Vietnam Defence Forum

[Carlosa]

So I did some reading on the Super Hornet and Growler and could see how it has advantages over the alternative options, particularly for the SCS. Also I’ve just read a few thing about Boeing wanting to keep that production line active, it made more sense. But I’m off to sleep now, will post another time.

Yes, both Boing and Lockheed are quite desperate to keep the F-16 and F-18 production lines open and they've been pitching those planes to India including local production, which is extremely unlikely, so they really need a new customer right away.

The F-18 and the Growler is what the US Navy has to deal with the chinese navy, chinese air defense, the chinese Sukhois, etc, etc, so it makes sense that they've been fined tuned to deal with the same threat that Vietnam faces and they actually depend on the Growler to clear the way for the F-18 and the F-35 to penetrate chinese defenses, otherwise those two would be in trouble, particularly if facing the SU-35, so in my view, the Growler is the key.

 

[Carlosa]

Russia’s Pacific Pivot: The Moscow-Beijing Shadow Boxing Continues
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-pacific-pivot-the-moscow-beijing-shadow-boxing-16372?ref=yfp

Squeezed in Europe by U.S-led sanctions and robust NATO reactions in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, Russia is now finding itself in a prime position to exploit the unfolding geopolitical dramas stirred up by China in East and Southeast Asia. Moscow has proactively demonstrated its determination to play a leading role in shaping the outcome of the highly explosive regional conflicts, at the expense of Beijing and potentially Washington as well.

Until recently, President Vladimir Putin’s strategic priorities had heavily favored Europe and the Middle East, culminating in his reckless actions in destabilizing Ukraine, and his wholesale political, diplomatic, and military backing of Syria’s Assad regime. Asia Pacific has always been an important component of the Kremlin’s geopolitical calculation, but due to Russia’s multi-layered economic and strategic interests with regional states at rivalry with each other, it had been relatively content to adopt a balanced approach to various hot-button issues. Russia’s general tendency has been not to articulate positions on territorial disputes and to refrain from active association with one side or the other, thus leaving China and the U.S. to play the dominant roles in deciding the outcome of the region’s many conflicts.

That Russian approach changed in late April when Russian and Chinese Foreign Ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi, issued an unprecedented joint statement in Beijing, voicing—among other things—common objection to the U.S. role in settling the South China Sea disputes, thereby breaking the Kremlin’s pattern of avoiding joint positions with Beijing on China’s various territorial issues.

But Beijing’s giddiness over this new Russian partnership in its crusade against U.S. involvement in the South China Sea disputes, and the dismay felt by some of China’s old foes and Russia’s traditional friends in the Asia Pacific region, such as Vietnam, proved short-lived. Between May 19 and May 20, Mr. Putin held a party for the leaders of the ASEAN member states at his favorite resort in Sochi, Russia. Hailed by TASS as “the biggest international event in Russia in 2016,” the Russia-ASEAN summit was aimed directly at China’s increasing economic and strategic dominance in Southeast Asia, and most astonishingly, siding unequivocally with the ASEAN nations against China’s position in the heated South China Sea disputes.

The Sochi Declaration is decidedly anti-China in its wording, containing almost identical positions to those steadfastly held by ASEAN nations and the United States, such as that they (i.e., Russia and ASEAN nations) resolve to “ensure maritime security and safety, freedom of navigation and overflight and unimpeded commerce; promote self-restraint, non-use of force or the threat to use force and the resolution of dispute through peaceful means in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law.”

After delivering such a broadside against China on the South China Sea dispute, Mr. Putin also spoke triumphantly of Russia’s agreements with ASEAN nations to import Russian energy resources, let Russia build nuclear power plants, construct railroads, and operate the GLONASS satellite positioning system in the ASEAN region, all of which have been China’s economic and technological priorities. Mr. Putin then ebulliently told reporters that “there has not been a single disagreement (among the participants of the Russia-ASEAN Summit).”

