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Having said all of this, it must be recognized that the Vietnamese central government’s approach to internal policies that affect its ability to maintain regime security within the country is different than what it will do and say as it looks to broaden relations with external countries. That is, how it treats its people on the subject of regime security is one thing. How it treats countries like America on this same topic (i.e. countries that may present some risk to it) is another. Considering of course that this is what interests us here, it’s necessary for us to understand what Vietnam stands to gain and lose if we are to craft a policy on our own part to interface more closely with them, without making them think that we want to tell them how to run their country.

Recognizing the duality of the need to interface and trade with democratized western countries while avoiding their attempts to influence Vietnam’s form of government, Vietnam is conflicted. On one hand, closer relations with the US will bring tangible economic and strategic benefits to the country. As an example, it will get better access to western capital, markets and technologies, while enjoying a better means of balancing itself against the growing power of China… thus creating a more peaceful and safe place for it in the world. On the other, party officials are aware of and wary of the ‘peaceful revolution’ schemes that the US is known to plot to subvert socialist/communist led regimes.

While some in the U.S. may claim that no such programs exists, it should be clearly understood that the world’s dictatorships and socialist/communist governments (benevolent or otherwise) wholly believe that such programs are very real. Because of this, many have put in place measures to counter any such efforts. When Russia recently tossed out (October, 2012) the U.S. Agency For Economic Development for involving itself in its internal government affairs, Vietnam’s leaders went through a convulsive fit of apoplexy, turning over every rock they could find looking for hidden American programs that might do them ill.

When U.S. Congress or political leaders running for office tout the need for countries like China to stop manipulating their currency, or improve their human rights record as a condition for stronger bilateral relations, all it does is drive countries like Vietnam underground. Politically motivated public statements that chastise those countries we need most to improve our own ties with are of no value, and only make America look like a bully of its own making. Looking at this from Vietnam’s perspective, what one sees is this: closer ties with the U.S. may help Vietnam maintain ownership and control over some of the Paracel and Spratly Islands it lays claim to, wresting them from China’s grasp, but on the other hand, these same closer ties may undermine the CPV’s own legitimacy inside its own country. Which is worse? Losing an island to China, or your whole country to the United States?

In forming our new military policies as regards engaging more closely with Vietnam, these factors must be kept in mind. From the Vietnamese’s perspective they are asking Why is America coming back here? For what purpose? More importantly, never mind what we will gain, what will we lose if we engage with the U.S. again?

    Which Big Brother Is Safer: China or the US?

For most Americans it seems a matter of fact that Vietnam and China are close friends, reflecting a brotherly relationship stemming from the sharing of a common border for thousands of years; whereas the relationship between Vietnam and United States is one based on suspicion and caution born of past differences. That is not the case. From Vietnam’s perspective, both China and the U.S. are two peas in the same pod.

For Vietnam, the U.S. is a dangerous country to liaise with, notwithstanding the fact that it is located 8,500 miles away. The same is true for China though, except that since it is on Vietnam’s doorstep this may make it even more dangerous for Vietnam to liaise with than the U.S. In fact, many Vietnamese feel that of the two China is much more dangerous, having tried to subjugate Vietnam and make it a vassal state ever since the Chinese general Zhao Tuo first defeated the Vietnamese Emperor An Dương Vương in 207 BC. Since that date, Vietnamese leaders have been fighting off repeated attempts by the Chinese to dominate Vietnam. If truth be told, this long enduring enmity is what kept Vietnam ‘in the closet’ for so many years after the U.S.–Vietnam War was over.

It wasn’t until Vietnam normalized relations with China in the 1990s that Vietnam was able to break out of its international diplomatic isolation and begin to work on improving its own ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Once relations with ASEAN were returned to order, then Vietnam was able to put its relations with the U.S. on a normal footing, from whence it was then able to enjoy customary relations with all of the remaining world powers. Lest this point of China dominating Vietnam’s position on the world stage be missed, the reader should recognize that for the first time since the socialist republic came into being in 1945 Vietnam now enjoys global acceptance, a event that could not happen without it patching its relations with China and kòu tóu -ing to China in the process.

