Views on NATO from Mongolia and the Republic of Korea: Hedging Strategy, and “Perfunctory Partnership”?

ABSTRACT

Mongolia and the Republic of Korea are in the same “partnership basket” for NATO in the Asia-Pacific. The two countries have burgeoning relations with NATO, which represent a relatively new dimension of international engagement for the region. Through the lens of Strategic Narrative Theory, we attempt to grasp how the strategic narratives of the two countries resonate with NATO-originated messages sent to partners in the Asia-Pacific. Both countries are attempting to reach a certain level of stability in terms of their respective geo-strategic positions in the Asia-Pacific. In the context of its “Third Neighbor” approach, Mongolia is applying a hedging strategy with regard to NATO and other actors in the region, including China, Japan, Russia, and the US. Korea assigns primary significance to its bilateral relationships with bigger powers, most obviously and predominantly the US, while considering NATO a broadly useful if sometimes perfunctory additional partner on a number of other security issues.

Notes

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^4. Chen and Yang, “A Harmonized Southeast Asia?,” 282.

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^6. Goh, Meeting the China Challenge, 4.

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^9. Amry Vandenbosch, Southeast Asia among the World Powers (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957), v and 1.

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^17. “The World Bank,” GDP Growth (annual %). http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?end=2014&locations=MN.Please&start=2011

^18. Elbegdorj Tsakhia, “Delivering On and Implementing a Transformative Post-2016 Development Agenda,” the United Nations, General Assembly of the United Nations, General Debate of the 69th Session, September 24, 2014. https://gadebate.un.org/sites/default/files/gastatements/69/MN_en.pdf

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^20. Munkh-Ochir Dorjjugder, “Mongolia’s Third Neighbor’ Doctrine and North Korea,” The Brookings Institution, January 28, 2011, https://www.brookings.edu/research/mongolias-third-neighbor-doctrine-and-north-korea/

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^26. Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle, Strategic Narratives, 8–12.

^27. Iver B. Neumann, “Discourse Analysis,” Qualitative Methods In International Relations: A Pluralist Guide, edited by A. Klotz and D. Prakash (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 62.

^28. Miskimmon, O’Loughlin, and Roselle, Strategic Narratives, 7.

^29. Representatives of all three cohorts stated this particular expression.

^30. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^31. Academic cohort, Mongolia.

^32. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^33. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^34. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^35. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^36. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^37. Academic cohort, Mongolia.

^38. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^39. Political cohort, ROK.

^40. Political cohort, ROK.

^41. Military cohort, ROK.

^42. Political cohort, ROK.

^43. Political cohort, ROK.

^44. Political cohort, ROK.

^45. Academic cohort, ROK.

^46. Political cohort, ROK.

^47. Academic cohort, ROK.

^48. Political cohort, ROK.

^49. Academic cohort, ROK.

^50. Political and military cohorts, Mongolia.

^51. Media cohort, Mongolia.

^52. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^53. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^54. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^55. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^56. Academic cohort, ROK.

^57. Political cohort, ROK.

^58. Political cohort, ROK.

^59. Political cohort, ROK.

^60. Political cohort, ROK.

^61. Academic cohort, ROK.

^62. Political cohort, ROK.

^63. Academic cohort, ROK.

^64. Political cohort, ROK.

^65. Political cohort, ROK.

^66. Political cohort, ROK.

^67. Academic cohort, ROK.

^68. Academic cohort, ROK.

^69. Academic cohort, ROK.

^70. Dambadarjaa Jargasaikhan, “It is not an Economic Crisis but an Institutional One,” Jargal Defacto, June 11, 2014, http://jargaldefacto.com/article/it-is-not-an-economic-crisis-but-an-institutional-one

^71. Media cohort, Mongolia.

^72. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^73. Academic cohort, Mongolia.

^74. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^75. Academic cohort, Mongolia.

^76. “Japan Enacts Major Changes to its Self-Defense Laws,” Stars and Stripes, September 18, 2015, https://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/japan-enacts-major-changes-to-its-self-defense-laws-1.368783#.WSwQq-uLRjU.

^77. Academic cohort, ROK.

^78. Political cohort, ROK.

^79. Academic cohort, ROK.

^80. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^81. Political cohort, Mongolia.

^82. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^83. Academic cohort, ROK.

^84. Media cohort, Mongolia.

^85. Media cohort, Mongolia.

^86. Military cohort, Mongolia.

^87. Batbayar, “Geopolitics and Mongolia’s Search for Post-Soviet Identity,” 330.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sung-Won Yoon

Dr. Sung-Won Yoon is an assistant professor at the University of Suwon, Republic of Korea. Her main research interests include EU cultural policy, European identity, and European integration. Her latest publications include eight co-authored monographs and 30 journal articles. She has participated in multi-country research projects such as the “External Perceptions of the European Union in the Asia-Pacific.”

Adiyasuren Jamiyandagva

Mr. Adiyasuren Jamiyandagva is a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies of Mongolia. His research focuses on Mongolia’s relations with and involvement in the OSCE and NATO as well as Mongolia’s “Third Neighbor” policy. He has been published in domestic and international academic journals. He has participated in training programs specializing on “Modernization and conflict in Central Asia,” “Transnational Security Challenges: Ungoverned Spaces,” the 17th Summer Academy on the OSCE, and the OSCE Induction Course for Mongolia.

Vlad Vernygora

Vlad Vernygora is a DSocSc Candidate at the University of Lapland (Finland) and lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Law, Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). His research interests include contemporary political empires, Europe’s interactions with the Asia-Pacific, the EU and its neighbourhood, the Belt and Road Initiative, and neo-regionalism. From October 2014, Vlad Vernygora has been managing the operational side of the NATO Science for Peace and Security Program Project, “NATO Global Perceptions – Views from the Asia-Pacific Region.”

Joe Burton

Dr. Joe Burton is senior lecturer in the Political Science and Public Policy Programme and the New Zealand Institute for Security and Crime Science, University of Waikato. His research focuses on regional responses to transnational security challenges, most notably cyber security, with a focus on the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific regions.

Byambakhand Luguusharav

Ms. Byambakhand Luguusharav is a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies of Mongolia. Her research mainly focuses on US foreign policy, Mongolia–US relations and Mongolia–NATO relations.

Munkhtur Dorjraa

Dr. Munkhtur Dorjraa is a vice director of the Institute for Strategic Studies of Mongolia. He focuses his research on security in the Euro-Atlantic region, and OSCE and NATO in particular. Among his successfully accomplished research projects are: “The Third Neighbour Policy of Mongolia,” “International Regulation for Private Military and Security Companies,” “Threat Perceptions in the OSCE Area,” and “NATO Global Perceptions – Views from the Asia-Pacific.” In 2013, he was a visiting fellow at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in New York, and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support of UN. He has published extensively in Mongolian, English, and German in various domestic and international journals.