Vietnam’s military is steeling itself for conflict with China as it accelerates a decade-long modernisation drive, Hanoi’s biggest arms buildup since the height of the Vietnam War.
The ruling Communist Party’s goal is to deter its giant northern neighbour as tensions rise over the disputed South China Sea, and if that fails, to be able to defend itself on all fronts, senior officers and people close to them said.
Vietnam’s strategy has moved beyond contingency planning. Key units have been placed on “high combat readiness” - an alert posture to fend off a sudden attack - including its elite Division 308, which guards the mountainous north.
The two countries fought a bloody border war in 1979. The likely flashpoint this time is in the South China Sea, where they have rival claims in the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.
Most significantly, Hanoi is creating a naval deterrent largely from scratch with the purchase of six advanced Kilo-class submarines from Russia.
In recent months, the first of those submarines have started patrolling the South China Sea, Vietnamese and foreign military officials said, the first confirmation the vessels have been in the strategic waterway.
Division 308
Militarily, the tensions are palpable northwest of Hanoi at the headquarters of Division 308, Vietnam’s most elite military unit, where senior army officers talk repeatedly about “high combat readiness”.
Perched between Vietnam’s craggy northern mountains and the ancient rice paddies of the Red River Delta, 308 is Vietnam’s oldest division and still effectively guards the northern approaches to Hanoi.
While ramping up combat readiness, Hanoi’s once-reclusive generals are reaching out to a broad range of strategic partners. Russia and India are the main source of advanced weapons, training and intelligence cooperation. Hanoi is also building ties with the US and its Japanese, Australian and Filipino allies, as well as Europe and Israel.
The outreach covers weapons purchases, ship visits and intelligence sharing but will have its limits. Hanoi shuns formal military alliances under a staunchly independent foreign policy.
Vietnam is seeking more Russian jet fighter-bombers and is in talks with European and US arms manufacturers to buy fighter and maritime patrol planes and unarmed surveillance drones, sources said. It has also recently upgraded and expanded air defences, including obtaining early warning surveillance radars from Israel and advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries from Russia.
Indeed, increases in Vietnam’s military spending have outstripped its South East Asian neighbours over the last decade, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Oil rig flashpoint
China’s placement of an oil rig in disputed South China Sea waters for 10 weeks in the middle of last year sparked anti-Chinese riots across Vietnam.
The rig’s placement on Vietnam’s continental shelf 80 nautical miles from its coast was a game-changer, officials in Hanoi privately said. Hanoi dispatched dozens of Vietnamese civilian vessels to confront the 70 coastguard and naval warships China sent to protect the oil rig in mid-2014.
For its part, China’s military strategists have long been frustrated at the two dozen military outposts that Hanoi has fortified across the Spratlys island since losing the Paracels in 1974 Sino-Vietnam war, Chinese analysts say. China is building three air strips on man-made islands it is building on reefs in the Spratlys that it took from Vietnamese forces in 1988.
The importance to China of protecting its submarine base on Hainan Island - the projected home of its future nuclear armed submarine fleet - could be another flashpoint. Beijing also has jet fighters and many of its best warships stationed around Hainan Island. If conflict did break out, Hanoi could target Chinese-flagged merchant container and oil ships in the South China Sea, said Thayer, who said he was told this by Vietnamese strategists.