Abstract
In order to have a chance at success, counterinsurgency (COIN) requires multinational coalition forces to cooperate; and thus, the matter of command and control among the countries is important. The ROK military achieved success of COINs in Vietnam and Iraq despite their difficult nature. Consequently, the ROK forces became a role model for coalition forces in Vietnam and Iraq. What drove the ROK forces to achieve success? An in-depth examination shows that the ROK military’s independent operational control served as the key driver for multinational coalition COIN effectiveness, from both strategic and tactical perspectives. This finding implies that the distribution of command in coalition forces is more effective than the unity of command when conducting COIN operations.
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Country or Region: Vietnam
Zhai, Qiang
Summary
In the quarter century after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Beijing assisted Vietnam in its struggle against two formidable foes, France and the United States. Indeed, the rise and fall of this alliance is one of the most crucial developments in the history of the Cold War in Asia. Drawing on newly released Chinese archival sources, memoirs and diaries, and documentary collections, Qiang Zhai offers the first comprehensive exploration of Beijing’s Indochina policy and the historical, domestic, and international contexts within which it developed.
In examining China’s conduct toward Vietnam, Zhai provides important insights into Mao Zedong’s foreign policy and the ideological and geopolitical motives behind it. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he shows, Mao considered the United States the primary threat to the security of the recent Communist victory in China and therefore saw support for Ho Chi Minh as a good way to weaken American influence in Southeast Asia. In the late 1960s and 1970s, however, when Mao perceived a greater threat from the Soviet Union, he began to adjust his policies and encourage the North Vietnamese to accept a peace agreement with the United States.
Simon, Sheldon
Abstract
THE APRIL 1975 victory of the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA)-sandwiched between comparable denouements in Cambodia and Laos-has been greeted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with barely disguised perplexity. While publicly applauding the great changes in Southeast Asia as an example of the validity of Mao’s “peoples war” doctrine, China remains concerned over both the stra- tegic and political implications of the Democratic Republic of Viet- nam’s (DRV) success, particularly during a period in which Peking’s leaders prefer to focus inward on problems of economic growth and leadership succession.
Peking’s concern centers on two issues: (1) whether a unified Viet- nam, with two potential client states in Laos and Cambodia, will move outward beyond Indochina to foment and support other insurgent movements in Southeast Asia, thus establishing itself as a rival source of revolutionary support to China; and (2) whether as a price for the continuation of large-scale economic and military assistance Hanoi agrees to align with the Soviet Union against China on either or both political and military issues. The former would probably be tolerated by Peking insofar as it meant only verbal endorsement of Soviet foreign policy positions. The latter, however, would present a fundamental challenge to Peking if it led to such developments as the provision of naval facilities along the Vietnam coast to the Soviet Pacific Fleet.
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Simon, Sheldon
Abstract
Only two and one-half years ago the security situation in Southeast Asia seemed almost tranquil. Major actors appeared to be devoting their energies to domestic development and consolidation. North Vietnam, hoping quietly to assimilate its southern counterpart, imposed a socialist scheme only gradually and carefully below the 17th parallel. Moreover, Hanoi seemed content to permit the Pathet Lao considerable flexibility in emplacing a communist structure onto the traditionally relaxed Laos society. Even the prickly Khmer Rouge were al-lowed their primitivist version of Marxism with scarcely a murmur of public disapproval from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV).
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), then emerging from domes-tic political turmoil, began to create the outlines of what would become the most pronounced shift to the right in its socioeconomic affairs since 1949. Both Hanoi and Beijing were turning outward in search of capital, trade, and technology, soliciting the industrial democracies of Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia. The period also seemed propitious for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). With both of its major potential adversaries courting the West and intent on development, perhaps ASEAN’s hope for the creation of a Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in Southeast Asia was closer to realization than its leaders had dared to hope when the proposal was first broached in 1971.
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Pomfret, Richard
Abstract
Since Vietnam, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Myanmar, and Cambodia joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the 1990s, concerns have been raised over a Development Divide. The real division is between ASEAN members participating in the integrated East Asian economy and those that do not. The older ASEAN members have become more efficient traders, and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam must reform faster if they are to catch up. Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar are not meeting the challenge, but Vietnam may be leaving the laggards, and the Philippines is lagging the leaders. The challenge is how to avoid a two-tier ASEAN with fast-growing modern economies coexisting besides inward-looking poor countries.
Pike, Douglas
Summary
This is the first complete, scholarly history of the Soviet-Vietnamese relationship. Pike concludes that Vietnam has entered into a marriage of convenience with Moscow but will eventually have to make peace with China. China “is simply too large and too near to permit Vietnam the luxury of treating it as a permanent enemy.”
Valencia, Mark J., Jon M. Van Dyke, Noel A. Ludwig
Summary
The South China Sea disputes continue to confuse and confound policymakers. The claims of all of the countries involved – China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei – have serious weaknesses under the principles of international law that govern the issues. In this text, the authors survey the principles that appear to guide the nations of the South China Sea region in their regional relations, and they identify the appropriate objectives of a regional resource authority. They also identify the political realities of the region, which serve as constraints on the design of a regime.
