The Push and Pull of the Developing U.S.-Vietnam Defense Partnership

Abstract

The Push and Pull of the Developing U.S.-Vietnam Defense Partnership Huong Le Thu (bio) U.S. scholarship after 1975 on Southeast Asia's alignment politics has framed this diverse region according to the level of closeness it displays toward the United States and China. One of the more comprehensive attempts to map the ten-country region's alignment preferences was John Ciorciari's 2010 study The Limits of Alignment: Southeast Asia and the Great Powers since 1975. He saw Vietnam as "smack in the middle," walking a fine line between the United States and China—both of which Vietnam fought wars with.1 This assessment confirmed Hanoi's foreign policy strategy of "equidistance with great powers" with some tendency to lean toward the United States. Fast forward to 2021, where one of the most recent works on the topic, David Shambaugh's Where Great Powers Meet: America and China in Southeast Asia, offers a starkly different picture. In his assessment, Vietnam has become the closest partner to the United States among all the Southeast Asian states, including the United States' five-decades-long treaty allies the Philippines and Thailand and long-standing security partners Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.2 While this author views the depth of Vietnam's U.S. ties as still far behind those with other regional partners, Shambaugh is right in recognizing the current trend: Hanoi seems more like-minded with the United States than traditional U.S. partners do, especially in regard to China's threat. Vietnam is also more prepared than its neighbors to express support for the United States' presence in the region while voicing concern about China. This juxtaposition illustrates the direction of the shift that has occurred in the region over the past fifteen years. Until the mid-2010s the United States had more supporters than China, but the trend has reversed today. [End Page 96] Thus, Vietnam's strengthened ties with the United States are an anomaly compared to its neighbors. If the current great-power competition is compared to the bipolarity of the Cold War, the United States' constellation of Southeast Asian partners is significantly different from that era. This essay explains the main drivers behind the newfound closeness between the United States and Vietnam and analyzes their efficacy in a longer-term context. Will the current motivations of strategic "like-mindedness" regarding China be sufficient to maintain a foundation for strong U.S.-Vietnam ties? What challenges remain that the current strategic convergence may or may not overcome? Developing Strategic Like-Mindedness Diplomatically speaking, Vietnam was relatively successful in engaging the Trump administration. Despite the widespread worry that President Donald Trump would pay little attention to Asia (apart from China and North Korea), he visited Vietnam twice during his term—more than any other Asian partner. Trump's first visit occurred at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in November 2017. The trip not only took place during his first year as president but was historic in being the first time a U.S. president had visited the country since the Vietnam War. The APEC Summit was the only regional diplomatic summit that Trump attended in full; while he made a quick trip to Manila, he left before the East Asia Summit took place. He then skipped all other regional gatherings in Southeast Asia during his term. The second time Trump visited Hanoi was for his second summit with Kim Jong-un in February 2019.3 The Trump administration's abrupt exit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) exposed a major stress point in U.S.-Vietnam relations. Despite some necessary adjustments in regulations, Hanoi lauded the launch of the TPP, which both gave Vietnam better access to Pacific markets and also carried strong geostrategic value. Trump's first decision after taking office was to withdraw the United States from the TPP, a huge disappointment for all its members, not least Vietnam.4 The TPP decision has since become a symbol of the United States' withdrawal from [End Page 97] the region as Washington has not put forward an economic alternative, hollowing the United States' economic strategy in Asia. Eleven countries have carried on with the...