China should also be further agonized by the seemingly inevitable rapprochement between Moscow and Tokyo, as both Mr. Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are getting closer than at any time since the end of World War II to reaching an official agreement on the Northern Territories dispute.

On the Korean Peninsula, the Kremlin seems determined to use all of its diplomatic muscle and political capital on both Pyongyang and Seoul to exert more and more influence, especially to extend the Trans-Siberian Railway, which has already reached inside North Korea, all the way to South Korea, thus connecting Western Europe to the far corner of East Asia.

Russia’s active posture in Asia Pacific is also welcome news to some of Moscow’s traditional friends that are also China’s regional adversaries, especially Vietnam and India, which—in order to counter China—remain two of the world’s largest importers of Russian weapons, from nuclear and conventional submarines, aircraft carriers, to advanced combat aircraft and air defense missile systems.

Some nations caught in the midst of the China-U.S. crossfire are also relieved to find an active Russia as a new go-to safe place in Asia Pacific. Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, long agonized by acting as a scorned Beijing puppet within the brotherly ASEAN community, eagerly asked Mr. Putin while in Sochi to renew Moscow’s erstwhile strategic interest and heavy investment in his country’s reconstruction begun in the 1980s in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot.

All in all, Russia’s gain in Asia Pacific is China’s loss. The decades-old Moscow-Beijing shadow boxing continues.

This story originally appeared in on the Hoover Institution’s Military History in the News Channel.

Image: U.S. Navy via Wikimedia

 

[Viet]

BRADLEY PENISTON | DEFENSE ONE | MAY 24, 2016 |

Defense Secretary: Wider U.S.-Vietnam Military Relations Not ‘Directed’ at China

MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 2ND CLASS ROADELL HICKMAN/NAVY FILE PHOTO


ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT — Lifting the U.S. arms embargo for Vietnam will lead to warmer ties between the two countries’ militaries, including maritime cooperation in the contested South China Sea, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday. But Carter and President Barack Obama, who is visiting Vietnam, insisted the move was not directed at China, which is locked in a dispute with Hanoi and other neighbors over ownership of islands throughout the sea.

“The decision to lift the ban was not based on China or any other considerations,” Obama said at a press conference in Hanoi on Monday. “It was based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving towards normalization with Vietnam.”

While Carter echoed Obama, saying the move to sell arms to Vietnam was not aimed at Beijing, he said “there’s no question that China’s actions there, particularly those over the past year, have heightened concern in the region, and that’s another factor that causes everyone to want to work with us.”

“In terms of its wider regional meaning, what it is is a reflection of the fact that more and more countries in the region are coming to the United States to do more and more with us because of their general concern with the security environment,” Carter told reporters en route to New Haven, Conn., where he will watch the commissioning of Yale’s first graduating ROTC class since the 1970s.

Deepening U.S.-Vietnamese military cooperation is part of a larger trend under Obama of improving bilateral relations with Pacific Rim countries, Carter said.

Washington has increasingly been leaning on Hanoi to counter Beijing’s military buildup.Earlier this morning, Obama announced that the U.S. will end a decades-long embargo on the sales of lethal arms to Vietnam.

“We're going to continue to engage in the case-by-case evaluations of these sales,” Obama said. “But what we do not have is a ban that's based on an ideological division between our two countries, because we think, at this stage, both sides have established a level of trust and cooperation, including between our militaries, that is reflective of common interests and mutual respect.”

A vestige of the Cold War, the embargo had been prolonged because of Vietnam’s human-rights record, U.S. officials have said over the years.

But more recently, the New York Times reported, “administration officials had hinted that the ban could be removed partly in response to China's buildup in the South China Sea. But Mr. Obama portrayed the decision as part of the long process of normalizing relations between the two countries after the Vietnam War."

