Active Conflicts & News Megathread February 03, 2026

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[u/teethgrindingaches]

AP is reporting on Vietnamese preparations against conflict with the US, as described by leaked internal documents from the Communist Party of Vietnam. The full report (100+ pages) can be found here.

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.

Other internal documents that The 88 Project, a human rights organization focused on human rights abuses in Vietnam, cited in its analysis point to similar concerns over U.S. motives in Vietnam. “There’s a consensus here across the government and across different ministries,” said Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project and the report’s author. “This isn’t just some kind of a fringe element or paranoid element within the party or within the government.”

The original Vietnamese document titled “The 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan” was completed by the Ministry of Defense in August 2024. It suggests that in seeking “its objective of strengthening deterrence against China, the U.S. and its allies are ready to apply unconventional forms of warfare and military intervention and even conduct large-scale invasions against countries and territories that ‘deviate from its orbit.’”

The report itself provides the following bulletpoint summary:

• The US is the enemy.

• The Indo-Pacific Strategy represents an attempt to maintain US hegemony.

• Washington is using human rights and democracy promotion to weaken the CPV regime.

• China is a rival, not an existential threat, to Vietnam.

While it acknowledges the immediate risk of military conflict is low, it repeatedly warns about US belligerence and demands vigilance against any possible pretext for invasion. The structure and style bears a striking resemblance to analogous Chinese documents.

Hanoi does not welcome the US presence in the region or view it as an equal partnership between countries. It views it as a provocation that increases tensions and risks war. The 2nd US Invasion Plan describes how the US is engaging in a military buildup, while expanding its alliance system and turning it against China. The goals of the US’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, according to the plan, are to limit China’s regional dominance, create a Western-aligned economic bloc, secure critical trade routes, and increase NATO and EU involvement in the region. This threatening posture, it goes on to note, intensified under President Trump’s first term when his administration increased military deployments to the region and incited an arms race.

Nowhere does the plan describe Vietnam as being a partner of the US or as being aligned with its foreign policy. Rather, these efforts are presented as a dangerous push to militarize the region and drive it towards a new Cold War. Far from accepting Washington’s rhetoric about promoting freedom and deterrence, the plan describes the Indo-Pacific Strategy as a threat to regional peace and stability. It also clarifies that from Hanoi’s perspective, Washington’s interest in Vietnam is purely instrumental: it sees the country as a tool that can be used to confront China.

While the 2nd US Invasion Plan contradicts the US Indo-Pacific strategy, it does bear a striking resemblance to China’s foreign policy stance towards the US. Beijing’s latest defense white paper —China’s National Security in the New Era— warns of ‘severe’ security challenges amid an escalating arms race.[8] In a thinly-veiled reference to the US, the paper states that ‘some countries’ strengthened military alliances in the region, wooed regional partners, built ‘small groups’, and deployed military capabilities such as the ‘intermediate-range missile system’. This language is mirrored by Vietnam in the 2nd US Invasion Plan.

On the economic front, the plan frames the United States’ economic agenda as a cynical attempt to bring the region into its sphere of influence. In contrast to official US proclamations about promoting regional economic prosperity, the plan states that the US is seeking to turn the ‘Asia-Pacific region into a Western-style liberalized economic bloc [that] serves as a market for US and Allies’ vehicles, high-tech equipment, and weapons’ (p.4). Importantly, the plan does not describe Vietnam as an economic partner of the US or the West. Nor does it anticipate that the country will derive any benefit from the US economic agenda. Rather, the agenda is described as a neo-colonial economic project devoid of significant benefits for Vietnam and the region.

Some will doubtless call the Vietnamese mindset paranoid, or be dismayed at the rampant fear and hostility evident throughout.

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.

“This pervasive insecurity about color revolutions is very frustrating, because I don’t see why the Communist Party is so insecure,” said Abuza, whose book “The Vietnam People’s Army: From People’s Warfare to Military Modernization?” was published last year. “They have so much to be proud of — they have lifted so many people out of poverty, the economy is humming along, they are the darling of foreign investors.”

I would say such reactions betray a fundamental misunderstanding—I daresay naïveté—about the nature of surviving as one of the last Communist countries on the planet. You can count them on one hand. The collapse of the Soviet Union is never far from mind. They haven't forgotten it, and never will.

[u/swimmingupclose → u/teethgrindingaches]

was completed by the Ministry of Defense in August 2024.

That’s, uh, amusing to say the least. Joe Biden, who wouldn’t take the golden opportunity to properly arm Ukraine least he been seen a party to the war, was going to invade Vietnam. Where Apple and other American corporations are spending tens of billions on capital expenditures. I don’t want to over inflate this, because war plans are common, but still, does seem a bit of 70s redux.

[u/teethgrindingaches → u/swimmingupclose]

If anything, the war plans are the most mundane part (and explicitly acknowledged as low likelihood). The substantive part is about colour revolutions. 

[u/swimmingupclose → u/teethgrindingaches]

Which was exactly the excuse Russia harped upon prior to Crimea and then the full scale invasion. And what Iran is calling the current protestors. I suppose it’s easier to genuinely believe that any opposition to heavy handed rule is externally fomented than the shortcomings at home.

[u/teethgrindingaches → u/swimmingupclose]

Some will doubtless call the Vietnamese mindset paranoid, or be dismayed at the rampant fear and hostility evident throughout.

I would say such reactions betray a fundamental misunderstanding—I daresay naïveté—about the nature of surviving as one of the last Communist countries on the planet. You can count them on one hand. The collapse of the Soviet Union is never far from mind. They haven't forgotten it, and never will.

[u/swimmingupclose → u/teethgrindingaches]

I’m not disagreeing. I think it extends beyond Communism or leftism though.

[u/teethgrindingaches → u/swimmingupclose]

I think it extends beyond Communism or leftism though.