What we can learn from this is that Vietnam learned a cruel lesson when it took on China. Today still, bitter memories of the 1980s and China’s efforts to subjugate and isolate Vietnam from the world remain, with the result that the Vietnamese do not want to repeat this experience. Therefore, unless some other country (the U.S.?) is able to throw a coat of protection over Vietnam’s shoulders… something that insulates it completely from China’s pique, Vietnam is going to go far out of its ways to maintain a peaceful and stable relationship with China. The question is, does this intent to maintain stable relations with China make the process one of Vietnam’s top foreign policy priorities, or is the priority to find someone with a big, enshrouding, warm and safe coat in which to hide?

Part of the answer lies in whether Vietnam wants to continue to pursue socialist economic management principles or not. If so, then clearly the priority will trend towards China. If not, then there is a big opening for the U.S. in rebuilding both economic and military relations with Vietnam. Economic, because that goes to the heart of what Vietnam is seeking… a stable, growing economy that brings independence from China to the country and a better quality of life for its people… and military, because without the U.S.’s military support Vietnam would soon find itself on the losing end of the stick with China again.

It can be said then that ideological affinity between these two purported socialist countries is either a major driving force that keeps them together, or it is not. Considering that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the VCP are the only two major communist parties in the world still in power, one would think that they look to each other as soul mates, working to provide mutual backing and encouragement to each other.

This author would say that this is not so. In fact, while they do hold periodic conferences to discuss ideological theories that have come under threat because of the basically capitalist infrastructure they are both putting in place, and exchange experiences on issues such as party cohesion and warding off ‘peaceful evolution,’ they both know that their real need is to build closer ties with countries like the U.S., so that they can learn from our own failures as regards the free enterprise economic system and what makes it tick. If we in the military focus on this, then we will quickly see that what Vietnam covets are not closer ties to China, per se, but closer ties to the U.S.; and as we said above, in order to do that they are going to need much closer ties to the U.S. military… as only the U.S. military can protect Vietnam from China’s anger when she recognizes that she has been replaced by the U.S. as Vietnam’s number one son.

Imagine that: America’s Army, this time in north Vietnam, fighting alongside the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) (Vietnamese: Quân Đội Nhân Dân Việt Nam) to stop an invasion from China? I’ll bet you didn’t think you would see that in your lifetime?

Critics might say this will never happen. Economic interdependence between the two countries is growing, and China is Vietnam’s biggest trading partner. Bilateral trade turnover reached US$27 billion and accounted for 17% of Vietnam’s total trade in 2010.

Yes, this is all true. But so is it true that while China is beginning to become a consuming society that buys from the rest of the world, the U.S. is already one, and has been the world’s largest consuming society since the late 1890s. So again, if you are Vietnam and need to develop a higher degree of integration between your economy and that of another, which would you pick: the one on your border trying to take the islands you claim title to, and subjugate you in the process, or the one 8,500 miles away that will a) help you protect your islands, b) provide you with capital to build your economic infrastructure, c) buy the goods that new economic infrastructure manufactures, and d) protect you from that bully to your north?

Add to this China’s unprecedented military buildup, its new face showing signs of expansionism, continuing territorial disputes between the two countries, and its past 3,000 year aggressive history with respect to Vietnam, and it is easy to see that Vietnam today sees this far more powerful China as a most serious threat. It may be true that Vietnam cannot today afford a more hostile relationship with China, but then again it also cannot afford to sit back and do nothing, possibly sacrificing its national sovereignty and territorial integrity in the process. What Vietnam must do, and everyone knows it, is reach out to a foreign partner, building relations with it that will help it deter Chinese aggression, and hopefully help build the Vietnamese economy in the process.