The U.S. and Vietnam normalized diplomatic related about two decades ago, but military-to-military relations between the two countries renewed with a 2011 memorandum of understanding that described five kinds of defense cooperation: high-level dialogues; maritime security; search-and-rescue; humanitarian assistance and disaster relief; and peacekeeping.

The Pentagon has been seeking greater access to Cam Ranh Bay, a deepwater port that was a U.S. Navy base during the Vietnam war. In 2013, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta became the highest ranking American official since President Lyndon Johnson to travel to Cam Ranh Bay. There, Panetta visited the Navy supply ship Richard Byrd. It was part of a series of moves to open local ports and bases to U.S. military access, in effect surrounding the southern entrance of the South China Sea.

And what type of military equipment does Hanoi need?

Maritime patrol and submarine-hunting aircraft, fighter jets and helicopters, Defense News reports.

Last summer, Carter and Vietnamese Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh signed an agreement for “greater operational cooperation.” During that visit, Carter became one of the first Americans to visit Vietnam’s Haiphong Harbor since the U.S. mined it decades ago.

Ben Watson and Marcus Weisgerber contributed to this report.

 

[cnleio]

2013 in Beibu Gulf

 

[Viet]

Defence

Manohar Parrikar to take along defence industry delegation to Vietnam with aim to boost military relations
By Manu Pubby, ET Bureau | 28 May, 2016, 02:26 hrs IST

US President Barak Obama's visit to Vietnam , India is sending a high-level defence industry delegation to the strategically-located neighbour of China .

The industry delegation — representing most major Indian arms companies — will accompany defence minister Manohar Parrikar to Vietnam early next month.

The visit comes even as India is looking at increasing its military engagement with the nation to counter an increasing Chinese footprint in the Indian Ocean that is supported by the People's Liberation Army's naval base at Hainan island, located adjacent to Vietnam.

Officials have told et that the defence ministry is in the process of selecting the industry delegation that will look at joint development and production orders from Vietnam that already has a commonality of military platforms with India, most of them of Russian origin, including submarines and frigates.

India has identified Vietnam as a nation to which arms exports can be made freely, even for cutting-edge systems like warship destroying Brahmos missile. This comes as Chinese arms companies increase their presence in India's immediate neighbourhood, including sales of submarines to Pakistan and military systems to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. While the official delegation is being firmed up, it could include upwards of 15 private sector representatives, including executives from L&T, Tata and Reliance Defence, besides participation of public sector units like Brahmos. The final selection is to be made by Parrikar who will also be visiting Singapore for the Shangri La dialogue as part of his overseas tour.

Defence analysts say that there is a case for increased exports to Vietnam that would boost the Indian industry. "The MoD is finally using defence sales as an instrument of regional diplomacy with the proposed export of four naval patrol vessels from GRSE (Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers) to Vietnam.

The Brahmos could present itself as another viable export product. Such cases when approved will bolster the business cases under the Make in India campaign," Ankur Gupta of EY India told ET. India's defence exports remain minuscule but have shot up exponentially over the past two years.

This has been spurred by the policy changes that makes it easier to export military stores and equipment and doing away with a provision that demanded multiple assurances by foreign governments even for the sale of components and parts by Indian entities. India also has a defence export strategy that looks at diplomacy as a major tool for exports, including the granting of line of credit to friendly foreign nations for purchase of military equipment.

 

[Viet]

Arriving Japan for a 3 day visit. at the invitation of Japan´s govenment, the man on a highspeed rail, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was scheduled to meet with the leaders of G7 countries. Although Phuc hasn´t as the tall stature as the former PM Dung, I think, he makes a good job so far. a series of agreements were signed with Japan. Shinzo Abe states he wants to re-visit Vietnam again soon.

- Japan proivdes ODA loans worth a total of 166 billion JPY (1.5 billion USD) for the urban railway No1 in Ho Chi Minh City, the Thai Binh thermoelectricity plant; the second phase of Ho Chi Minh City’s water environment improvement work. The fifth document is a stock purchase agreement between the Vietnam Airlines and Japan’s ANA Holdings Inc.

