"Third Neighbor"

Via Elephants in Academia (which is via Publius Pundit in turn), a story by Bill Gertz in the Washington Times (reg. required) re: Rumsfeld in Mongolia.

Mongolia is focusing its defense efforts on building close relations with its neighbors rather than undertaking a large-scale military buildup, the official said. It considers the United States its "third neighbor" after Russia and China.

"We have a strong bilateral relationship based on shared values," the official said.

(bold mine) Nice, huh ?

Mongolia is doing this mainly out of self interest. And that's a good thing. That's what countries are supposed to do. Anyway there's a lot that can come with this kind of relationship. For one:

The United States is providing Mongolia's forces with $18 million to upgrade outdated and aging equipment. Part of the money will help pay for setting up an international peacekeeping training center under the Global Peace Operations Initiative. The center is under construction at the Five Hills Training Center outside Ulan Bator.

Publius makes a good observations as well.