However, the U.S. first secured Mongolian troops for the war in Afghanistan much earlier, in 2003, and Genghis Khan was invoked for the occasion, which should cast in doubt the references to peacekeeping used in subsequent citations. The latest development signals the transition from a bilateral U.S.-Mongolian military partnership to the broadening of NATO's role in Asia and the further consolidation of an Asian NATO.
"The landlocked nation has previously operated artillery training teams in
Afghanistan and sent troops to serve with the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq," and in the course of doing so "Mongolia's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has helped cement its alliance with the United States and secure grants and aid." [4]
U.S. Marines were deployed to the capital of Mongolia, Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar), "for the first time in the history of the Marine Corps, Aug. 18, 2003 in support of Khaan Quest '03." [5]
The live-fire military exercise, which has been held every year since, is named after Genghis Khan. The announced purpose of the training exercises, run by the Pentagon's Pacific Command, has been to upgrade Mongolian soldiers to United Nations peacekeeping standards. Having little else in the way of exports, the nation's troops are paid comparatively handsomely for missions abroad.
As to the nature of the peacekeeping missions the Pentagon has been training Mongolia's armed forces to conduct, after the first Khaan Quest exercises - in which they were instructed by U.S. Marines in "peacekeeping operations such as check point, patrolling, immediate action drills, riot control and more" [6] - in August of 2003, the U.S. deployed troops they had instructed to Iraq in September and to Afghanistan in October.
The second rotation of Mongolian troops to Iraq occurred in early 2004 and the second Khaan Quest U.S.-led military exercises were staged in Mongolia the same year.
Mongolia was invited to participate in the Cobra Gold exercises in Thailand, Asia's largest war games, in 2004 for the first time. The roster also included the U.S., Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore.
The following year U.S. Marines returned to the nation for Khaan Quest 2005 and almost two weeks of joint training with the Mongolian Armed Forces.
The Marines and 130 local troops engaged in what was described as a mock battle 65 miles west of the capital, a repeat of similar engagements in 2003 and 2004. [7]
Five months after the April exercises Mongolia's President Nambariin Enkhbayar visited Hawaii on his way home from the United Nations to meet with the top commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, whose "vast area of responsibility [consists of] half the surface of the globe that includes half its population spread across 36 countries," [8], Admiral William Fallon.
After the meeting the Mongolian head of state was quoted as saying "We have been discussing how to cooperate to expand and develop the capacity of the Mongolian armed forces and peacekeeping operations," and that he and Fallon "found complete understanding" about collaboration between the Pentagon's Pacific Command and the Mongolian armed forces. [9]
The following month Donald Rumsfeld became the first U.S. secretary of defense to visit Mongolia and addressed soldiers from the nation who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Until the last moment he also was to have visited China's and Russia's other joint neighbor, Kazakhstan, to "discuss increasing U.S. help in their [Kazakhstan's and Mongolia's] military modernization programs" on his way to a NATO meeting in Lithuania to meet "with Ukraine's defense minister about that country's effort to join the organization." [10]
Speaking of Mongolian officials' military cooperation with the U.S., he said "Located between Russia and China, they decided that their democracy, stability and future was mostly tied to the relationships they could create." [11]
It was confirmed at the time that six U.S. Marine and one Army officer were assigned to the nation's military and that "With US funding and training, the Mongolian government built a peacekeeping force of 5,000 troops from its current force of 11,000 troops." [12] Almost half its men under arms are available for deployments abroad.
On November 21st of 2005 President George W. Bush followed in Rumsfeld's footsteps, arriving for a one-day visit to Ulan Bator with his secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. As Rumsfeld was the first Pentagon chief, so Bush was the first standing U.S. head of state to visit Mongolia. Both were on recruitment missions, and not just for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A report on the U.S. defense chief's trip included the observation that "In Mongolia, Rumsfeld tried to nurture a relationship that may be a hedge against a shift in China's current path." [13]
Bush's comments while there didn't spare his hosts an ex post facto swipe at the nation's political past (until last May the ruling party's name was still that of the communist period) and an evocation of the Genghis Khan mythos (and ethos): "Free people did not falter in the Cold War, and free people will not falter in the war on terror. The Mongolian armed forces are serving the cause of freedom, and U.S. forces are proud to serve beside such fearless warriors." [14]
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