One year after Vietnam elevated its diplomatic relationship with the United States to the highest possible level—a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership—an internal military document has surfaced that tells a radically different story. Dated August 2024, just weeks before the September partnership announcement, the document instructs Vietnamese forces to prepare for what it terms a potential American "war of aggression." The text explicitly identifies the United States as a "belligerent" power and outlines contingencies for resisting what Hanoi's military planners characterize as "The 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan."
This is not a contradiction. It is a masterclass in the kind of sophisticated hedging strategy that defines Vietnam's approach to navigating great power competition in the Asia-Pacific. For Hanoi, deepening ties with Washington serves a specific purpose: balancing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea. But the military document reveals that Vietnam's Communist Party leadership perceives a uniquely American threat—one that China, for all its territorial ambitions, does not pose.
The color revolution calculus
The Vietnamese military's anxiety is not focused on a conventional amphibious assault reminiscent of the 1965 escalation. The internal document makes clear that Hanoi's primary fear centers on a U.S.-orchestrated "color revolution" aimed at dismantling single-party rule. The text highlights American efforts to "spread and impose its values" as the core existential threat to the Communist Party's legitimacy and survival.
This assessment is not rooted in Cold War nostalgia. From Hanoi's perspective, recent U.S. actions provide contemporary validation. The Trump administration's February 2025 operations in Venezuela—culminating in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro—and intensified pressure on Cuba have sent unmistakable signals to fellow socialist governments. Vietnam maintains strong historical ties with Havana, and the swift, unilateral removal of a hemispheric leader by Washington serves as a concrete data point reinforcing the military's threat assessment. The document's characterization of America's "belligerent nature" gains credibility when Hanoi observes Washington's willingness to remove leaders it opposes through direct intervention.
China's military modernization challenges may create regional security concerns, but Beijing does not threaten regime change in Hanoi. The People's Liberation Army may contest maritime boundaries, but it does not fund civil society organizations or promote narratives of democratic transition. This distinction is fundamental to understanding Vietnamese strategic calculations.
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The limits of strategic partnership
The revelation of Vietnam's parallel planning processes raises fundamental questions about the nature and durability of the U.S.-Vietnam relationship. Can a partnership be genuinely "strategic" when one party actively prepares military contingencies against the other? For Washington, the answer may be uncomfortable: Vietnam views the relationship as a tool of convenience rather than a bond of trust or shared values.
This does not render the partnership meaningless, but it does define its boundaries. Hanoi will cooperate where interests align—particularly in constraining Chinese behavior in contested waters—but will resist American expectations of deeper political convergence or alliance formalization. The military document serves as an insurance policy, ensuring that Vietnam retains autonomous decision-making capacity regardless of how the regional security environment evolves. In an increasingly multipolar Asia-Pacific, middle powers like Vietnam are demonstrating sophisticated capacity to pursue their own interests without accepting the binary choices that characterized earlier eras of great power competition.
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