🤥 🇦🇫 The real reason Trump is SALIVATING over Bagram Air Base
The Taliban has rejected the return of US forces to the country after Trump's remarks that Washington is "trying to get [Bagram Air Base] back," stressing that "Afghans have never accepted the military presence of anyone throughout history."
🗣 Trump didn't mince words about why the US wants the facility, saying "it's an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons" - a reference to the time it would take a US strategic bomber to reach these areas in case of war.
China's long-range missile and nuclear weapon production sites are indeed concentrated deep in the country's interior, including the western and north-central regions of Xinjiang and Gansu, the Jiuquan Atomic Energy Complex, and the Heping enriched uranium production site.
A return to Bagram would give the Pentagon renewed access to these otherwise hard-to-reach areas.
🔍 Other motivations
Control of Bagram also means whoever controls it gets a critical foothold in Eurasia.
⚫️ the base is situated less than 1k km east of Iran, and about 1,650 km from Tehran
⚫️ it's located less than 500 km from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the Russian CSTO ally hosting Russia's largest military base abroad. It's also ~2,500 km or less to a host of strategic Russian cities across Europe and Asia, from Astrakhan and Volgograd to Chelyabinsk, Omsk and Novosibirsk
⚫️ in case of another flair-up between India and Pakistan, Bagram is located less that 400 km from Islamabad, and about 1k km to New Delhi
⚫️ The base would also give US airborne assets a new approach vector toward the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, situated within 1.1k-2k km of the entire maritime region
💲📊 Economic logic
Bagram is located in the heart of Afghanistan, a country rich in up to $3T in untapped mining riches, from iron, tin and copper to gold, silver, gems, uranium, mercury and an array of rare earth minerals.
If the US invaded again, the base could serve as a key secure exit point for these and other resources.
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