Bagram Air Base has always been more than concrete and tarmac. It is a map pin where multiple strategic stories intersect. Soviet-era power projection, the American-led post-9/11 wars, the Taliban’s takeover, and now tri-nation contentions for it amongst the USA, China, and Russia, make Bagram Air Base a continuing focal point of shifting global rivalries and a symbol of how Afghanistan remains central to regional and great powers’ strategy. Its runway length, elevation, and location in Parwan province are of strategic significance, being wedged between South and Central Asia and one mountain chain away from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China which sits at the crossroads of Central Asian Republics, Mongolia, Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Beijing’s interest in integrating Afghanistan into the Belt and Road and CPEC extensions, is likely to drive its support to Kabul’s rejection of any foreign base, invoking sovereignty.
Originally built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and used as a principal hub during its 1980s occupation, Bagram Air Base was later transformed by the United States after 2001 into a vast, flight-line neighbourhood complex. By 2006, the USA had rebuilt it with an 11,500-foot runway and extensive facilities like housing, a hospital, and a detention centre at a cost of about USD 68 million, enabling heavy airlift and high-frequency operations. For the next two decades, it was to serve as a central platform for intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance (ISR), close air support, medevac operations and strategic logistics, effectively becoming the heart of the USA’s campaign in Afghanistan.
The ending is as important as the beginning. On July 2, 2021, the USA vacated Bagram in a rapid, largely unannounced nighttime move, leaving the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces to assume control, but within weeks the base and the country fell to the Taliban. The scenes of scavenging and looting in early July by mid-August became a dominant part of a collapsed narrative.
Bagram airbase remains vital to the USA because of its strategic location and counterterrorism value. From this single high-capacity airfield, US forces can conduct surveillance and strikes across Afghanistan, Pakistan’s frontier, parts of Iran, and Central Asia without relying on neighbouring countries’ permissions. Its long, high-altitude runway and ample apron space can handle heavy aircraft like C-5s and C-17s even in summer heat, without performance degradation. Operationally, Bagram enables faster response times and longer on-station “dwell” missions than bases in the Gulf or Indian Ocean, which is why it has reemerged as a candidate for a renewed USA interest.
A week back, President Donald Trump publicly demanded that Afghanistan “return” Bagram, warning that “bad things” would happen if it did not. The Taliban rejected the idea immediately and publicly. Debate in the USA is split between two camps, one visualising a much-needed monitoring space near China under the garb of counter terrorism platform and the other, warning that “retaking” Bagram can look like a re-invasion requiring thousands of troops to defend a single, vulnerable node. Whether you view the statement as negotiating theatre or policy intent, it has already reset regional conversations.
China sees Bagram through the lens of Xinjiang security and Belt-and-Road economics. It views a USA military base so close to the Wakhan Corridor as a way to help the USA monitor or threaten trade routes linking Xinjiang with Pakistan and Central Asia, raising insurance costs and project risks. Beijing’s interest in integrating Afghanistan into the Belt and Road and CPEC extensions, is likely to drive its support to Kabul’s rejection of any foreign base, invoking sovereignty. China is also likely to offer diplomatic and economic incentives to ensure that keeping Bagram free of USA forces remains the most attractive option for the Taliban. By recognising the Taliban government in 2025, Russia has positioned itself as the key security broker for Afghanistan’s neighbourhood and therefore views Bagram through the prism of regional security and its own influence in Central Asia. With its 201st Military Base in Tajikistan; the country’s largest foreign garrison, Moscow monitors Afghan militancy and drug flows mainly through the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) framework and security aid, since the USA withdrawal. A renewed USA’s presence at Bagram would undercut that role, so Moscow is expected to support Kabul’s rejection, emphasise Afghan sovereignty, and deepen military training, intelligence sharing, and border assistance to the Taliban and nearby states to keep Washington out.
For Pakistan, a potential U.S. return to Bagram is both an opportunity and a risk. Islamabad might discreetly welcome stronger counter-terrorism pressure on Afghan-based militants, but any base or overflight arrangement shall ignite domestic controversy citing a threat to sovereignty, scratching the scar tissue of the last American presence in the region. Managing airspace de-confliction near Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan and assuring China that cooperation does not enable the USA’s surveillance of Xinjiang will remain diplomatically delicate.
An American flag at Bagram can initially raise insurance and security costs for Pakistan’s planned trade and energy routes through Afghanistan, though stability from reduced cross-border attacks might bring long-term economic benefits, the same argument will be hard to sell in our national politics. Rightly so, as the same was expected from the USA during its previous presence in Afghanistan, but was never delivered. Russia’s stance also compounds the pressure, having grown closer to Pakistan through military contacts and energy talks, Moscow viewing the USA’s return as a threat to CSTO stability and its Tajik base, is likely to push Islamabad to avoid facilitating any such move, opposed by both China and Russia. Designed for heavy lift, Bagram now carries political weight; a symbol of who gets to define security in the heart of Asia. For Washington; Bagram is a lever, for Beijing; a risk, for Moscow; a stage. For Pakistan, it is all of the above, plus a weather vane for domestic politics and a barometer for whether trade and energy corridors can sustain the onslaught on its security, that have long rolled down the Hindukush. Bagram’s concrete has not moved, but the stories around it have and those for now, will decide who owns Bagram, who lands and who only circles overhead. Let us see, who bags Bagram.
The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at zulfiqar.shirazi @gmail.com