Who better to do that with than the United States? More accurately, what other country on earth would even consider going to Vietnam’s rescue, possibly putting itself in the line of Beijing’s fire in the process?

Only America.

    Where Do We Stand Today?

For those unfamiliar with the current state of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, an effort to make it stronger is already underway. After the normalization of relations between our two countries in 1995, bilateral dealings advanced rapidly, to such a point that today there are talks on both sides about establishing a strategic partnership between the U.S. and Vietnam. Economic ties, in particular, have deepened to the extent that they provide a solid footing for even more bilateral cooperation. Yet these economic ties could be better. What is needed, as an example, is for the Vietnam Vets that are now mature and running successful companies in America to expand their operations into Vietnam. If they did what they would find are welcoming hands and open arms, from a people more curious about who these Americans are that used to fight them, than anything else. Vietnam needs American businesses to invest in it, and American business needs to do so, if only to stem China’s rise and threats to the U.S. on other fronts.

From 2001 to 2011 two-way trade between the U.S. and Vietnam increased more than 12 times to US$21.8 billion, nearly matching that of trade between Vietnam and China. More important, the US is currently Vietnam’s biggest export market, displacing China and accounting for nearly 1/5 of Vietnam’s annual exports by value. In 2010 the U.S. became Vietnam’s seventh largest foreign investor in the country.

What does all of this tell us? One thing it says is that the VCP is clearly willing to promote further ties with the U.S., not only for economic value but for strategic reasons too. Considering that this is undoubtedly in our own economic and strategic interest, one thing we should guard against is letting the public discussions about Vietnam’s human right conditions grow out of control and undermine this process.

Yes, America needs to champion human rights, but not to the point that our talk of it undermines our ability to do something about actually improving human rights, such as by actually getting American’s into a country, working with its people on a daily basis, and transferring our values to the locals through deeds, as opposed to political talk and tongue wagging on Capitol Hill. At the moment those in Vietnam who fear the hegemony of U.S. imperialism are watching closely for a ‘peaceful evolution’ scheme to be launched against the VCP. And the avenue they think this scheme will come down is labeled “human rights.”

In this regard, making the further development of bilateral relations between our two countries conditional on improvements in Vietnam’s human rights record, as some U.S. politicians are calling for, would be a grave mistake. All it would do is push Vietnam back into China’s arms, where neither a net gain to America’s economic or strategic values (as re. Vietnam) would take place, nor a gain for those suffering from human rights abuse in Vietnam. The answer is not to ratchet up the rhetoric about what’s wrong with Vietnam, but to engage with it and quietly go about demonstrating America’s values from within the country.[1]

With a softly, softly approach to Vietnam’s human rights issues the U.S. can expect to see greater flexibility as regards Vietnam agreeing to be brought on board as a member of the Co-security Sphere discussed in our earlier articles. This most especially as the role the contested islands play in Vietnam’s economy is significant. In 2010 the revenue generated by Vietnam’s national oil and gas corporation (PetroVietnam) accounted for 24% of the country’s GDP. Underlining the importance of this, most of PetroVietnam’s revenue was generated from operations in the South China Sea, in the very area China is contesting.

However, the benefits to be had from Vietnam’s territorial waters extend far beyond oil and gas. Fishery industries, tourism, maritime transportation, port services, and others all factor into the matter. The VCP projects that by 2020 the marine economy could account for 53%–55% of GDP and 55%–60% of all exports. Thus, with oil and gas being tied to ownership of this region of the Pacific, maritime industries, and national security, Vietnam is sure to see offers from America of help as a welcomed approach.

The fact is, China has long obstructed Vietnam’s economic activities in the South China Sea. In addition to seizing hundreds of Vietnamese fishing boats every year, China has aggressively pressured Western oil and gas companies to cancel their ventures in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). In a now legendary event in May 2011, a Chinese marine surveillance ship harassed and then deliberately cut the cables of a PetroVietnam survey vessel deep within what should be considered Vietnam’s EEZ. The incident sparked a wave of international criticism over China’s increasing brazenness in the South China Sea, in favor of Vietnam.

