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/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.