“The classified assessment, compiled by Vietnam’s Ministry of Defence in August 2024 and titled ‘The 2nd US Invasion plan,’ was made public on Tuesday by Project88.
It reveals that Hanoi’s defence establishment was privately preparing for a possible ‘war of aggression’ even as the two countries upgraded their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2023.
The partnership, announced during former US President Joe Biden’s visit to Hanoi in September that year, marked the highest level of diplomatic ties since relations were normalised in 1995.
But the leaked document suggests Vietnamese military planners were treating the United States as a hostile ‘belligerent’ power and remained deeply suspicious of Washington’s intentions.
Far from considering the US to be a strategic partner on par with China, Hanoi considers it a rogue state that is preoccupied with regime change and which might invade Vietnam if the country refuses to join its anti-China coalition.
According to Project88, the assessment warns that the US could seek to undermine Communist Party rule through support for a so-called ‘colour revolution’ – similar to pro-democracy uprisings in post-Soviet states – and could exploit Vietnam’s long coastline and maritime geography in future conflict.
Project88 quoted the document as stating: ‘While there is currently little risk of a war against Vietnam, due to the US’s belligerent nature, we need to be vigilant to prevent the US and its allies from ‘creating a pretext’ to launch a war of aggression against our country.
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‘Hanoi sees Washington as an existential threat and has no intention of joining its anti-China alliance,’ Swanton wrote.
‘In this respect the plan upends over a decade of US policy, which has sought to court Vietnam into such an alliance, while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in service of this goal.'”
“While the US can draw a certain degree of confidence in its capabilities from the success of the mission, there’s a risk of reading too much into that success, especially when it comes to weapons made by American rivals in the hands of other militaries.
Some of the failures of the Venezuelan-operated foreign air defenses, for example, have been attributed to issues like inactivity, incompetence, and a dearth of functional cohesion between different systems.
Wins in Venezuela during Operation Absolute Resolve or in operations against Iranian-operated Russian-made air defenses may not translate the same in fight with Russia or China.”
The biggest block to peace in Palestine is Israelis who are not willing to compromise for peace and Palestinians who are not willing to compromise for peace. Such positions are strong among the right in Israel, and appear to be the majority position among Palestinians. A peace deal can’t last when a terrorist is willing to blow it up and return the nations to war.
Trump appears to personally want Greenland because he thinks expanding the territory of the United States is cool and because he’s mad about not getting the Nobel Peace Prize.
The US saves a lot of money on military spending because our greatest rivals would have to go through our allies and partners to seriously get to us. Without those allies and partners, those rivals could more easily reach out and touch the US, which would require greater military spending.