- Japan continues supporting Vietnam’s Industrialisation Strategy

- Acceleration of big projects on infrastructure, including the North-South Highway and the Ninh Thuan 2 Nuclear Power Plant.

- measures to promote the cooperation in trade and hi-tech agriculture, and create conditions for each other’s agri-products to enter the other’s market. agreements on enhancing cooperation in health, the training of human resources and Japan’s reception of Vietnamese trainees, continuing to implement the Vietnam-Japan University, tourism and people-to-people exchanges.

- non-refundable aid worth 300 million JPY (2.5 million USD) to assist Vietnam in dealing with drought and salt water intrusion. with Vietnam to seek medium and long term solutions to those problems, adding that Japan is ready to provide official development assistance capital to build dams and reservoirs based on specific requests from Vietnam.

- In the immediate future, Japan will send JICA’s experts to conduct surveys under the Water Management Project in Ben Tre province.

- Discussing the current security situation of both countries in the South and East China Sea.

- Japan coordinates with Vietnam in the preparation for the APEC Year in 2017.

 

[Viet]

Japan, Vietnam agree to boost defense cooperation


8:22 pm, May 29, 2016

Jiji Press TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, agreed on Saturday to strengthen their countries’ defense cooperation and exchanges in view of China’s moves to expand its military presence in the South China Sea.

At their meeting in Tokyo, Abe conveyed to Phuc Japan’s readiness to help enhance maritime security capabilities of Vietnam, which is in a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea.

Specifically, Abe showed Tokyo’s intention to accelerate research on a plan to provide a newly built patrol ship to Vietnam.

“Vietnam will continue to be an important partner of Japan,” Abe said at a joint press conference with Phuc after the meeting.

Elsewhere at the bilateral summit, Abe announced Japan’s decision to extend about ¥90 billion in low-interest loans for an urban railway project in Ho Chi Minh City.

Phuc expressed support for Japan’s plan to make $200 billion in infrastructure investments in developing countries over the next five years.

The two leaders met after the Group of Seven major countries held an outreach session with leaders of seven developing countries, including Vietnam, in the Ise-Shima area in Mie Prefecture on Friday as part of the two-day G-7 summit through the same day.

 

[Viet]

With the normalisation of our relationship to America, and in this aspect, as well, to America close allies, I think if our shipyards increase cooperations with partners and friends in Japan and Korea, we can build big warships, too. the biggest ever built container ships in Vietnam. 87,000 tons, 240 m length, 38 m wide, diesel propulsion engine made in Korea, build by Hyundai-Vinashin Shipyard Co. Ltd, Ninh Phuoc (Vietnam).

"Tzoumaz", "Diavolezza" and "Bregaglia"

for a swiss transport company.

 

[Carlosa]

Arms Embargo Lift Also Means More Regular U.S. Military Visits To Vietnam
JACKIE NORTHAM
http://www.npr.org/sections/paralle...s-more-regular-u-s-military-visits-to-vietnam

• 
  i
  President Barack Obama walks with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang as they review a guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi on May 23.
  
  AFP/AFP/Getty Images
  President Obama's decision to lift the arms embargo against Vietnam was about much more than selling weapons. It was about sending a message to China.
  
  Not only may Vietnam begin buying American ships and surveillance equipment, it could also begin hosting regular visits by U.S. military units, including U.S. Navy warships at Cam Ranh Bay. Such trips would put American sailors square into waters that China is claiming it controls, making clear the U.S. rejects those claims and reassuring China's nervous neighbors in the region — or so Washington hopes.
  
  "It is important for us to maintain the freedom of navigation and the governance of international norms and rules and law that have helped to create prosperity and promoted commerce and peace and security in this region," President Obama said.
  
