Vietnam’s military secretly drafted plans for a potential conflict with the United States, according to a leaked document released by a human rights group.
The classified assessment, compiled by Vietnam’s Ministry of Defence in August 2024 and titled ‘The 2nd US Invasion plan,’ was made public on Tuesday by Project88.
It reveals that Hanoi’s defence establishment was privately preparing for a possible ‘war of aggression’ even as the two countries upgraded their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2023.
The partnership, announced during former US President Joe Biden‘s visit to Hanoi in September that year, marked the highest level of diplomatic ties since relations were normalised in 1995.
But the leaked document suggests Vietnamese military planners were treating the United States as a hostile ‘belligerent’ power and remained deeply suspicious of Washington’s intentions.
Far from considering the US to be a strategic partner on par with China, Hanoi considers it a rogue state that is preoccupied with regime change and which might invade Vietnam if the country refuses to join its anti-China coalition.
According to Project88, the assessment warns that the US could seek to undermine Communist Party rule through support for a so-called ‘colour revolution’ – similar to pro-democracy uprisings in post-Soviet states – and could exploit Vietnam’s long coastline and maritime geography in future conflict.
Project88 quoted the document as stating: ‘While there is currently little risk of a war against Vietnam, due to the US’s belligerent nature, we need to be vigilant to prevent the US and its allies from ‘creating a pretext’ to launch a war of aggression against our country.
The Vietnamese military has been wary of the US seeking a pretext to ‘launch a war of aggression against our country’
Former US President Joe Biden raises a toast as he participates in a State Luncheon with Vietnam President Vo Van Thuong in Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 11, 2023
Vietnamese soldiers run in training outside their base
‘The US and its allies could fully exploit the geographic and natural features of Vietnam’s vast seas and long coastlines, with the superior strength of its navy, to conduct military operations against our country’.
The documents suggest that Hanoi does not welcome the US presence in the region – instead, viewing it as a provocation that increases tensions and risks war.
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 US President Donald Trump’s first term when his administration increased military deployments to the region and incited an arms race.
The rights group said it obtained the plan from a reliable source and independently verified its authenticity.
‘There’s a consensus here across the government and across different ministries,’ Ben Swanton, co-director of Project88, said.
‘This isn’t just some kind of a fringe element or paranoid element within the party or within the government.’
The plan is divided into two sections. The first section provides a detailed overview of the Asia-Pacific’s strategic importance and the US response to China’s rise, while the second describes US militarisation of the Asia-Pacific region and outlines various scenarios involving US-led assaults on Vietnam.
In relation to politics and diplomacy, the plan asserts that the US has moved from a Cold War mentality of containing countries ‘with different ambitions’, to building relationships whose chief objective is to ‘form a front against China’.
This strategy involves using political, diplomatic, and media pressure as ‘instruments of influence’, and exploiting disputes between Taiwan, ASEAN, and China.
The document also suggests Vietnamese analysts believed the US, in seeking to counter China’s growing influence, was prepared to use ‘unconventional forms of warfare and military intervention’ and even ‘large-scale invasions’ against countries that ‘deviate from its orbit’.
US marines during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Vietnam fears further US aggression
US Marines tend to their wounded during heavy street fighting in Hue after Communist forces invaded South Vietnam in 1968
The US 173rd Airborne are supported by helicopters during the Iron Triangle assault, 1968
‘Hanoi sees Washington as an existential threat and has no intention of joining its anti-China alliance,’ Swanton wrote.
‘In this respect the plan upends over a decade of US policy, which has sought to court Vietnam into such an alliance, while turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in service of this goal.’
The report also sheds light on Vietnam’s internal power struggles, highlighting tensions between reform-minded officials and a conservative, military-aligned faction of the Communist Party that remains fixated on external threats to the regime.
Nguyen Khac Giang, from Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, told The Times: ‘The military has never been too comfortable moving ahead with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the United States.’
Project 88’s analysis further argues that Washington’s push to strengthen security ties in Asia and build a coalition to counter Beijing may have fuelled paranoia in Hanoi, with Vietnamese planners tracing what they see as an increasingly confrontational US strategy across successive administrations.
The report also notes that, despite closer diplomatic engagement, Vietnam has intensified domestic repression in recent years while Western governments have prioritised strategic competition with China over human rights concerns.
This dynamic, according to Project88, has reinforced Hanoi’s suspicion of US intentions.