With these things happening, there has never been a better time for the U.S. military to extend its hand to the Vietnamese military, to build a solid, mutually respectful, and mutually beneficial relationship.

    What Can America’s Army Contribute To Vietnam’s?

There is a massive gap in military strength between that of Vietnam and China. Even so, Vietnam is uncompromisingly working to develop capabilities to deter Chinese aggression. First, it’s been speeding up its Navy’s military modernization, doing so by upgrading naval capabilities by acquiring modern Svetlyak class fast attack craft and Gephard class frigates. It is also awaiting 6 Kilo class submarines that will start being delivered in 2014, as well as a series of Bastion land-based anti-ship cruise missiles, all with extended range artillery munitions.

Recognizing that these are short term measures, Vietnam is developing its own defense industry via both co-production agreements with other countries, as well as by underwriting technology transfers. On this latter point, Vietnam said it is building Sigma class corvettes with help from the Netherlands, as well as a series of patrol boats modeled on the Svetlyak offshore patrol vessel.

Even considering these steps, Vietnam’s naval investment is no match for that of China, and so it must find a larger naval power to partner with. Enter the U.S. Navy. Behind all of the rhetoric what one will see is that, although Vietnamese leaders are saying that Vietnam will be self-reliant and never seek to enlist foreign assistance in solving disputes with other countries, it is actually making concrete efforts to reach out to foreign powers as a counterweight to its substantial defenselessness against China.

If this is the case with regard to its navy, then what of its army? Surely, in any military confrontation between Vietnam and China at sea, the Chinese are going to supplement their naval actions with cross border attacks too. Can Vietnam’s army stand up to China’s? One thinks not.

And therein an opportunity for the U.S. Army to begin to develop strategic relations with the Vietnamese military, just as the U.S. Navy has done with Vietnam’s own Navy.

What can a relationship with the U.S. Army bring to Vietnam? Part of the answer is that if Vietnam is to have a relationship with the U.S. government then it needs to have relationships with all of the elements that make up our government, from the State Department to our Army and Navy. It’s not a matter of the U.S. Army wanting a relationship with Vietnam, it’s a matter of the Army having to have one, in order to support the strategic goals America has in this region of the world. Such goals should include contributing to regional peace, security and prosperity, as well as the further economic transformation and international integration of Vietnam into the international community, most especially the countries of the Asia–Pacific region. In that regard, closer relations between the U.S. Army and the Vietnam People’s Army will:

• Lay the groundwork for regional peace and security by causing the VPA to engage in constructive participation in the international and regional institutions (such as the previously mentioned Co-security Sphere group) that promote peacekeeping operations, both within and external to UN frameworks.

• Help assure that the world and China in particular see Vietnam not as a potential challenger to regional order and stability, but as an independent, open and strong country working to promote peace. For the other countries of Southeast Asia a strong Vietnam is much preferred to one that is weak, inward looking, and China dependent.

• Finally, the economic growth and international integration of Vietnam will contribute to regional prosperity and therein encourage the transformation of Vietnam into a more open and democratic society, thus helping to change its human rights stance over the long run. As all would agree, international socialization causes countries to adopt universal values, norms and standards, thus moving the countries involved towards greater respect for the rights of their own citizens.

    US-Vietnam Defense Relations, The Road Forward

What is needed in all of this are a set of practical steps designed to establish and carry out a program focused on increased bilateral defense cooperation. Already some work along this line is underway, but more must be done. One can see both the good work that has been done to date by looking, as an example, at Secretary of Defense Panetta’s recent trip to Cam Ranh Bay. One can also see from this the work that still needs to be done.

