“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.
…
‘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.'”
Thailand built its huge tourism industry on US military bases and US military R and R during the Vietnam war. Young US military men spent far more than other tourists. Thailand was then able to turn this war-time tourism industry into a permanent industry.
“in fairness, tariff-free trade into Vietnam is good news for American farmers and manufacturers that export goods to that country, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has argued. And the reduction in tariffs may marginally increase our exports to Vietnam.
For the vast majority of Americans, however, trade with Vietnam matters on the buying side, not the selling side. For them, this deal accomplishes very little.
The deal also sends a clear signal to other countries that Trump’s promise of reciprocity was bullshit.
…
Free trade between the U.S. and Vietnam would be a win-win for both countries. That’s not what Trump has delivered with this deal. Vietnamese businesses and consumers got free trade. Americans got more taxes.”
China Is Beating the U.S. in the Battle for Influence in Asia Susannah Patton. 2022 6 6. Lowy Institute. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/china-beating-us-battle-influence-asia Trade, investment, China influence in East and SouthEast asia is surpassing that of the USA. Persistent Chinese diplomacy. Strategic investments. China Has
“The bureau’s stellar track record seems, on paper, inexplicable. INR is tiny, with fewer than 500 employees total. The DIA has over 16,500, and while the CIA’s headcount is classified, it was 21,575 in 2013, when Edward Snowden leaked it.
You could fit over 47 INRs in the CIA, and even if you exclude the non-analysts on the CIA’s payroll, Langley’s analytic headcount is far greater than INR’s. Tom Fingar, who led the bureau from 2000 to 2001 and 2004 to 2005, once told a reporter its budget was “decimal dust.” In 2023, it came to only $83.5 million, or 0.1 percent of overall US intelligence spending.
On top of that, INR has no spies abroad, no satellites in the sky, no bugs on any laptops. But it reads the same raw intel as everyone else, and in at least a few cases, was the only agency to get some key questions right.
Saying “INR does a better job than DIA or CIA,” as a general matter, would go too far, not least because making a judgment like that in a responsible way would require access to classified information that the press and public can’t read. But it clearly is doing something different, which in a few key cases has paid off. And at least some policymakers have noticed. Bill Clinton told the 9/11 Commission he found memos by INR more helpful than the President’s Daily Brief, then prepared by the CIA.
I spoke to 10 veterans of the bureau, including six former assistant secretaries who led it. While no single ingredient seems to explain its relative success, a few ingredients together might:
INR analysts are true experts. They are heavily recruited from PhD programs and even professorships, and have been on their subject matter (a set of countries, or a thematic specialty like trade flows or terrorism) for an average of 14 years. CIA analysts typically switch assignments every two to three years.
INR’s small size means that analyses are written by individuals, not by committee, and analysts have fewer editors and managers separating them from the policymakers they’re advising. That means less groupthink, and clearer individual perspectives.
INR staff work alongside State Department policymakers, meaning they get regular feedback on what kind of information is most useful to them.”