Vietnam Defence Forum

[Aqsuperman]

Look like the KSVK anti material rifle project has hit a rock. Now our soldiers are training with Polish WKW Wilk

 

[Viet]

today a quiz: discovering the differences between the two pictures below. both show Vietnamese General and Defence Minister Phùng Quang Thanh with China and South Korean counterparts

 

[Viet]

As far as I know Laos was a victim of Thailand's expansion over the eras. Lan Xang once owned much of the northeast of Thailand. It fell under the control of the Thais. In the 19th century, Laotians rose up for independence and got help from the Vietnamese. Because Vietnam's ambition was limited in Laos, and many Vietnamese settled in the country and intermixed with Laotians, the relationship between the two countries have been relatively friendly. As Communist Vietnam supported the Pathet Laos, it's natural that post-Vietnam War relationship has been without much rancor.

Because the remoteness, Laos and China's relationship has been less developed, but the two countries have grown a lot closer, but according to reports, new Chinese immigrants have tended to stick to their own ethnic group. That undoubtedly has generated suspicions among the locals similar to the situation in Vietnam.

without Vietnam´s intervention, neither Laos nor Cambodia would exist today, but being a part of China or Thailand. Or worse in civil war and chaos. Although both countries are still poor but they are ones of most peaceful countries on earth, comparing to the disaster around us: ethnic violence, racial tension and terrorism. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the "old Indochina" are virtually free from those cancers. Money can´t buy lives. whereas Laos plays an immense strategic role because it protects Vietnam from attacks from the West (China and Thailand) as well as enables Vietnam to conduct war of attrition against great military powers as France, America and China.

Without support and resources of Laos, we would have hard time to withstand chinese onslaught should it come to a new war.

 

[TenLua]

without Vietnam´s intervention, neither Laos nor Cambodia would exist today, but being a part of China or Thailand. Or worse in civil war and chaos. Although both countries are still poor but they are ones of most peaceful countries on earth, comparing to the disaster around us: ethnic violence, racial tension and terrorism. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, the "old Indochina" are virtually free from those cancers. Money can´t buy lives. whereas Laos plays an immense strategic role because it protects Vietnam from attacks from the West (China and Thailand) as well as enables Vietnam to conduct war of attrition against great military powers as France, America and China.

Without support and resources of Laos, we would have hard time to withstand chinese onslaught should it come to a new war.

Looking at that map, Vietnam need to annex 4 countries.

 

[Viet]

Looking at that map, Vietnam need to annex 4 countries.

There are 93 millions in Vietnam and the number increases by 1-2 millions a year. Not to mention the 5 millions viet kieu. I don't think we have interest to annex other people to make them to Vietnamese

 

[TenLua]

There are 93 millions in Vietnam and the number increases by 1-2 millions a year. Not to mention the 5 millions viet kieu. I don't think we have interest to annex other people to make them to Vietnamese

Maybe 20 years from now. Like how the USA free the shit out of the middle east, Viet Nam will free SEA lol.

 

[Viet]

What the Philippines and Australia can learn from Vietnam about living with China

• Euan Graham
  

5 October 2016 11:14AM


It is early days, granted, but the Philippines' crude and crass new president Rodrigo Duterte appears increasingly intent on reversing his predecessor's plucky South China Sea policy and pro-Alliance leanings, opting instead for a tilt towards China.

The Philippines' proclivity to flip-flop in its great power relations reflects various factors. One is the absence of a strategic tradition. This is evident in the priority accorded by Duterte to domestic challenges over external security, even when the latter extends to China's strategic encroachment within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone, a legal violation explicitly flagged by The Hague arbitral ruling. Another is the disproportionate attention occupied by the US, Manila's treaty ally. This has a distorting quality, be it along 'pro' or 'anti' alliance lines.

At a conference I attended recently, a Filipino participant argued that geographical 'proximity' compels Manila to be more accommodating towards China following five years of tensions with Beijing over the South China Sea. Vietnam offers an instructive contrast on this point, and not only for the Philippines.

Vietnam shares a 1200-kilometre land border with China, demarcated by mutual agreement. Even a negotiated land border puts a very different complexion on the bilateral relationship. Although Vietnam came off better from the 1979 border war with China, Hanoi must live, uniquely among Southeast Asia's South China Sea territorial claimants, with that heightened strategic vulnerability. Beijing could, if it wished, position forces on the border to pressure Hanoi in a crisis. China's air force bears no comparison to 1979. Hainan Province, where many of China's most-advanced naval and air assets are already concentrated, flanks the north Vietnamese coast in semi-encirclement. Hanoi is 173 kilometres from the Chinese border – approximately the distance from Canberra to Bowral – and would be immediately vulnerable if general hostilities broke out.