While Panetta was there on board the USNS Richard Byrd, he wasn’t there on a U.S. warship. At this stage the Vietnamese will not allow U.S. warships to dock in Cam Ranh, only cargo ships like the Byrd; ships operated by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command, ones primarily manned by civilian crews. On the other hand, U.S. Navy warships are allowed to dock in Vietnam in the context of normal and routine naval diplomacy, if they dock at Da Nang. The point being, while inroads are being made, there is still a long way to go before military-military relations are fully normalized.

It’s not that the Vietnamese don’t want U.S. warships in Cam Ranh, it’s that they are holding out this tidbit as a cherry to be exchanged when we lift restrictions on the sale of better arms to the Vietnamese military. What we should do is complete this bargaining effort on their part: give them a roadmap leading to better arms, including in it a schedule for the release of the arms involved in a manner that balances delivery of the arms with closer relations between the branches of our military that govern use of the arms involved. Thus, on the Navy’s side, bargain improvement in naval arms for closer cooperation between the commanders of our two navies, including joint training exercises in the process. And the same for the Army; provide them with better combat arms in return for joint training exercises that see Vietnam’s army training at U.S. bases in America, in return for our doing the same at bases within Vietnam.

What is needed is an across the board ambitious program of cooperation between our two militaries, one that focuses from our side on forging a closer defense partnership by drawing the Vietnamese military into the Co-security Sphere group.

Clearly, this will require flexibility and patience on our part, along with a set of very capable senior Officers who have the authority to move such a program forward. To be managed by both U.S. Navy and Army Officers, these on the ground military policy implementation specialists should be fully familiar with not just the U.S. military's strategic imperatives with regard to Vietnam, but also how our and Vietnam's State Department works. They should have prior experience in both foreign relations and nation building, and be able to not just think outside of the box but work outside of it too. The reason for this is that the Vietnamese, while fearful of China, are relatively comfortable with the existing level of activity in defense relations between us. To overcome this reticence on their part to expand relations we are going to need military leaders that can show them that if such a closening of ties takes place it will support and be congruent with Vietnam’s own national interests. Basically we must show them that we can do more than just help support their already stated commitment to regional engagement as per the rules laid out by ASEAN, improving on them by giving Vietnam more control and influence over the entire process.

Some might say that these intentions are all well and good, but what makes us think that Vietnam will work with our Army as closely as we wish? Surprisingly, the answer is that they already have. That is, the VPA has already demonstrated a remarkable capacity to work closely with the U.S. Army when they joined in solid fellowship with us in the late 1980s and 1990s in conducting a series of successful joint field activities to account for U.S. POWs and MIAs from the Vietnam War. During these efforts both sides worked very much in faithful consideration of each other’s needs to increase the effectiveness of the planning and execution of these joint efforts. The result was a decade of lessons learned, on how to coordinate, communicate, enhance safety, manage transportation, and otherwise support each other on the basis of a host-nation, guest-nation relationship. All one needs to do then is extend this early coming together to today, to encompass a joint effort to stymie China’s expansionist tendencies.

From a strategic imperative standpoint this means that the U.S. Army should expand its effort to assure that each party has a chance to educate and train the other on how it sees and prefers to create a series of jointly tailored and undertaken military programs that address (1) logistics, services, transportation, and facilities support as may be needed in countering China’s aggression; (2) means to provide humanitarian response efforts to either civil unrest or natural disaster incidents; (3) means to participate in joint peacekeeping efforts; and (4) in the end, ways to work together where each shares a responsibility in a pooled mission that might be defined as an as yet unknown but combined military operation.

Once this has been done, then the two militaries need to operationalize the programs they jointly defined by instituting bilateral communication, coordination, and command exercises. This they must do by developing operational contact that permits both sides to observe the effects of command and control on the other, preferably by allowing the Vietnamese to train at U.S. continental bases and facilities, and the U.S. to train at VPA bases within Vietnam.

