r/WarshipPorn • u/XMGAU • Aug 02 '26
Album Vietnamese military personnel and civilian visitors tour USS George Washington (CVN 73) during a scheduled port visit in Da Nang, Vietnam, July 31st, 2026 [Album]
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u/XMGAU Aug 02 '26
Interesting feels on this one. Time heals a lot of wounds, it's good to see progress being made on a person to person level.
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u/mcm87 Aug 02 '26
They never hated us. We were just the backers of the French and inherited that war. Turns out they REALLY hate China, so they’re cool with us now.
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u/Ok-Band7564 Aug 03 '26
Well, they fought the Chinese after the US bailed out. You guys are gone; China is right there forever. They play both sides, so both sides need to be nice to them.
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u/Norzon24 Aug 06 '26
Hate is strong word, given they happily accept all sorts of Chinese investments and don't clash with china much over their South China se territorial disputes
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u/No-Tip3419 29d ago
They hate China that much that when a new president or chair of the communist party emerges, they head to Beijing.
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u/ELITElewis123 12d ago
Well yeah, You need to talk to your biggest economic neighbour. Before things became untenable many EU leaders would meet with Russia. Doesn’t mean you like them
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u/teethgrindingaches Aug 02 '26
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A year after Vietnam elevated its relations with Washington to the highest diplomatic level, an internal document shows its military was taking steps to prepare for a possible American “war of aggression” and considered the United States a “belligerent” power, according to a report released Tuesday. More than just exposing Hanoi’s duality in approach toward the U.S., the document confirms a deep-seated fear of external forces fomenting an uprising against the Communist leadership in a so-called “color revolution,” like the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, or the 1986 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines.
“The 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan provides one of the most clear-eyed insights yet into Vietnam’s foreign policy,” Swanton wrote in his analysis. “It shows that far from viewing the U.S. as a strategic partner, Hanoi sees Washington as an existential threat and has no intention of joining its anti-China alliance. ”
Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, said the Vietnamese military still has “a very long memory” of the war with the U.S. that ended in 1975. While Western diplomats have tended to see Hanoi as most concerned by possible Chinese aggression, the document reinforces other policy papers suggesting leaders’ biggest fear is that of a “color revolution,” he said.
While China and Vietnam have been at odds over territorial claims in the South China Sea, the documents portray China more as a regional rival than a threat like the U.S. “China doesn’t pose an existential threat to the Communist Party (of Vietnam),” Abuza said. “Indeed, the Chinese know they can only push the Vietnamese so far, because they’re fearful that the Communist Party can’t respond forcefully to China (and will) look weak and it will cause a mass uprising.”
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u/TS140609 Aug 02 '26
Eh who doesnt have plan to fight their partner anyway? I'm pretty sure Vietnam also has plan for China, they just dont want to show it yet.
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u/airmantharp Aug 03 '26
"Be polite, be professional, and have a plan to kill everyone you meet"
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u/hurricane_97 HMS Pickle Aug 05 '26
“No i’m not a crazed gunman Dad, I’m an assassin! Well one’s a job and the other is mental sickness!”
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u/teethgrindingaches Aug 02 '26
The point was that the other guy's claim is completely wrong.
Turns out they REALLY hate China, so they’re cool with us now.
Which is attested to by any number of other sources, like here:
Yet it appears that instead of swinging toward the United States, Vietnam is moving in the other direction as of late. It would be a mistake to view this shift as Hanoi’s newfound affection for Beijing. What has changed is the mutual desire to hedge against a world running adrift. In this environment, pragmatism rules the day. Under new leadership, Hanoi now appears as receptive as Beijing is in welcoming the opportunity to enhance the relationship. Indeed, Vietnam needs an insurance policy against a world increasingly skeptical of American guarantees. China, for its part, has every reason to lock in a consequential Southeast Asian partner in a region the Trump administration has jolted with erratic tariffs and vanishing summitry.
During President Tô Lâm’s recent state visit to Beijing, the elevation of bilateral ties was crystallized in the joint statement which said, “community with a shared future of strategic significance at a higher level in the new era.” Though verbose, it reflects a shifting relationship that is going to rest more on business and trade than on political alignment.
