Nonetheless, there is strong bipartisan support in the US for maintaining military bases in Afghanistan, as a means of projecting hard power, and the increasingly charged confrontation between the US and Russia over Ukraine has boosted that support considerably. In fact, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explicitly linked Russia’s actions in Ukraine with “talk of withdrawal from Afghanistan, whether the security situation warrants it or not.”
尽管如此，美国两党都十分支持保留阿富汗军事基地，以此彰显其硬实力，而美俄在乌克兰问题上日趋紧张的冲突更大大增加了这一方案的支持度。事实上，前国务卿赖斯明确地将俄罗斯在乌克兰的行动与“阿富汗撤军谈判”挂钩，“不论从安全局势看这是否必要”。