To be fair, some of this has already been done, as in the case of the late 1990s programs that saw U.S.–Vietnamese defense relationships trying to move forward based on a series of three activities: multilateral conferences and seminars hosted by the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM); senior-level military visits; and practical bilateral cooperation in areas such as search and rescue (SAR), military medicine, environmental security, and de-mining. Yet while a good start, we say again that the effort undertaken falls short of what is needed. Further, relationship building between our two militaries has not progressed fast enough, and more attention must be given to this matter. And while we do agree that there are many and varied reasons for the failure to move the relationship any further along, such as the U.S. congress getting involved by requiring that every Vietnamese officer offered cross-relations training in peacekeeping activities be certified as not having been involved in previous human rights violations, the fact still remains: today we face a historic and once in a century opportunity to leverage China’s aggression over the disputed islands to our benefit with Vietnam. Politicians need to stand aside and let the State Department and DoD do its work, building a new, long term relationship with Vietnam… one that includes our two militaries working together as closely as we do with Australia or Japan, if not closer. There is no reason why this past enemy should not become a future close friend.

The bottom line: good progress has been made, but much more needs to be done. For example, in mid-2011 Vietnam enrolled the first VPA officer in our National War College. Senior Colonel Hà Thành Chung, a department head in the Vietnamese Military Science Academy, joined the class of 2011–2012 for a year of study as an International Fellow. Similarly, on September 20, 2011, the U.S.’ Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia and Vietnam’s Deputy Defense Minister signed an MOU aimed at “advancing bilateral defense cooperation.” The document identified five areas that both sides will work to expand cooperation on: (1) maritime security, (2) search and rescue, (3) United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO), (4) humanitarian and disaster relief (HADR), and (5) collaboration between defense universities and research institutes.[2]

To do this though the U.S. will need to see and understand that the Vietnamese do not presently view deeper military relations with the U.S. as a zero-sum game relating to China. They feel that engaging more with the U.S. should not necessarily necessitate engaging less with China. From this one can see that Vietnam is comfortable with a foreign policy that offers many options in the face of Chinese assertiveness, and will likely continue to prefer such until it is burned in a hot, at-sea exchange of fire with China—one that eventually ebbs not because of China’s ability to control its trigger finger, but because of the presence of U.S. warships over the horizon. At that time the Vietnamese will recognize the critical importance of an effective, friendly relationship with the U.S., one deeper than that which exists at this time.

Until that day comes, the U.S. military should continue to push for these tactical objectives:

• Develop ways to assure better communication at all levels of both militaries. In this regard the U.S. should push for increased training at continental U.S. bases of VPA staff in planning, communication and coordination in inter-military roles that relate to missions involving civil and natural disasters, to be followed with joint military missions relating to peacekeeping and territorial protection.

• Expand the above programs to include additional training in 1) logistics, services, transportation, and facilities support; 2) evacuation and sheltering of displaced populations during civil and natural disasters; 3) the roles and missions of peacekeeping forces; and 4) roles, missions, and responsibilities of the military in international combined military efforts.

• As a first step towards causing Vietnam to join as a member of the Co-security Sphere group, the U.S. should urge Vietnam to become a joint member of a regional search-and-rescue group. This will help migrate the relationship from simple information sharing to involvement in actual command exercises.

• Training should be supplemented with inclusion in joint exercises with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, where command and operations, strategic communications, coordination and support can be demonstrated to the VPA, even though they may have no formal military-to-military relations with these other countries in these specific areas. This will show the willingness of all of the countries of South and Southeast Asia to bring Vietnam into their realm of cooperation with the U.S.

• Reluctant or not, continue to place pressure on Vietnam to participate in or at a minimum monitor force exercises on the ground, offering them both learning objectives and training modules that they can inernalize at their leisure.