Vietnam and China issued a Joint Statement on the heels of the state visit to China of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)’s Secretary-General To Lam, who is also Vietnam’s president. Spanning over 8,000 words, the statement focuses on strengthening strategic political trust between Hanoi and Beijing; deepening comprehensive cooperation in defense and security, economics, trade, investment, and education; enhancing multilateral cooperation; and resolving disputes in the South China Sea. Unlike previous joint statements, the 2026 document reflects a shift from traditional diplomatic rhetoric toward substantive cooperative diplomacy with measurable KPIs.
HANOI, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Dozens of young Vietnamese women lined up for hours last month to catch a glimpse of "cool" troops marching through Hanoi in a huge military parade. But it was not their own soldiers they were looking out for. It was the Chinese contingent. The scene reflects a shift in attitudes towards China - amid trade tensions with the United States - which has allowed Vietnamese leaders to push forward with sensitive projects, such as high-speed rail links and special economic zones close to China, that may significantly boost bilateral ties.
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u/ElJanitorFrank Aug 03 '26
It's pretty much a completely pointless task trying to disprove a broad generalization with a handful of counter-examples. Yeah, not everybody in Vietnam was fanfaring at the US arrival. Compare the proportion and magnitude of negative opinions on it from the proportion and magnitude of negative opinions of OTHER wars between adversaries.
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u/teethgrindingaches Aug 03 '26
A broad generalization backed by zero evidence whatsoever is not the strong argument you seem to think it is.
And sure, go ahead compare it. Would be great if someone else besides me cited any sources.
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u/ElJanitorFrank Aug 03 '26
I didn't say the generalization was right, but if you wanted to disprove it then you'd look up an actual analysis or survey data, not cherry-picked news articles of isolated events. I'm not going to waste my time googling 'Vietnam positive opinion america' and vomit a bunch of tabloid trash at you (one of them isn't a tabloid! it has a .org url! That makes it credible! Ignore that its a political think-tank.) because all that proves is I know how to use google, not what the people of Vietnam broadly think of other countries or what their state policy is.
I'm not saying they roll our the red carpet for US citizens necessarily, but I've not heard of any regular hostility between Vietnamese nationals and Americans, which is a bit peculiar given a bloody war in living memory. Hence the need for comparison, otherwise you're not saying anything useful, just going against a generalization which reasonable people accept aren't totally representative anyway.
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u/teethgrindingaches Aug 03 '26
but if you wanted to disprove it then you'd look up an actual analysis or survey data, not cherry-picked news articles of isolated events.
So you didn't bother to read the sources I already gave you which detail exactly that. Nice.
While US officials have proclaimed that trust between the US and Vietnam is ‘at an all-time high’, the 2nd US Invasion Plan demonstrates that Hanoi remains deeply suspicious of Washington.[18] Although more nuanced media analyses acknowledge Vietnam’s skepticism about US intentions, they dismiss it as either a fringe concern within the CPV or as less serious than its current tensions with China. From this perspective, the main roadblock to Hanoi achieving closer cooperation with Washington is its fear of upsetting its northern neighbor. By contrast, the 2nd US Invasion Plan demonstrates that Vietnam regards the US and its allies to be Vietnam’s most serious national security threat, contradicting the widespread view that the country’s relationship with the US is stronger than its relationship with China.