  The U.S. engaged in large military operations at Cam Ranh Bay during the Vietnam War more than four decades ago. Giving U.S. ships more regular access into the area may stir up ghosts in Vietnam of that conflict, but the presence of the American warships — which have already visited Vietnamese ports in recent years — could help soothe concern over China's muscle-flexing in the region.
  
  
  
  i
  Troopers of the First Brigade of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division arrived at Cam Ranh Bay on July 29, 1965.
  
  AP
  China has been trying to exert sovereignty over the South China Sea, a territory that is rich in oil and gas, and fish, and through which more than $5 trillion worth of global trades passes each year. China lays claim to a number of islands and recently has been building artificial islands out of reefs and atolls, turning them into military outposts complete with ports, radar facilities and landing strips.
  
  The U.S. maintains the South China Sea is an international waterway, where ships can pass freely and unimpeded. To that end, it's carried out naval and air operations to challenge China's territorial claims.
  
  Anthony Nelson, director of the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council, says China's aggressive behavior really changes the dynamic in the region.
  
  "We've seen a real change in the security environment in the region with China's rise, and I think the U.S. has seen that Vietnam is one of the countries that looks at the region and sees the U.S. as a really positive partner and a force for the continued international order," he says.
  
  In response to China's moves in the South China Sea, the U.S. has been tightening some of its security partnerships and increasing its military presence in the region, saysMichael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the coauthor of a book on U.S.-China security relations, Strategic Reassurance and Resolve.
  
  "It's move, counter-move," he says. "Hopefully, it's short of war."
  
  The U.S. already has naval bases in Japan, Korea and Singapore. It also recently signed a new security agreement with the Philippines to open eight small bases for maritime operations.
  
  Better relations with Vietnam would enhance U.S. presence in the region. The U.S. Navy already made four port visits in Vietnam in 2015. O'Hanlon says ultimately the U.S. would like the opportunity to increase the frequency or significance of its visits to Cam Ranh Bay if China continues its "bullying."
  
  "In a worst case," he says, "we can imagine an alliance with Vietnam or a permanent military presence in Cam Ranh Bay as a way to give us additional places from which to watch Chinese activity to help defend allies."
  

 

[William Hung]

According to the US-ASEAN Business Council (US-ABC), Vietnam’s $13 billion “wish-list” includes combat jets, patrol aircraft, drones, attack helicopters, radar, coastal patrol boats and anti-submarine capable aircraft.

$13 billion/8 years = ~ $1.6 billion

hah

If all goes to plan, Inshallah.

 

[Viet]

Russia, Vietnam agree to intensify security cooperation
May 30, 2016 Alexander Korablinov, RBTH

The sides plan to work together to combat terrorism and drug-related crime.

Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Source: kremlin.ru

Russia’s Internal Ministry and Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security have agreed to intensify security cooperation, Viet Nam News reported on May 30.

Vietnam’s Public Security Minister Tô Lâm held talks with Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev and Director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov on May 27 in Moscow, according to the paper.

The sides agreed to step up cooperation in countering terrorism, high-tech crime, drug-related crime, and human trafficking, the paper said. The countries will also cooperate in training security service officials.

 

[Aqsuperman]

Another visit by foreign warship.

 

[Viet]

Armed to the Teeth: US Plans to Turn Vietnam Into Bulwark Against China

20:21 28.05.2016

Washington has recently lifted its arms embargo on Vietnam, encouraging Hanoi to add advanced American weapons to its shopping list, raising the question: what is really behind the Obama administration's move?

With the US lethal arms embargo being lifted, Vietnam is likely to jump at the opportunity to stockpile new weapons, Robert Farley, a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, suggests in his article for the Diplomat.

Citing documents obtained by the Defense News media outlet, the academic reveals that the US might soon sell F-16 Viper fighters to the Vietnam People's Air Force (VPAF).