• Being that in 2005 Vietnam signed an agreement with the U.S. to participate in the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program (for non-lethal areas), the U.S. should carefully press the Vietnamese to expand the course structure from military medicine, science and technology to include a few modest military training team (MTT) subjects such as might be useful in a joint exercise in territorial protection... exercises such as those that might be needed to keep China from gobbling up one of Vietnam's islands.

• And as Vietnam makes progress in these areas, the U.S. should reduce barriers that exist to Vietnam participating in lethal arms purchases from the U.S., allowing it to participate as others do in the U.S.’ foreign military sales (FMS) program in ways that ultimately enhance the U.S.–Vietnam strategic relationship.

In our view, if the goal is to build strong and lasting relationships with the middle power countries of Asia, relationships that can help the U.S. counter China’s increasing military aggression, then with respect to Vietnam these are the types of initiatives that the U.S. Department of Defense should pursue. They will contribute to a better, closer, more sound, and longer lasting series of bilateral military engagements, engagements of a type that will build trust between the U.S. and Vietnamese military.

- - - -

Next month: Strategic Military Imperatives – Our Conclusions Regarding Strategic Imperatives for Asia.

 

 

    

Footnotes 

[1] The US has already taken a number of actions, not all of which are conducive to improved relations with Vietnam. One involves an annual review of the human rights situation in Vietnam, and includes calls for interventions with Vietnamese authorities to get a number of political dissidents released from detention. Additionally, a bill that seeks to link US aid with Vietnam’s human rights record has been passed by the House of Representative several times, but has never made it through the Senate. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail and recognize that these forms of “engagement” have failed to work in the past, and considering how critical it is that the U.S. find a way to thwart China’s expansionist tendencies, it may just be that human rights needs in Vietnam should not be prioritized above the U.S. gaining a) more thorough access to the country, and b) establishing for the U.S. strategic abilities to counter China from within Vietnam’s borders.  - To return to your place in the text click here:

[2] Merle Pribbenow and Lewis M. Stern, “Notes on Senior Colonel Hà Thành Chung,” prepared for the National Defense University, March 24, 2011.  - To return to your place in the text click here:

Additional Sources

Carlyle A Thayer and Ramses Amer, Vietnamese foreign policy in transition, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1999. 

X Linh and T Chung, ‘Mỹ Muốn Việt Nam Cải Cách Doanh Nghiệp Nhà Nước’ [US calls for reform of Vietnam’s state-owned enterprises], Vietnamnet, 24 February 2012.  

Nicholas Khoo, Collateral damage: Sino-Soviet rivalry and the termination of the Sino-Vietnamese alliance, Columbia University Press, New York, 2011.   

Vietnam News Agency, ‘Mỹ Muốn Nâng Tầm Quan Hệ Đối Tác Chiến Lược Với Việt Nam’ [US wishes to promote strategic partnership with Vietnam], Vietnamplus,11 November 2011.  

Le Hong Hiep, ‘Vietnam eyes middle powers’, The Diplomat, 5 March 2012.

Various additional writings of Mr. Le Hong Hiep: Mr. Le Hong Hiep is a lecturer in the Faculty of International Relations, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City, and a PhD candidate in Politics at the University of New South Wales, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra. Before joining the VNU, Mr. Le worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam from 2004 to 2006. His articles and analyses have been published in The Diplomat, East Asia Forum, BBC and Vietnamnet.

"Vietnam’s strategic trajectory: From internal development to external engagement;" Strategic Insights, Australia Strategic Policy Institute.

Credit for many of the bullet point viewpoints expressed herein belong with Colonel (R) William H. Jordan. Col. Jordan served as a Northeast Asia Foreign Area Officer from 1979 to 1997. He was the Principal Advisor to the Secretary of Defense on POW/MIA Affairs from 1990 to 1993, and subsequently commanded the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.

Additional credit for concepts expressed here is due Mr. Walter Lohman, Director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation.

Lewis M. Stern, “National Defense University: Building Strategic Relations with Vietnam,” Joint Forces Quarterly, April 2012.

 

 

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