If Afghanistan becomes logistically inaccessible to conventional military power then it stands to reason that the Taliban and al Qaeda will eventually regain power there. Once again, Afghanistan would become the world’s cesspool. It is interesting to note that the restrictions imposed upon conventional military power would have no real impact upon terrorist organizations employing 4th generation warfare out of Afghanistan (perhaps this is Putin’s intention?). Add to the mix that Pakistan’s government appears to be failing (the Taliban “tail” is starting to wag the Pakistan “dog”). The nightmare scenario of the Taliban/al Qaeda controlling Pakistani nukes is no longer unreasonable.

One could counter argue that the Russians don’t want to see their own Islamic fascists accessing nuclear weapons through al Qaeda. However the Afghanistan based Islamic fascists would almost certainly take out Israel and Western Europe before they started playing with the Russians. The Russians would have ample time to subject Afghanistan/Pakistan to nuclear sterilization.