Don't Forsake Mongolia

[ 57 ] special roundtable • advising the new u.s. president “U.S. policy toward Mongolia is not so much about what the United States ‘gets’ by assisting as about what the United States is. Washington’s credibility, relevance, and integrity are at stake.” • Don’t Forsake Mongolia Alan M. Wachman Measured in terms of security, survival, or economic well-being, the United States has no vital interest in Mongolia. Yet it would be a colossal error to forsake Mongolia. The modest—but meaningful—mission of the United States in Mongolia should be maintained. In Mongolia, the United States offers succor to an independent, democratic state that has emerged from decades of Soviet domination determined to help itself. Providing $285 million through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, military training and assistance, USAID funding, Peace Corps volunteers, and other forms of political and economic support, Washington has underscored its commitment to Mongolia’s self-sufficiency, prosperity, democracy, and quality of life. Mongolia has been an appreciative and cooperative partner, sending troops to Iraq and to Afghanistan. However, U.S. policy toward Mongolia is not so much about what the United States “gets” by assisting as about what the United States is. Washington’s credibility, relevance, and integrity are at stake. In1990,whenMongoliaundertookthetransitionfromauthoritarianism to democracy, from planned to market economy, from dependence on Soviet assistance to independence and international citizenship, Washington may have imagined geopolitical advantage resulting from support of Mongolia. Although U.S. and Mongolian statesmen speak of common values, geopolitics has surely suffused Washington’s calculus. After all, Mongolia is landlocked, with Russia to the north and China to the south. Washington’s impulse to seek strategic advantage in that neighborhood must be compelling. For two decades, Mongolia has been visited by a stream of high-ranking U.S. officials and dignitaries, including President George W. Bush in 2005. Washington’s fascination must stem not only from Mongolia’s determination to embrace democracy but also from its steely, yet tactful, determination to alan m. wachman is Associate Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He can be reached at . [ 58 ] asia policy spurn dependence on either Moscow or Beijing. Mongolia is committed to balancing relations with Russia and China and to sustaining its autonomy by exploiting their mutual suspicions. Neither Russia nor China would wish Mongolia to be sucked entirely into the orbit of the other. So long as Sino-Russian relations are good enough for the two states to tolerate with equanimity the interests and influences of the other in Mongolia, Mongolia’s independence can be sustained. At present, their interests are focused on Mongolia’s abundance of subterranean resources—oil, coal, uranium, copper, gold, and other minerals—and an eagerness in Ulaanbaatar not only to “drill, baby, drill” but to “dig, baby, dig.” Should Sino-Russian relations deteriorate to naked competition or warm to collaboration in the dismemberment of Mongolia, independence could be history. To enhance its precarious posture, Mongolia has cultivated relations with a roster of states beyond its two big neighbors—states Ulaanbaatar encourages to develop economic and other interests in Mongolia and thereby serve as external balancers, checking Russian and Chinese ambitions. Mongolia’s geopolitical gambit flows from the expectation that neither of its two big neighbors would cavalierly “gore the ox”—or yak—of these “third neighbors.” The United States is foremost among those states to which Ulaanbaatar has reached out. Yet the present reality is that Washington cannot expect great strategic advantages to flow from its close ties to Ulaanbaatar. First, everything and everybody going into Mongolia must pass through either Russian or Chinese territory or airspace, giving both Moscow and Beijing valves with which to regulate Mongolia’s options. Second, in its “Concept of Foreign Policy,” Mongolia wisely asserts a determination to refrain from “joining any military alliance or grouping, allowing the use of its territory or air space against any other country, and the stationing of foreign troops or weapons…in its territory.” Third, even if Mongolia were to welcome U.S. forces or assets, both Moscow and Beijing have the means to undercut Mongolia’s economic well-being and—in extremis—its very existence as...