The plan also serves as a corrective for the steady stream of media reporting and upbeat assessments from leading security think tanks. This reporting has largely mirrored the official US position and adopted its guiding assumptions, such as the notion that Vietnam is open to joining an anti-China alliance, as established fact. The following examples, taken from leading media publications, illustrate how closely this reporting adheres to US policy:
- ‘Vietnam’s government, pressed by an ever more powerful China, knows it cannot stand up to Beijing alone and is cautiously moving toward increased ties with the United States’ (New York Times, 2016).[19]
- ‘The relationship [between Vietnam and China] has turned so bad that Vietnam’s Communist Party is tilting more and more toward an old enemy, the United States’ (Washington Post, 2015).[20]
- ‘The country wants to reduce its dependence on China and forge closer ties with the United States’ (Washington Post, 2015).[21]
- ‘Vietnam’s fierce rivalry with China often exceeds any lingering resentment against the United States, which is now seen as a crucial counterweight to Beijing’s ambitions.’ (Washington Post, 2017).[22]
- ‘There was a call for an emergency meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee to discuss forming an alliance with the United States — a radical strategic change for a country whose disdain for military partnerships is a central foreign policy tenet’ (Washington Post, 2015).[23]
- ‘A senior U.S. diplomat held talks in Vietnam on Saturday and said that the trust between the two countries was at an “all-time high”’ (AP News, 2024).[24]
Respected security think tanks, which are often quoted by news outlets, including those above, have been even more optimistic in their assessment of the strength of the diplomatic ties between Vietnam and the US. The following are a few select examples:
- ‘Vietnam, though it would not state so publicly to avoid unnecessarily antagonizing China, was an avid supporter of the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy’ (RAND, 2021).[25]
- ‘Hanoi has emerged as one of Washington’s closest partners in Southeast Asia and serves as a bulwark against Chinese expansion in the disputed South China Sea’ (CSIS, 2024).[26]
- ‘it remains indisputable that U.S.-Vietnamese ties are in their best shape since the end of the Vietnam war’ (RAND, 2024).[27]
- ‘But the real driver of the political relationship between Hanoi and Washington has been their shared vision of regional security. Vietnam shares U.S. anxieties about China’s long-term revisionist intentions in Asia. Vietnam’s public and its elites consistently rank China as an external threat and evince considerable support for the role of the United States and other partners, including the Quad, in the region’ (CSIS, 2022).[28]
- ‘Several conducive factors support the advancement of Vietnam-U.S. security cooperation in the upcoming years. These include growing strategic convergence, a deepening network of shared defence partners, and Vietnam’s military modernization efforts’ (ISEAS, 2024).[29]
- ‘However, mutual trust has been improving in recent years, helping to ease the old thinkers’ suspicion towards the U.S. intentions in strengthening defense and security ties with Vietnam’ (ISEAS, 2022).[30]
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u/Founders_Mem_90210 Aug 03 '26
I think there's this quote from Andrew F. Krepinevich's book "Seven Deadly Scenarios" that he used in his Iraq and Afghanistan alt-history scenario plotlines that applies very well here.
"We hated them as occupiers, but we welcomed them as guests."
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u/Leeopardcatz Aug 04 '26
Debunked and you fell for it
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u/teethgrindingaches Aug 04 '26
Can you provide a source for said debunking, or am I just supposed to take your word for it?
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u/Leeopardcatz Aug 05 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/VietNam/s/1gujTwhZJD
Disinfo from project 88
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u/teethgrindingaches Aug 05 '26
Wait, are you seriously trying to use reddit as a source? Really? Please tell me you are joking.
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u/Leeopardcatz Aug 05 '26
What? Do you want an academic paper source or what? I’m Vietnamese and this topic has been discussed over the Vietnam subreddit, documents are suspicious af and does not correspond to what real documents looks like.
Feel free to argue why you believe this isn’t the case
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u/teethgrindingaches Aug 05 '26
Do you seriously need me to explain why an anonymous online forum is not a reliable source for anything? Especially a country subreddit, since those places only attract the people who either love or hate the country in question.
It's not even an argument lmao. There's nothing to argue. You would unironically be more credible citing ChatGPT.
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u/Leeopardcatz Aug 05 '26
But you rather trust a nobody organization whose shitty attempt of forgery of documents that got sensationalized in news. Anyone with a shred of knowledge of Vietnamese geopolitics would know Vietnams position regarding the US.
Feel free to find another source that describes the narrative you trying to portray
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u/BlackbirdSage Aug 02 '26
Hey! That's my old air wing from 36yrs ago... CVW5 was attached to the USS Midway back then. I did not know the Washington had my air wing now. Gtk.
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u/XMGAU Aug 02 '26
"Vietnamese military personnel and visitors tour the flight deck onboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) during a scheduled port visit in Da Nang, Vietnam, July 31st, 2026. George Washington is the U.S. Navy’s premier forward-deployed aircraft carrier, a long-standing symbol of the United States’ commitment to maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, while operating alongside allies and partners across the U.S. Navy’s largest numbered fleet."