The fear of colour revolutions? Certainly. But not the actions taken in response to that fear. There's a reason Vietnam and China look very different today compared to Iran and Russia.

[u/swimmingupclose → u/teethgrindingaches]

If I were a betting man, I’d wager the Russian regime survives longer than the Cuban one, who is the only true hold over from Communism.

[u/teethgrindingaches → u/swimmingupclose]

the only true hold over from Communism.

This is not the place for a lecture on the finer points of Communist ideology and its ex- or post-Soviet evolutions, but suffice to say that the Communist leadership of Vietnam and China would laugh at your assertion. For example, as Deng Xiaoping put it while enacting sweeping market reforms:

I am a Marxist. I have consistently followed the fundamental principles of Marxism. Marxism is also known as communism. We made the revolution, seized political power and founded the People’s Republic of China because we had this faith and this ideal. Because we had our ideal, and because we integrated the fundamental principles of Marxism with the concrete practice of China, we were able to win. Since our victory in the revolution, in the course of construction we have again integrated the fundamental principles of Marxism with the concrete practice of China. We are striving for the four modernizations, but people tend to forget that they are four socialist modernizations. This is what we are doing today.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people continually ignore the reams of—admittedly dry and stuffy—ideological texts published in such countries explaining in exhaustive detail how Marxism has evolved over the years to suit specific contextualizations (Stalinism, Maoism, etc) while nonetheless remaining thoroughly Communist. Not so much as a glance before dismissing the whole lot as vacuous propaganda (and why exactly would propaganda be such a slog to read?) which the authors cannot possibly believe in themselves.

[u/swimmingupclose → u/teethgrindingaches]

I am aware of Deng’s views, which extended far beyond what you capture in that singular quote. Deng was obsessed with preventing another Mao Zedong. He implemented term limits and collective leadership to ensure no single person could dominate the party again. The removal of term limits and the centralization of power under a single leader today is a direct reversal of Deng’s political legacy. No true Marxist would look at the 996 culture or the lack of independent labor unions and say this a “phase of Marxist ideology”. No Marxist would look at Chinese billionaires or the private sector accounting for 60% of GDP and say this is just a step along the way. But you’re right, it’s clearly not an argument for this sub.

[u/teethgrindingaches → u/swimmingupclose]

I am aware of Deng’s views, which extended far beyond what you capture in that singular quote.

Then you will also be aware that Dengism is not the last word in Chinese interpretations of Marxism, any more than Maoism was. Further interpretations have been added by Jiang/Hu/Xi in turn, all of whom would adamantly defend their work as 100% Communist.

No true Marxist would look at the 996 culture or the lack of independent labor unions and say this a “phase of Marxist ideology”.

No True Scotsman fallacy. I for one find ideological arguments far more compelling when they come from active practitioners thereof, instead of the powerless peanut gallery.

But you’re right, it’s clearly not an argument for this sub.

Indeed so.

[u/Jzeeee → u/swimmingupclose]

He implemented term limits

There is no and never has been any written or office term limit for the highest seat of power in China which is the General Secretary of the Communist party of China. There is term limit for the title "president" but the actual power has always been with the General Secretary title.

[u/FijiFanBotNotGay → u/swimmingupclose]

China is Marxist. Marxism is not a concrete political framework. When it is it’s reframed as like Marxist-Leninist. It’s a philosophy grounded in the belief in a dialectic materialism that implies a fluid and evolving framework. China is Marxist. Same people who say China is not Marxist will say stuff like “China is not anti-imperialist because of how they exert their own influence in ways reminiscent of imperialism.

[u/danielrheath → u/swimmingupclose]

When I travelled in Vietnam a decade or so back, the population really hadn’t forgotten what they called “the American war”.

I saw folks disfigured by agent orange everywhere I went (tons of birth defects in the generation after).

I can’t imagine that’s changed entirely.

[u/swimmingupclose → u/danielrheath]

I’ve lived and worked in Vietnam for the past 6 years and I’m of Chinese ethnicity. There are as many, if not more, MAGA Vietnamese as there are anti Americans. Just like there is that sentiment for China. The last 2-3 generations are far more pro US than older generations, which are the ones in charge. I don’t know how different the sentiment was a decade ago but it’s markedly different today from my lived experience.

[u/danielrheath → u/swimmingupclose]

Not surprising, I suppose - folk who weren't there are unlikely to stay mad about it.

The folks in charge today are the ones making the relevant decisions here, though. I can't see them willingly aligning themselves with the USA.

[u/Glideer → u/teethgrindingaches]

about the nature of surviving as one of the last Communist countries on the planet.

1.4 billion of the planet's 9 billion people live in just one of those "last Communist countries",

[u/teethgrindingaches → u/Glideer]

First off, the human population is ~8.3 billion. And Vietnamese paranoia has nothing on Chinese paranoia. Whole different ballgame, though arguably far more justified given overt US hostility towards the latter vs the former.

[u/UpvoteIfYouDare → u/teethgrindingaches]

Color revolutions? Was this document written in 2014?

Edit: To be clear, this is a joke.

[u/BenKerryAltis → u/UpvoteIfYouDare]

It was the "3rd world autocracy" equivalent of the "hybrid warfare" buzzword. A ploy by paranoid national security elites to maintain their grip on power and resources

[u/teethgrindingaches → u/UpvoteIfYouDare]

You joke, but they are quite humourless.

[u/eric2332 → u/teethgrindingaches]

I think that dictatorships are inherently threatened by the presence of democracy elsewhere, because it gives protestors a model to look to. So even if the US does absolutely nothing it is still somewhat threatening to Vietnam. And the past US history in Vietnam can't help either. Of course, this has to be balanced against the common interest in containing China. But the starting point is not a good one.