Defending the Party and the State
Khang X. Vu
What the paper says
Vietnam has had a neutral foreign policy since 1998. Yet it has maintained an alliance with Laos, in direct violation of this neutrality. Why? Comparing this alliance with the Vietnam–Soviet Union alliance, I argue that Vietnam allies with a state when that state can meet both its external and internal security needs. Vietnam allied with Laos and with the Soviet Union in 1977 and 1978, respectively, to address threats from China, the Khmer Rouge, and Thailand and to protect its socialist regime from rebellions. Crisis in the socialist bloc beginning in 1989 made Vietnam determined to stick to both alliances, but after the Soviet collapse Hanoi saw that the new Russian government could not meet its internal security need. Thus Vietnam exited the alliance with Moscow, while keeping the one with Laos. This finding has implications for understanding Vietnam’s alliance policy and its defense cooperation with the United States.
2 citations
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.25 × 0.4 = 0.10 |
| M · momentum | 0.55 × 0.15 = 0.08 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.