If proximity was the deciding factor, Vietnam should be more subservient to China than it is. Instead, the country has demonstrated very high tolerance of strategic risk, including during the confrontation over China's positioning of an energy rig within disputed watersin 2014. Vietnam chose to escalate in that case by mobilising its modest maritime forces to face down the rig and accompanying Chinese forces over a two-month standoff, during which the risk of collision and confrontation was constant. In the end, China backed down.

In an all-out conflict, Vietnam's armed forces have little hope of prevailing against China's PLA. Nonetheless, Hanoi has directed scarce resources to maritime and air acquisitions in recent years, giving Vietnam's navy and air force sharpened teeth with the aim of fielding a credible conventional deterrent. Vietnam is now the eighth-largest arms importer. The civilianised coast guard has also undergone expansion, receiving external assistance, as is the case in the Philippines.

This ambitious capability build-up in Vietnam is being carried out despite defence spending that is roughly equal to Malaysia in dollar terms and only slightly higher than the Philippines. Yet in capability terms, there is no comparison: the Philippine Air Force has only recently re-introduced jets into service after a lengthy gap, while the navy's frontline combatant is a US-gifted, refitted Coast Guard cutter built during the Vietnam War. Duterte aims to reverse this long-overdue modernisation trend towards external defence, re-emphasising counter-insurgency as the armed forces' primary function.

Beyond the deterrent value of raising costs for China in a military sense, Vietnam understands the complex interplay between diplomacy and military power. This includes psychological aspects, above all the capacity for independent action that is embodied in a national defence capability maintained at high readiness. Vietnam's defence inventory includes Israeli-made radars, Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles, Su-27 and Su-30MK2 strike aircraft and Kilo submarines equipped with land-attack cruise missiles. This resembles a thrifty but still potent version of China's own 'anti-access' and sea denial dispositions vis-à-vis the US.

Hanoi further avoids the flip-flop mentality by maintaining depth to its international relations, averting dependence on a single ally, and ensuring that alternatives are available when a comprehensive strategic partner like Russia proves unreliable. This cultivation of strategic bandwidth, a trait Hanoi shares with Singapore, extends beyond defence and diplomacy. Vietnam consciously pursues diversified economic partners, courting investment from a wide base and 'strategic' agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership to balance its trade dependence on China. Hanoi closely tracked the Philippine legal case against China in the South China Sea, hinting it will launch proceedings of its own if pushed too far.

History naturally pervades Vietnam's strategic behaviour. Not simply in the folk-memory sense of resisting and ultimately prevailing against materially superior forces in wars with France, the US and, for much of Vietnam's independent history, China. These struggles have conditioned the Vietnamese polity to calculate strategic risk, and to embrace it. Relative to past sacrifices, the risk of standing up to China in the South China Sea appears acceptable. Intuitively, Hanoi grasps that an approach based simply on conflict avoidance and de-escalation with China is doomed to failure.

Vietnam's real trick lies in showing that it is possible to have a coherent approach towards China that combines competition, with bouts of confrontation, and sustained political engagement. Hotlines can go unanswered and its envoys are sometimes cold-shouldered. But channels, including inter-Party, are generally maintained in a complicated relationship that respects coexistence, however grudgingly, in spite of strategic distrust, disputes and tensions in the South China Sea. Enemies can be forgiven but neighbours are permanent.

Vietnam and the Philippines draw from divergent traditions and cultures, but as Manila currently lurches between the great powers in search of an 'independent' foreign policy, it should look to its strategic partner across the South China Sea, for clear-eyed lessons on the realities of self-reliance, defending the national interest and living at close quarters with strategic risk. Even faraway Australia, now feeling the pressures of strategic competition in the region more directly and prone to looking through an alliance prism, could usefully take a page out of Vietnam's book on how to manage a broad-spectrum relationship with Beijing that includes both cooperation and competition.

Photo: Andia/UIG via Getty Images

 

[Carlosa]

Looking at that map, Vietnam need to annex 4 countries.

That's the same as saying that if China looks at that map, then China should annex 5 countries. Would you feel good about China annexing Vietnam? I don't think those other 4 countries would feel good about been annexed by Vietnam.

Maybe 20 years from now. Like how the USA free the shit out of the middle east, Viet Nam will free SEA lol.

USA freed the middle east from what? Is the middle east better off now?

