What realists fail to realize when they make dispassionate cost and benefit calculations, is that there is an intrinsic benefit to friendship and alliance, but that such a benefit cannot be realized if the United States fails to embrace friendship for friendship’s sake. What may appear inconvenient now may become a critical asset down the road, if only the American foreign policy elite would be farsighted. ~Michael Rubin

The friendship and alliance to which Rubin refers in this case is the one with…Mongolia. Rubin writes:

The Mongolian government is actively reaching out for friends who might respect its independence as both its neighbors play hardball. It has courted both Australia and South Korea. Alas, while Mongolians are friendly and pro-American, they recognize they cannot rely on the United States as a friend.

What is it that they are relying on these “friends” to do? Rubin says that it is “strategic blindness” to neglect Mongolia, but at no point does he explain how greater American friendliness would change the reality that Mongolia is a poor country dependent on its larger neighbors for energy. Neither does he explain why the U.S. should increase ties with a landlocked state wedged in between two of the world’s major powers, or how Mongolia would ever be a “critical asset” for the United States. If the advantages of a closer relationship are unclear, the downside is obvious. It would revive Russian fears of U.S. encroachment into Russia’s “near abroad” and alarm China at the same time. In addition to creating a new irritant in the relationship with both governments, it could stoke tensions between Mongolia and its neighbors. That would hardly serve the interests of Mongolia, and it isn’t clear that it would help the U.S. in any concrete way.

Rubin is also mistaken if he thinks that the U.S. has stopped paying attention to Mongolia. J. Berkshire Miller described the state of U.S.-Mongolian relations earlier this year:

Either way, Mongolia has been developing increasingly close security ties with the United States. Through the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, Mongolia contributed about 150 soldiers from the elite Mongolian Expeditionary Task Force (METF)—a sizeable number considering the country’s population—to help train the Afghan National Army in mobile field artillery techniques.

While nearly two-thirds of the METF in Afghanistan have now returned home, such moves have bolstered the broader relationship with both NATO and the United States. This deployment has also built on the US goodwill Mongolia secured through its troop contributions to the Iraq War, which prompted visits by then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then President George W. Bush—the first sitting US president to visit the nation.

And the Obama administration has indicated that it intends to build on this progress. Last August, the Mongolian Armed Forces (MAF) and the US Pacific Command conducted its annual joint-training exercise, ‘Khaan Quest,’ which was first undertaken in 2004 and is aimed at further enhancing the MAF’s expertise in peacekeeping and counterterrorism. Khaan Quest continues to attract observer and participating nations from across the globe, with South Korea, Thailand, Canada, India, Japan, and Fiji all in attendance recently.

This has not gone unnoticed by China, and intensifying military cooperation with Mongolia in the future could come to be seen as unacceptable. This 2009 analysis by Wang Peiran explains:

If the American military presence in Mongolia becomes too influential, from China’s point of view, it essentially means being encircled by the United States. Although Beijing has not directly publicized its stance on military cooperation between Mongolia and the United States, Russia and other countries, there still exists a relatively clear “red line”, namely that the current composition of Northeast Asian security cannot be dismantled, and even more, the situation cannot take a turn in a direction that is detrimental to China.

Mongolia seems to be sensitive to Beijing’s concerns, and as a result, after the US president visited Mongolia, the Mongolian president immediately paid a visit to China. During the trip, a joint communiqué was released stating that both sides agreed not to enter into any military or political alliances directed at the other. The two nations’ cooperation and exchange on security and defense are also progressing step by step. Since 2004, China and Mongolia have conducted three consultations on security and defense. These exchanges have been helpful in increasing understanding between the two sides, raising the level of trust and at the same time strengthening China’s influence in Mongolia.

If Mongolia isn’t going to enter into any alliances aimed at China, which is what any alliance with the U.S. would be whether we admit it publicly or not, that would seem to render the issue moot. It is not the business of the U.S. to be more pro-Mongolian than the Mongolian government.