Wollen die Vereinigten Staaten in Afghanistan ein Comeback feiern, um ihre Vormachtstellung im strategischen Kernland Asiens wieder zu behaupten?

Submission Statement: While the news related to Greenland, Iran, and Venezuela have attracted a lot of eyeballs globally, what is going largely unnoticed is the United States‘ behind the scenes engagement with Afghanistan, possibly in a bid to reassert its influence across South, West, and Central Asia. The former US Special Envoy for Afghan Reconciliation, Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad undertook a low-profile visit to Afghanistan in late December 2025 which continued into early January 2023, marking his fourth such visit in the past year.

The Trump administration holds US$7 billion worth of Afghanistan’s overseas assets in freeze, as well as diplomatic recognition and lifting of sanctions by the United States is key to foreign investment in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. While Taliban holds access to a strategically significant geography of Afghanistan which could prove to be indispensable for the US in its ongoing competition with China.

So, the question is whether President Trump and the Taliban’s leadership could actually manage to find a middle ground between the two ideologically opposed worldviews on the altar of potentially converging pragmatic national interests, wherein the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan agrees to form some kind of an international posture together with the United States.