Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"This immense, landlocked, isolated country wedged between China and Russia, with an area larger than Alaska but a sparse population of just 3 million, suggests a steppe-and-desert-dominated vacuum between two of the world’s most powerful countries (Fig. 9-9). Mongolia used to be the domain of a powerful people who, many centuries ago, swept westward to challenge the Russians and southeastward to rule China. But in more modern times, Mongolia became a weak and vulnerable country whose 800,000-plus herders and their millions of sheep today follow nomadic tracks along the fenceless fringes of the immense Gobi Desert, where Siberian cold periodically causes severe human and livestock losses. During the Soviet era, the location of the capital of Ulaanbaatar symbolized the country’s security against Chinese encroachment, and Mongolia functioned as the typical buffer state [20] that separated two political adversaries. In the 2010s, Chinese involvement and investment have been soaring here, and much of this revolves around Mongolia’s enormous storehouse of raw materials. Major deposits of gold, copper, and coal have been found . . ."