Discuss the significance of India's bilateral military exercises with extended-neighbourhood countries like Mongolia in furthering India's strategic interests.

Exercise Nomadic Elephant, the annual India–Mongolia army-level drill conducted alternately in the two countries [1], typifies how India uses low-cost, high-frequency military exercises to build strategic presence in an extended neighbourhood where it has neither contiguity nor a supply line.

Defence diplomacy and political goodwill

• Regular exercises sustain political intimacy with a "spiritual neighbour" located between China and Russia; Mongolia publicly supports India's permanent UNSC seat and has backed Indian candidates to over thirty international bodies since 2017 [3].
• Senior-level participation — the Defence Secretary attended the closing ceremony of the 17th edition at Ulaanbaatar (2025) — signals sustained political investment [2].

Interoperability and operational learning

• Drills cover cordon and search, special heliborne operations, and drone/counter-drone employment, with a 45-member Indian contingent led by the Sikkim Scouts facing Mongolia's 150 Quick Reaction Force Battalion in 2024 [1].
• Hosting at high-altitude nodes such as Pithoragarh (Uttarakhand) [4] doubles as terrain training Indian formations require anyway.

Economic and resource stakes

• Defence trust underwrites access to critical minerals and coking coal, with IREL and Indian steel firms exploring Mongolian sources [3].
• India's USD 1 billion Line of Credit for the 1.5 MMTPA Mongol Refinery — its largest single overseas assistance project — gains political cover from this military warmth [3].

Limitations

• Scale is modest: a company-sized drill cannot substitute for reach. Bilateral trade stood at only USD 100.8 million in 2025, and Mongolia's 2022 requests for Indian light armoured vehicles and an ammunition plant remain unfulfilled [3].

Such exercises are best judged not as counterweights to any power, but as durable relationship maintenance yielding diplomatic support, training value and resource access at minimal cost. Converting this goodwill into delivered outcomes — dated timelines for the refinery and the pending defence supplies through the annual Defence Joint Working Group — would align India's extended-neighbourhood engagement with its declared vision of being a credible development and security partner.