterrorism and more like re-invasion.
In the end, the specter of Bagram’s return is less about nostalgia for 2009 than it is about leverage in 2025. The Great Game has evolved again: from imperial maps, to counterinsurgency surges, to this new age of air corridors, missile arcs, and treaty clauses. Afghanistan is still at the crossroads, but the roads are faster, riskier, and lead far beyond its borders.
