DOI: 10.12688/stomiedintrelat.18364.2 ISSN: 2754-2572

A Textbook Hedger: What Mongolia Reveals about Small-State Strategy under Great-Power Pressure

Gergely Salát, Orsolya Talárovich
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This study examines Mongolia’s post-1990 foreign policy through the conceptual lens of small-state hedging and soft balancing, rather than through classical balance-of-power realism. Situated between two great powers, China and Russia, and lacking both alternative land neighbours and maritime access, Mongolia occupies a structurally asymmetric position shaped by historical experiences of vulnerability vis-à-vis both neighbours. We argue that Ulaanbaatar’s behaviour conforms to the hedging archetype with unusual clarity: under conditions of high uncertainty and high stakes, it avoids taking sides, pursues mutually counteracting policies, and preserves fallback options. — although the options it can realistically preserve are few, so that what Mongolia practises is a constrained, “light” form of hedging. The three operational principles of Mongolian diplomacy — balancing between its two neighbours, the “Third Neighbour Policy”, and active multilateral engagement — correspond closely to the risk-contingency and return-maximisation components identified in the hedging literature, while the cultivation of distant democratic partners functions as a form of soft, indirect balancing. The analysis is a qualitative single-case study that draws chiefly on the scholarly literature on Mongolian foreign policy and small-state hedging, supplemented by official documents and data, notably the Foreign Policy Concept of Mongolia, trade statistics from the World Trade Organization and Mongolian agencies, and statements and releases of the Mongolian government and United Nations bodies. On this basis the article shows how a resource-rich but capacity-constrained state has sought to widen its room for manoeuvre within an exceptionally restrictive geopolitical environment, distinguishes efforts to reduce dependence from their so far modest results and developments that have widened Mongolia’s options from those that have reinforced its vulnerabilities, and considers what the limits of Mongolia’s strategy reveal about the options available to other small and medium-sized states under great-power pressure.

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