Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

Image credits- Flickr/ Narendra Modi Source- The Diplomat Author- Carl Thayer In 2015 Vietnam will become the country coordinator for relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and India for a three-year term ending in 2018. This will be an important partnership because the strategic interests of both countries markedly converged in 2014 and are likely to continue on this trajectory. The new government in India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi views Vietnam as an essential partner for its Act East Policy. Modi has injected new momentum in the 2007 India-Vietnam strategic partnership. For example, President Pranab Mukherjee visited Hanoi from September 14-17 and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung made an official visit to Delhi from October 27-28. At the conclusion of President Mukherjee’s state visit he issued a joint statement with his counterpart, President Truong Tan Sang. This statement declared “that cooperation in national defense wa

Kilo Class Submarine  ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ Ria Novosti, Author-Vitaliy Ankov) As events this year have shown, the Vietnamese government won’t suffer any buyer’s remorse regarding its decision to invest in six Russian  Kilo -class submarines in a 2009 deal worth $2.6 billion. The government’s decision to both purchase these submarines and incorporate them strategically into a  burgeoning asymmetric anti-access/area denial  (A2/AD) strategy were vindicated over the course of the dramatic  saga earlier this year involving China moving its oil rig HYSY-981  into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). As far as Vietnam is concerned, international law, ASEAN, and even the naval might of the United States will do little to safeguard its territorial claims — it must move to deter Chinese irredentism by itself. Through its investments, Vietnam demonstrates an unwillingness to acquiesce to the age-old Thucydidean dictum that the “strong do what they can and the weak suffer

Kilo class submarine ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons/ United States Navy) Vietnam will soon have a credible naval deterrent to China in the South China Sea in the form of Kilo-class submarines from Russia, which experts say could make Beijing think twice before pushing its much smaller neighbour around in disputed waters. A master of guerrilla warfare, Vietnam has taken possession of two of the state-of-the-art submarines and will get a third in November under a $2.6 billion deal agreed with Moscow in 2009. A final three are scheduled to be delivered within two years. While communist parties rule both Vietnam and China and annual trade has risen to $50 billion, Hanoi has long been wary of China, especially over Beijing's claims to most of the potentially energy-rich South China Sea. Beijing's placement of an oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam earlier this year infuriated Hanoi but the coastguard vessels it dispatched to the platform were always chased off by