Small States’ Security And Foreign Policy: A Case Study Of Mongolian Permanent Neutral Status

Abstract

It has been two years since Mongolia, the so-called “buffer state” between Russia and China, declared its intention of adopting a permanent neutral status in this intricate and globalized era. It is crucial to analyse the reasons why and what internal or external influences affected this decision while at the same time attempt to define what a permanent neutral policy really means. The main question this research seeks to answer is what permanent neutrality means in the 21st century. Additional questions touch on whether neutrality is a valuable foreign policy for a small state to ensure its sovereignty and how this would impact Mongolian foreign relations. Neutrality is a controversial but often discussed notion of international relations and international politics with regard to small sovereign states. As a unique small power in Asia, Mongolia once again assured its position by declaring permanent neutral status in the more integrated and globalized world. The concept of neutrality is evolving with time and situation as small powers like Mongolia are developing and contributing to peacekeeping and solving global issues such as nuclear threat, environmental issues, global warming, and so on. There is a gap in this area of study which is worth studying. The analysis presented in this paper is significant because it identifies and examines the role of neutrality as an effective tool of small states’ security and foreign policy.