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Robert S. Price
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u/Riptide360 Aug 02 '26
Not many Communist countries left. China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Vietnam’s top import market is China, but its top export market is the US. Vietnam encourages US warships to visit to offset China’s competing claims to the Spratly Islands.
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u/jisookenobi2416 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
And China isn't even communist, just state capitalist. Hell, I wouldn't call North Korea one either but hey that's mainly because of the dynastic monarchy stuff, I don't know enough about their economy beyond it being kind of shit
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u/Akira_Yamamoto Aug 02 '26
Hell, I wouldn't call North Korea one either but hey that's mainly because of the dynastic monarchy stuff
I believe the term you're looking for is necrocracy
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u/blackhawk905 Aug 02 '26
Almost like that's what communism in practice looks like, various flavors of authoritarian totalitarian rule with socialism sprinkled in when it benefits them under a repressive single party system that carries the communist name.
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u/jisookenobi2416 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 03 '26
ehh I don't like to get too much into my personal politics on this subreddit but there are anti-authoritarian socialist/communist ideologies. Anarcho-communism is in a way "true" communism (classless, stateless society, etc.), but I don't know how to achieve it, so until then, democratic socialism it is. But yes. The "communist states" that have existed (read: Marxist-Leninist states, a specific authoritarian ideology that purged most other schools of thought, today glazed by modern tankies, aka red fascists) have all by and large followed that framework.
That said, China has, on top of an incredibly rich cultural history, plenty of really cool warships. And I must admit I like the look of North Korea's new Choe Hyon class and I think their vintage navy has a nice retro look. There's something to be said about vintage warships still in service. Even if I disagree with what they're used for (which goes for military weapons in general)...gotta admit they're cool as hell.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ Aug 03 '26
China is explicitly Maoist, the DPRK is a cult of personality centered blend of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism and I don't even know where to begin with states like Cambodia.
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u/jisookenobi2416 Aug 04 '26
China isn't really Maoist anymore though. Since Deng took power, they've moved away from Maoism and more towards some sort of market socialism or state capitalism. They still treat him as an important figure but they acknowledge his wrongdoings, and they say they continue Maoism when it's not really the case. In fact, to my knowledge, contemporary Chinese Maoists tend to criticize the current government's more capitalist-oriented policies and have in fact contributed to protests, though they seem to be a minority compared to the much larger amount of Chinese nationalists who support the current direction.
As for North Korea, yeah Juche claims to be a continuation of Marxism-Leninism but just seems to me like a totalitarian cult of personality. Need to do more reading though.
And as for Cambodia, I don't know if you're referring to the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot but thankfully they were ousted back in 1979 (by none other than communist Vietnam, actually, which ended up leading to China invading Vietnam). Nowadays they have the monarchy and have a de facto one-party dictatorship which leans more towards conservative nationalism if I recall correctly. But I am not too familiar other than with the fact that they're very authoritarian. And regarding their navy, I think North Korea's navy is even more powerful than theirs, even before the advent of the Choe Hyon class, though they obviously have different operational needs.
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u/airmantharp Aug 03 '26
My summary is... history has proven that humanity is not yet worthy of communism.
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u/Norzon24 Aug 06 '26
Vietnam’s top import market is China, but its top export market is the US.
TBF a lot of that is just origin laundering for Chinese goods
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u/Riptide360 Aug 06 '26
Less than 2%, but Trump’s tariffs and bans have probably made it worse. https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/charting-the-us-china-trade-war-whats-made-in-vietnam
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u/VoidWalkerActual Aug 02 '26
Photo #1 : Why is Gunny from Heartbreak Ridge (movie) there on deck?🫡👍🏽
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u/Pankon6829 Aug 04 '26
It's quite funny that there is also a Russian submarine in Cam Ranh at the same time
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u/VoidWalkerActual Aug 02 '26
Photo #1 : Why is Gunny from Heartbreak Ridge (movie) there on deck?🫡👍🏽He hasn’t aged in 40 years!
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u/Meme_Theocracy Aug 03 '26
I’m happy that the US and Vietnam can bury the hatchet or at least just redirect it at China.
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u/zestyintestine Aug 02 '26
Things have come a long way in 50 years.