Mr. Bush: What did you promise Mongolia?
USA Today tells us:
The Mongolians have been rewarded with $11 million in U.S. aid to improve military forces.Gee - what would they need that for? Trying to invade China? Conquer Siberia? Or maybe help some criticized US president in a desert war?
In China they had the same message. Another article on China reads that:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that "one has to be concerned" about China's modernization of its 2.5 million-member army. "There's a question of intent," she said.
2.5 million that is the total population of Mongolia.
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technorati: mongolia bush
8 Comments:
Will they ghet any reward for helping out Belgium in Kosovo?
Interesting post. I made a post about Bush's visit to China on my blog (a lot less serious than yours though!).
What's with the cynicism? The reward is for past support in peacekeeping and an incentive for Mongolia to continue to improve their military so they can be more competitive in obtaining future UN peacekeeping contracts.
Garrett, I think everyone here was hoping for a promise that would be really usefull for the people here in Mongolia. For instance a cut in import tax for Mongolian goods in the US.
Like you say, Mongolia only uses the military for assisting in other countries - I think people here in the end don't care so much about that. There is enough to do in Mongolia.
The US, however, is very eager to increase the capacity of their cutrrent military partners basically to strenghten their own position. In this sence to me this feel like Bush is giving a gift to himself rather than to Mongolia.
guido,
good points, but remember, when the UN pays out big for peacekeeping missions, whether they be in Afghanistan or Africa, it's the Mongolian nation that benifits from the fat check. Mongolia can then use the money how they please, to feed the poor or otherwise. It is closer to the teach-a-man-to-fish philosophy. For this same reason, I think NGOs in Mongolia who work to create jobs and stimulate the economy are more effective at eradicating poverty than just those NGOs who give away free stuff. Do you want to fix the problem or just put a band-aid on it?
I think the benefits of this visit, whether stated overtly or not are:
1. Increased international media recognition of Mongolia: how many articles have you seen on Mongolia lately? Let's not forget many many people still don't realize it is a nation apart from China...
2. Increased tourism and business investment for Mongolia: as stated in about every single article -- Mongolia is the top democracy, with freer media, stronger support for entrepreneurial enterprise, and respect for human rights than Russia, China, or any of the "-stans." In other words a friendly and untapped environment for business investment.
3. Tacit protection from China and/or Russia. Let's not forget the tactics those countries have used in strong-arming and encroaching their neighbors. By openly and with much fanfare coming to Mongolia and making such public and positive statements of support, however general, he is stating to the world "this nation is within our Axis of Goodness" -- with all the rights and protections associated...
4. Infrastructure -- if the US establishes a military presence with bases, along with that comes roads, electricity and power grids, etc -- all those things necessary for establishing and maintaining their presence.
Wish I could write off Bush's visit as just pomp-and-circumstance -- I don't really like the guy -- but this visit could have positive ramifications for Mongolia.
Ariel made some good points. IMO especially the political signal from this visit might be of value to Mongolia. There's been a long (unspoken) fear among many Mongolians that China would treat Mongolia as it does Tibet and Taiwan.
I'm not too keen on an American military presence, though. There's not a single place in the world where an American base hasn't caused an increase in violence and abuse (check out the reports from the Phillipines, for instance). I've been a soldier and my experience with the US soldiery is that they are loud, care nothing for local culture or the local population (unless they can rip them of, have intercourse with the local girls and ladies, or otherwise satisfy their own needs without any regard for the needs of the local community). They are also a drain on local resources; the petrol isn't flown in from the US but bought locally, during manoeuvres, laws are often disregarded and violated, nature and the environment mean nthing and are wantonly distroyed and polluted, and peace is regularly disturbed. All of these aspects are hardly aknwowledged by the politicians (because of economic ramifications), military or local police ( because of international politics) or the US military themselves (because they don't care).
Mongolia would have been better served with economic measures and treaties, education exchange programs or scientific cooperation.
But that's just my opinion, of course.
RML
Shards of Mongolia
There's actually more the mongolian military could do with the money than just becoming more suited to peacekeeping operations.
Mongolia's border is seriously underproteced at the moment, making things easy for russian cattle thieves and for smugglers. If some of the money would be spent on the border guards, things might at least be put under under control.
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