Why Mongolia Must Play Its Critcal Mineral Card to Survive
- Amar Adiya
- 31 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Mongolia wants to be Northeast Asia's honest broker. The world it is brokering in no longer rewards neutrality.
In early June 2026, participants from around 40 countries filed into Ulaanbaatar for the 11th iteration of the Ulaanbaatar Dialogue, Mongolia's flagship multilateral security forum. The agenda covered regional stability, artificial intelligence risks, and green energy cooperation.
The symbolism was deliberate: a small, landlocked democracy positioning itself as a convening power in an increasingly fractured neighbourhood. The timing, however, was not kind.
Thousands of kilometres to the southwest, the US-Israel conflict with Iran is reshaping the geopolitical assumptions that made Mongolia's balancing act plausible in the first place. But the war underscored how rapidly the assumptions underpinning the post-Cold War order have eroded.
Want to read more?
Subscribe to mongoliaweekly.org to keep reading this exclusive post.