"But while the F-16s might capture headlines, the far more interesting moves come in the area of maritime ISR. Vietnam appears interested in acquiring American drones, radars, surveillance equipment, and electronic warfare capabilities. Most interesting of all, Vietnam appears to want P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, which would massively increase its surface and anti-submarine warfare capabilities," Farley stresses.

According to the academic the VPAF and Vietnam People's Navy (VPN) cannot yet boast any advanced patrol assets, which make it especially difficult to fill the gap between "see-ers" and "shooters."

While the academic describes with great enthusiasm Vietnam's future acquisitions, the question arises: why Washington has lifted its decades-old lethal arms embargo on Vietnam now and what is really behind the move.

According to China's English-language Global Times, the move is clearly aimed against Beijing.

"Obama claimed that this move is not aimed at China, yet this is only a very poor lie which reveals the truth — exacerbating the strategic antagonism between Washington and Beijing," the media outlet wrote Tuesday, adding that "Vietnam is playing a particularly special role in the US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific strategy."

Is Beijing's stance justified? Likely so.

Farley writes that the US-made weaponry will provide Vietnam with capabilities that it "can use to exert greater control over the South China Sea."

"Not coincidentally, this is precisely the geostrategic outcome the US would like; an ally that can challenge the PLAN [Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy] and the PLAAF [People's Liberation Army Air Force] in what they believe to be their own back yard," the US academic stresses.

He adds, however, that it is not enough to sell weapons to Hanoi. According to Farley any arms sale requires the deployment of US trainers, advisors, and technicians that would facilitate "the development of a long-term US-Vietnam military relationship."

Undoubtedly the elimination of the US arms embargo will bolster the VPAF and the VPN's capabilities in the South China Sea, Farley insists.

"Combined with existing Vietnamese cruise missile and SAM capabilities, these systems can provide the key link in the kill chain, and potentially a strong deterrent threat against Chinese military activities," he notes.

"And this is precisely the outcome that the Obama administration (and the US defense industrial complex) wanted when it lifted the arms embargo on Vietnam," the US academic stresses.

It is no secret that Washington is trying to use its allies in the Asia Pacific to pressure Beijing into geopolitical concessions. The South China Sea is the issue of a primary importance used by the Obama administration as an apple of discord to undermine Beijing's positions in the region.

"The US power in the region rests on its ability to prevent China from having positive relations with its neighbors in the region. As usual, human rights and democracy created a pretext for the preconceived US strategy for the region. It's about preventing these countries from making their own decisions," American political analyst Eric Draitser told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear host Brian Becker.

Therefore the US-backed Philippines filed a lawsuit against China in The Hague over the South China Sea dispute, regardless of Beijing's vocal protest.

What adds to the peculiarity of the situation is that Vietnam shares the same ideology and political system with China: it is a Communist state.

However, "when the US has an urgent need to contain China in the South China Sea, the standards of its so-called human rights can be relaxed," Global Times remarks.

It is unclear how Washington is planning to make the Communist Hanoi a US bulwark against China in the region, especially given the US and Vietnam's controversial past.

Anyway, Beijing is not interested in fanning the flames in the region: its primary goal is to launch its New Silk Road project aimed to facilitate economic growth and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.



Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160528/1040422091/vietnam-china-south-china-sea-washington.html#ixzz4A8nUmTq7

 

[Viet]

May 30. Visit of India´s warships to the Cam Ranh bay: Guided missile stealth frigate, INS Satpura, INS Kirch, and a guided missile corvette with a crew of 80 officers and 580 sailors under the command of Rear Admiral SV Bhokare, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet.

on the same day, a Australian warship, 3,900 ton missile frigate HMAS Anzac, with a crew of 215 officers and sailors on board, arrived in Saigon for a port visit.

 

[Viet]

the end of US arms embargo looks to have positive effect on Russia as well. the negotiation on the price and weaponry for the third batch of future Gepard frigates has reportedly made progress.

one thing seems to be sure: the Gepards will be armed by 8 × Kalibr cruise missiles as standard armament.