Bye Bye Bagram
Ciao Kurds, sorry Afghanis, or Contras or I do'know. Off to China!
[Image is a single frame from the RT published video footage of a Russian military aircraft observing a Dutch ship around the Crimean terrestrial waters]
Bye Bye Bagram
With the "in the middle of the night" exit of the USA from Bagram Airfield (see video source) a new period has begun for Afghanistan. There is now no major foreign military controlled airfield in the country. Yes, drones and other air operations can be run from neighboring countries, or even Diego Garcia, but not from within national borders. Thus, the expense of running air operations inside Afghanistan has increased markedly.
Meanwhile, the Taliban have been making such fast advances in their influence over many provinces in Afghanistan that even their own commanders are calling for a bit of restraint (logistics, and all that).
What are we to make of this?
The obvious needs to be stated: attempting to control Afghanistan is a fools errand. The Afghanis have laid at their feet the folly of British, Russian and USA/NATO imperial powers. Nope, nope and nope.
Political/Military Vacuums
The "problem" of Afghanistan now lies within Afghanistan and upon its nearest strong neighbor, Pakistan and Iran. The BRI plans for China and Russia skirt Afghanistan, sensibly, as its government is not stable. While I am sure that both will be keeping a strong eye on Afghani power relations, I expect that they will rely more on the local neighbors for influence.
There are reports of Afghan national army units fleeing north into Turkmenistan, and it is likely that this will continue at all points of the compass, the neighboring states will be supported by the Asian powers to manage this flux.
A key analysis by MoonOfAlabama is that the recent rapid advances of the Taliban may well seriously reduce the chance of a protracted civil war in Afghanistan for political control. I hope he is correct, and entirely agree that what the nation needs is peace. He also claims that the level of corruption is likely to drop as the Taliban replaces the Western power's influence over government. He is likely correct, but I expect that is largely due to the likely dramatic reduction in foreign money running through their economy. Corruption is to government as oxygen is to breathing.
External to Internal
I see the wheel turning, partially for the better and partially for the worse. The narrative in western societies, apart from the Russia/China are evil military industrial complex funding generation mechanic, is to domestic terrorism, rather than international. This, I hope, will empower domestic resistance to the incoming repression of political dissent, and if so, will direct politics internally within NATO nations. Yes, there are plenty of international conflicts (Ukraine, Taiwan) brewing, but the more that politicians can be forced to deal with local politics the better.
The whole CoVID-19 and now "delta" variant pandemic and the lockdown policies have developed quite a different politics. While the rich continue to enrich themselves, regular people have been suffering. Simultaneously, trust in legacy media is collapsing and a diversity of media are emerging with different narratives and objectives. Add to this an emerging younger section of the populace in western countries who have little concern for these legacy media institutions, and they will be the driving force within the economies of these nations.
I foresee a period of confusion and relative calm. There are risks of a conflagration as USA hegemony wanes, but I am quietly hoping not. China and Russia have been playing a very careful long game for the last two decades, and I see no sign of them changing strategy, for it has been a success. There are calls for more aggressive responses to the provocations by the West around Crimea from Russian political opinion makers, and President Putin recently nodded at them saying that if Russia did sink a NATO ship in the waters off Crimea if would not amount to WWIII. This is just political posturing.
Conflict Response
The strategy has been working. Russia has allied itself with the strongest economy, China, and can withstand the odd provocation. The public propaganda is certainly very different to the propaganda within Russia's military. If NATO ship X ventures into denied territorial waters, they'll buzz it with aircraft, and fire the odd warning shot. Its a dance. Personally, I think the Russian military enjoy it. Its training. Serious, yes, but training all the same. Of course, that all changes if someone is so stupid to fire at any of the Russian forces in Crimea, or even more stupidly try an amphibious landing for a picnic on the Crimean peninsula. "Response plan 17" would be invoked.
This is all speculation, but I expect that it goes like this:
During the initial incursion into Crimean waters, messages are delivered within intergovernmental military communications channels saying "Please dont do this, it will not end well". Of course, the Chinese are informed; you take economic action, we can handle the military side.
At the point of the actual ficticious attack (missiles, landing forces, whatever) a rehearsed collection of communications is delivered to the entire world's media and political groups describing the events to which they are responding and the international legal foundation for their defensive response.
Additional observational military capacity (aircraft) will be launched, as the complete weight of arms of Russia is brought down against the intruders, in a carefully orchestrated fashion.
Geopolitical Responses
The China/Russia political leadership is calmly walking towards a multi-polar world where the China/Russia block, and the increasing number of Asian nations joining the block, become sufficiently resistant to western hegemony that they can then exit the prison and enjoy the land.
What they do with this freedom is quite another matter.
Sources
One of these sources is so bad that it should not be included. It is here to demonstrate that various sources are so bad that they should be shamed. Back to the old "interesting and verifiable" game. Can you spot the "pure narrative" and "not verifiable" source?
Afghanistan - U.S. Sneaks Out At Night - Taliban Take Multiple Districts Per Day, MoonOfAlabama
Unseen images from Bagram Airfield, TOLOnews
It’s Saigon in Afghanistan, Dr. Ron Paul
Fake attacks Russian fighter planes on Dutch navy ship Black Sea, Nederland News Live