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Mongolia has proven eager to flex its muscles on the international stage. The army recently announced that it would deploy about 150 soldiers to Afghanistan. About 120 of these will help guard a military base and then around 25 will be training the Afghan army in weapons use and maintenance. Apparently Mongolia is good at this sort of work because they were trained to use Soviet weapons back in the day and the Afghans still use Soviet hardware left over from their war with the USSR. You can read all about it here. I wrote this piece for the AFP. I had real trouble getting this piece out because on the day I was writing it the Defense Minister from South Korea was in town and it was near impossible to pin anyone down for an interview. The story eventually saw the light of day. One interesting footnote to this story is historical relationship between Mongolia and Afghanistan. Of course, the Mongols were one of many invading armies to occupy that country. The Hazaras are actually said to be decedents of Ghengis Khan’s warriors. Apparently, the Mongolian soldiers that have gone to Afghanistan have been a huge source of fascination for the Hazaras as they try to better understand their past. Interesting that Mongolia is able to reconnect with this ancient history some 800 years after the fact.