U.S. Establishment of Military Bases in Central Asia

The U.S. establishment of major military bases in Central Asia is presented as one of the most consequential results of the 2001 war in Afghanistan: a new military foothold that extended U.S. reach into a region rich in strategic resources and made future intervention easier. Noam Chomsky treats the bases not as an isolated deployment but as part of a wider geography of energy, military access, and global power.

Strategic geography and energy

Chomsky places Central Asia within a larger contest over energy. The world’s principal reserves, he argues, lie chiefly in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, with substantial resources also in Central Asia. Afghanistan itself is a comparatively minor piece on this strategic board, but proposed pipelines through the country had for years figured in U.S. efforts to influence control over Central Asian resources. In this account, the importance of bases in the region lies partly in their relationship to those resources and routes, not simply in Afghanistan’s position as a wartime target.

Before the war, the U.S. system of bases directed toward the Persian Gulf stretched from the Pacific to the Azores. Diego Garcia was described as its most secure base. The establishment of major bases in Central Asia changed that strategic picture: Chomsky says the position had improved and that, if Washington judged force appropriate, intervention would be greatly facilitated. The new installations thus mattered both as a presence in Central Asia and as an addition to a far-reaching network oriented toward the Gulf and its energy reserves.

From wartime foothold to regional reach

Chomsky identifies the establishment of major U.S. bases in Central Asia as unprecedented: for the first time, the United States had created a substantial military presence there. He connects this shift to a postwar strategic environment in which access, resources, and the capacity for intervention were intertwined. The bases were, in his interpretation, useful for installing U.S.-dominated multinational companies and for advancing what he calls the contemporary “Great Game” over the region’s considerable resources.

The setting carried risks beyond the military contest itself. North of Afghanistan were unstable and violent states, including Uzbekistan, which Human Rights Watch had condemned for serious abuses and which was fighting an Islamist insurgency. Tajikistan faced a similar conflict and was a major route for drugs moving toward Europe; the Northern Alliance controlled almost all of its border with Afghanistan. Chomsky also notes that Tajikistan had apparently become the leading drug producer after the Taliban suppressed poppy cultivation. The bases therefore entered a politically volatile neighborhood, where conflict, cross-border movement, and competing regional interests complicated the idea of Central Asia as a straightforward strategic platform.

Power, intervention, and the wider campaign

Chomsky situates the new bases within a broader account of the war on terror as an opportunity to consolidate U.S. military superiority and promote global dominance. He compares this phase with the Reagan administration’s earlier war on terrorism and argues that the Bush administration used the campaign to strengthen an already overwhelming advantage over other states. The Central Asian foothold gave that larger policy a material dimension: it increased the reach from which the United States could act.

He also advances a more specific interpretation of the Afghanistan bombings. Although he acknowledges that confidential documents are unavailable, he considers it reasonable to infer that the consequences of the campaign were anticipated and that a central objective was to demonstrate what the United States could do to states that failed to follow its rules. He compares this proposed signaling purpose with the NATO bombing of Serbia, which Tony Blair and Bill Clinton had justified in terms of preserving NATO’s credibility. The comparison places military action, alliance reputation, and deterrence within a recurring logic of demonstrating power.

Limits and consequences

The bases are also part of a contrast between the public language of coalition-building and Chomsky’s account of continuing unilateral power. He recalls that Bill Clinton had told the United Nations in 1993 that the United States would act multilaterally when possible and unilaterally when necessary, a position later reiterated by Madeleine Albright and William Cohen. In Chomsky’s view, the need for a coalition might soften official rhetoric without changing policy: partners were expected to support Washington quietly rather than participate in its decisions, while the United States reserved the right to act as it chose.

His account ultimately presents the Central Asian bases as both a concrete strategic change and evidence of a larger continuity. The September 11 attacks altered the political landscape and helped create an opening for a new military presence, but Chomsky argues that the underlying international problems largely remained. The resulting installations strengthened U.S. access to a resource-rich region, completed more of the military network surrounding Gulf energy, and made future force projection easier, while leaving the political consequences of such dominance unresolved.