U.S. Army War College
Summary
The Paracel Islands and South China Sea disputes require better understanding by U.S. policymakers in order to address the region’s challenges. To attain that needed understanding, legal aspects of customary and modern laws are explored in this monograph to analyze the differences between competing maritime and territorial claims, and why and how China and Vietnam stake rival claims or maritime legal rights. Throughout, U.S. policies are examined through U.S. conflicted interests in the region. Recommendations for how the United States should engage these issues, a more appropriate task than trying to solve the disputes outright, are then offered.
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Thuy, Tran Truong, ed
Summary
This book is the compilation of papers presented to the second international workshop themed “The South China Sea: Cooperation for Regional Security and Development”, coorganized by Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and Vietnam Lawyers Association, from 11th to 12th November 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Following the success of the first one held in Hanoi, Vietnam, this workshop continued to highlight the strategic role of the South China Sea in this changing world, along with noteworthy developments in this area and their impact on regional security and prosperity. The participants also discussed legal issues of the maritime and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, the dispute settlement processes, confidence building and possible measures to foster regional cooperation. This body of work represents remarkable the collective accomplishment of many local and foreign distinguished scholars and experts who attended the workshop.
The South China Sea has long been considered as an area of significant economic, political and strategic interests, naturally blessed with many crucial sea lanes and abundant maritime resources. The importance of the South China Sea has been underlined bytoday’s integration and globalization to reach a level of attention and concern that can be considered global. However, there have been emerging signs of regional instability that could deteriorate the ongoing tensions in the East Asia. Indeed, the recent years not only witnessed the persistence of the latent hostility caused by territorial disputes but also a number of rising controversies over maritime security, and exploration and exploitation of maritime resources. Many of those issues have been discussed openly at meetings within ASEAN and between ASEAN and its dialogue partners, as well as during the meetings of the defense officials from East Asian countries, especially the Shangri-La Dialogue, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+).
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Schofield, Clive, and Ian Storey
Summary
Tensions are on the rise in the South China Sea. Longstanding sovereignty disputes over the profusion of atolls, shoals, and reefs that dot the 1.2 million square miles of sea, allied to extensive overlapping claims to maritime space, have been a source of serious interstate contention over the years, especially during the 1990s. Tensions eased briefly in the first half of this decade, due in part to China’s more accommodating and flexible attitude, which was part of a diplomatic “charm offensive” toward Southeast Asia intended to assuage regional anxieties over the country’s growing economic, political, and military clout. Over the past several years, however, China has reverted to a more assertive posture in consolidating its jurisdictional claims, expanding its military reach, and seeking to undermine the claims of other states through coercive diplomacy.
The South China Sea Dispute critically assesses the contentious sovereignty disputes and provides insights into the sources of growing tension in the region.
Jianwei, Li
Abstract
Although disputes in the South China Sea are in general under control since 2009, developments show that China-Philippines and China-Vietnam are two key relationships that have experienced incidents leading to fluctuating levels of tension in the South China Sea region. This study reviews the evolution of these two relationships in relation to bilateral disputesin the South China Sea and the respective approaches to managing these disputes, with emphasis on the post-2009 period. By comparing the China-Philippines and China-Vietnam approaches, it intends to analyse the differences/similarities and their implication on the management of the South China Sea disputes, as well as their bilateral relations in a broader sense.
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Bouchat, Clarence J
Summary
The national strategy of the United States has reemphasized the Asia-Pacific region, but subsequent actions in that direction seem to be preempted by more immediate crises elsewhere in the world and by internal political disputes. Nonetheless, events in the region continue to evolve and the United States must stay actively engaged or lose its long-standing influence. With the status of China rising and other regional states weighing their options between Chinese and American power, a better understanding by American policymakers of the region’s disputes is necessary to maintain American diplomatic, economic, and security influence under more austere conditions. Of the issues daunting Southeast Asia, few are as poorly understood by U.S. policymakers as the dispute between Vietnam and China over the Paracel Islands.
Simon, Sheldon W.
Abstract
Disputes over sovereignty and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea (SCS) involve both the claimants and major maritime powers. Two starkly different approaches to the SCS conflict are discussed: (1) diplomacy among the claimants either bilaterally or multilaterally; (2) if diplomacy fails, the claimants are building their militaries to assert their rights through force.
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Scott, David
Abstract
In the South China Sea dispute, some Track-2 settings, along with Track-1 efforts by ASEAN and China, have facilitated some conflict “management.” But they have not brought about conflict “resolution” of the basic sovereignty and control issues. Conflict “irresolution” has ensued instead. Short-term balancing may perhaps generate long-term socialization convergence.
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Malesky, Edmund
Abstract
This essay reviews Vietnamese politics in 2013 through the lens of the constitutional drafting process and the unprecedented confidence vote in the National Assembly. Both events were framed by the country’s ongoing economic struggles, elite political contestation, international integration, and a more informed public, fueled by an increasingly active blogosphere. The events foreshadow how future Vietnamese leaders can no longer rely on deep reservoirs of patriotism for legitimacy. Performance matters now more than ever.
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