Vietnam's Gradual Tilt to the West for Arms

Shawn Chung and I have been discussing Vietnam’s gradual drift away from almost total reliance on Russia for weapons. Many old Soviet and Russian weapons arm the Vietnamese army, air force and navy. There appear to be early signs of Vietnam pivoting towards the US for weapons.

Vietnam acquiring weapons from Russia and maintaining them is becoming more complicated due to: the Ukraine War international embargo on Russian weapons; possibility of Western sanctions if Vietnam does buy Russian weapons; shortages of Russian weapon spare parts and ammunition; and, difficulty of Russia repairing Vietnamese weapon systems.

Vietnam will find it hard to keep its Su-30s, bought from Russia, flying for another year... unless Vietnam does deals with India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for sustainment. The same goes for Vietnam’s 6 x Kilo submarines, the first of which was launched more than 10 years ago, and while they could use a civilian shipyard for refurbishment (the Vietnamese Navy submarine base looks like it has one drydock for hull scraping), they may also look to India for fleet sustainment. Vietnam has recently acquired 2 x Pohang-class corvettes from South Korea. 

Vietnam has also looked for value for money by buying SPYDER medium range SAMs from Israel, but there's a very long way to go.  

Vietnam in Southeast Asia uneasily sharing a lot of land border and overlapping sea-space with China (Map courtesy Asia Society).

Malaysia operates Su-30s and 8 x F/A-18Ds. Indonesia operates Su-27s, Su-30s and F-16s. This means the US exporting F-16s to Vietnam is unremarkable. 

Singapore operates F-16s, F-15s and is acquiring F-35Bs. Indonesia is acquiring 24 of the latest F-15EXs. The US doesn’t look like exporting F-35s to other Southeast Asian nations.

Vietnam had close relations with China during much of the First Indochina War and all of the Second Indochina War. But overall Vietnam is reluctant to buy weapons from China given Vietnam and China fought 22 wars against each other over the last 2,000 years – the last ending in 1991. Vietnam is also in a South China Sea (SCS) dispute with China. Given this SCS dispute, in May 2017 the US delivered 6 x Defiant-class patrol boats to the Vietnam Coast Guard.  

So the West is doing well to provide some support to Vietnam in Vietnam’s friction against China. Meanwhile the Ukraine-Russia War is providing an opportune time to reduce Vietnam’s reliance on Russia for weapons. Vietnam is still very friendly with Russia, but this will change as Vietnam's economy continues to pivot West.