China vs. Vietnam - the other South East Asian conflict
Though the winner of this one would seem to be a no-brainer, it looks like Vietnam is building up firepower to take on China if needed.
It is of course not the first time that the two nations fought:
In 1979, feeling its oats in the aftermath of the victory over the US, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to topple the PRC backed Khmer Rouge. The PRC was not a big fan of this, and attacked Vietnam - Vietnam was communist, but was allied with Russia, not China. The border war was pretty brief however.
In 1988 the two countries briefly clashed when Vietnam tried to land troops to on some of the Spratlys claimed by China - the ships were sunk by the PRC Army Navy.
And, going back a lot further than that - the two countries have long been at odds, and are traditional enemies, with a fair deal of animosity on both sides.
This time the conflict is again over the Spratly islands - the long-running source of conflict in the region. The question comes down to who owns what. Just about every country in the region claims some or all of them, as well as France - which claims all of them (tied to its ownership of Vietnam. Which it lost... really lost.)
The issue is that there might be oil in those islands, a lot of oil. A couple billion $ of oil actually.
Prepping to lay its claim, Vietnam just bough 6 Kilo-class Russian subs - these are diesel subs and while not as affective as the newest European diesel boats, they are still good boats and the most popular export class of the last 30 years. It already has about 20 military bases on the islands - more than any other country including China. However, until the current $1.8 billion purchase, it did not have a real sub fleet to defend those bases from the newly powerful People's Liberation Army Navy.
Of course, the purchase still pales in comparison with the vast Chinese sub fleet, but it it is a sizable purchase - enough to make the Vietnamese Navy a legitimate threat/contender in the region.
The only good thing about this potential conflict - if such a thing can be said - is that the US does not have any skin in the game, and so it would be unlikely that the US got involved. I think we learned our lesson already about defending France's colonial claims in South East Asia.
It is of course not the first time that the two nations fought:
In 1979, feeling its oats in the aftermath of the victory over the US, Vietnam invaded Cambodia to topple the PRC backed Khmer Rouge. The PRC was not a big fan of this, and attacked Vietnam - Vietnam was communist, but was allied with Russia, not China. The border war was pretty brief however.
In 1988 the two countries briefly clashed when Vietnam tried to land troops to on some of the Spratlys claimed by China - the ships were sunk by the PRC Army Navy.
And, going back a lot further than that - the two countries have long been at odds, and are traditional enemies, with a fair deal of animosity on both sides.
This time the conflict is again over the Spratly islands - the long-running source of conflict in the region. The question comes down to who owns what. Just about every country in the region claims some or all of them, as well as France - which claims all of them (tied to its ownership of Vietnam. Which it lost... really lost.)
The issue is that there might be oil in those islands, a lot of oil. A couple billion $ of oil actually.
Prepping to lay its claim, Vietnam just bough 6 Kilo-class Russian subs - these are diesel subs and while not as affective as the newest European diesel boats, they are still good boats and the most popular export class of the last 30 years. It already has about 20 military bases on the islands - more than any other country including China. However, until the current $1.8 billion purchase, it did not have a real sub fleet to defend those bases from the newly powerful People's Liberation Army Navy.
Of course, the purchase still pales in comparison with the vast Chinese sub fleet, but it it is a sizable purchase - enough to make the Vietnamese Navy a legitimate threat/contender in the region.
The only good thing about this potential conflict - if such a thing can be said - is that the US does not have any skin in the game, and so it would be unlikely that the US got involved. I think we learned our lesson already about defending France's colonial claims in South East Asia.
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