US search for a base in Central Asia

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 12 Jun 2021 by Alex Teddy
By September 11, 2021, there will be no more US troops in Afghanistan besides Marines at the embassy. That is Joe Biden's vow. Afghan troops will be trained by the US but not in Afghanistan. The United States has also promised not to abandon its Afghan allies as it did in 1989. How is the US to support pro-American Afghans if talks with the Taliban do not lead to peace and to a regime that the US is willing to tolerate?The US military would like a base in Central Asia. This could be a springboard to intervene in Afghanistan if the situation deteriorates so much that the US feels compelled to re-enter the country. US troops were in Central Asia 2001-14. In the early years of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, relations between the US and Russia were better than at any time since 1945. Putin greenlighted these post-Soviet states' hosting US bases. In the last 20 years US-Russian relations have deteriorated dramatically. China is the emerging regional hegemon. The Chinese and the Russians believe that a US base in Central Asia would be used against them. The Taliban would be a bogus excuse for the US to create such a base.Central Asia is bounded by Russia and China. These former Soviet republics have close economic ties to Russia and try not to upset Moscow.The US will struggle to convince any Central Asian nation that hosting a US base is worth the aggro from Russia that this will necessarily entail. The US would have to offer a lot of USD or other support to make it worthwhile. China is increasingly present in Central Asia. These nations irk Beijing at their peril. Central Asia is convinced that Washington does not care about them and can do nothing for them.However, Cent...

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