 

[TenLua]

That's the same as saying that if China looks at that map, then China should annex 5 countries. Would you feel good about China annexing Vietnam? I don't think those other 4 countries would feel good about been annexed by Vietnam.



USA freed the middle east from what? Is the middles east better off now?

The joke flew right over your head.

 

[Viet]

Here is a map of the new $1.48 billion seaport of Da Nang.

http://www.joc.com/port-news/asian-...rt-trade-growth-outpaces-region_20161007.html

@Carlosa

 

[Carlosa]

Here is a map of the new $1.48 billion seaport of Da Nang.

http://www.joc.com/port-news/asian-...rt-trade-growth-outpaces-region_20161007.html

@Carlosa

Yes, nice, its a nice expansion, Tien Sa port is operating at maximum capacity now and its also been used for cruise ships. After the new port is done, Tien Sa will be used mainly for cruise ships.

I did not hear anything about any expansion of the military port.

The joke flew right over your head.

Ok, as a joke its ok.

 

[TenLua]

Yes, nice, its a nice expansion, Tien Sa port is operating at maximum capacity now and its also been used for cruise ships. After the new port is done, Tien Sa will be used mainly for cruise ships.

I did not hear anything about any expansion of the military port.



Ok, as a joke its ok.

For example, if I wanted to free a bird, I'll let it fly out of my hand. If I wanted to free the shit out of that bird, I would throw him straight to the ground. The impact would squish the shit out of the bird and it will die.

There's a joke here in the states where every time a country announce that they have discovered newfound natural resource wealth, people here would say," Uh oh, the US is going to rain down freedom and democracy on that country." The same type of freedom and democracy witnessed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and the list won't stop there. Feel me?

 

[Carlosa]

For example, if I wanted to free a bird, I'll let it fly out of my hand. If I wanted to free the shit out of that bird, I would throw him straight to the ground. The impact would squish the shit out of the bird and it will die.

There's a joke here in the states where every time a country announce that they have discovered newfound natural resource wealth, people here would say," Uh oh, the US is going to rain down freedom and democracy on that country." The same type of freedom and democracy witnessed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and the list won't stop there. Feel me?

Got it man.

 

[Viet]

The legendary S-75 ground to air missile is upgraded to S-75M3.

 

[Viet]

T-90-Panzer rollen bald nach Vietnam – Eine Groß-Bestellung im Gespräch

© Sputnik/ Alexey Filippo 09:28 03.10.2016

Vietnam hat vor, rund 100 russische T-90-Panzer zu erwerben. Wie die Tageszeitung „Iswestija“ am Montag unter Berufung auf Wladimir Rostschupkin, Exekutiv-Direktor des Herstellers Uralwagonsawod, berichtet, verhandeln die Seiten momentan über Preis und Liefermenge.

Wie er hinzufügte, werden spezielle Anforderungen an die Ausstattung der Panzer für die Bedingungen Südostasiens diskutiert, sobald eine Einigung über den Preis erzielt ist. Nach Angaben der Zeitung besteht bei der vietnamesischen Armee ein akuter Bedarf an neuer Kampftechnik. Momentan verfügt das vietnamesische Heer über mehrere hundert sowjetische und chinesische Panzer, die zum Teil von israelischen Spezialisten modernisiert wurden. Zuvor hat Vietnam über den Kauf von T-72-Panzern bei Polen verhandelt, zu einem Geschäftsabschluss kam es allerdings nicht.

Der militärpolitische Experte Ruslan Puchow, Direktor des Zentrums für strategische und technologische Analysen, meint, dass der russische Produzent notfalls zu Zugeständnissen für die vietnamesische Seite bereit sein sollte. „Dieser Markt wird jetzt von unseren Konkurrenten aktiv erschlossen“, sagte er gegenüber der „Iswestija“. „Vor kurzem hat Vietnam dem Sturmgewehr Kalaschnikow Waffen aus israelischer Produktion vorgezogen. Auch Frankreich bietet dort seine Kampftechnik aktiv an. Es wäre besser, unseren traditionellen Partner nicht zu verlieren.“

Der T-90-Panzer gehört zur Grundausrüstung der russischen Armee. Größere Posten davon wurden bereits an Algerien, Aserbaidschan und Indien geliefert. Über eine bestimmte Anzahl von Panzern dieses Typs verfügen auch syrische Streitkräfte, die diese Panzer im Kampf gegen die Terroristen einsetzen.



Mehr: https://de.sputniknews.com/zeitungen/20161003312788096-russische-t-90-panzer-vietnam/