Marissa J. Smith is a cultural anthropologist and an affiliate of the Central Asia Working Group of the University of California, Berkeley's Institute for East Asian Studies. She previously served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development on democracy, governance and human rights in Mongolia.
Isolation is nothing new for Mongolia, but the Ukraine war and the COVID-19 pandemic have left the Central Asian nation ever more dependent on its powerful encircling neighbors, China and Russia.
