Vietnamese army turns to neighbors for new image

Vietnamese army turns to neighbors for new image

By Pascale Trouillaud

HANOI (AFP): The Vietnamese army is trying to shed its image
as an outcast and looking for as many friends as it can find,
judging from the number of contacts it has made with foreign
military officials in recent weeks.

In addition to having "normal dialogue" with France, the
United States and Japan, the People's Army of Vietnam has also
been strengthening ties with Southeast Asian nations and is
looking to modernize equipment following the abrupt loss in the
early 1990s of massive aid from the former Soviet Union.

The visit now underway by six Vietnamese colonels to the
United States for exploratory talks is seen here as an important
landmark, especially as Vietnam was considered a pariah until it
pulled out of Cambodia in 1989.

For the first time, military discussions between the former
enemies are not monopolized by the issue of Americans missing in
action during the Vietnam War.

Military relations between the two sides are still "nascent"
but "we can imagine a visit by high level officials to the United
States in the future, although it is not envisaged yet" said a
U.S. source in Hanoi.

The colonels' visit follows one here last month by France's
army chief of staff, General Jean-Philippe Douin, the highest
ranking western military official to come to Hanoi.

Douin was preceded by Naoaki Murata, number two in the
Japanese Defense Agency, a visit which was also described as
historic. At the same time, high level Vietnamese military
officials were visiting Laos and the Philippines.

"Vietnam is now a military power with whom one can deal and
which doesn't envisage fighting wars outside its borders," said a
western military affairs expert. "It wants to get along with
everyone."

Hanoi is now a strong advocate of peaceful negotiations over
touchy subjects such as the Spratlys islands, claimed wholly or
in part by six nations, the Paracels and border disputes with
China and Cambodia.

"The army must increase its international cooperation to learn
from other countries," General Nguyen Dinh Uoc told AFP.

The army wants to first hold talks with Vietnam's partners in
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which also
groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore
and Thailand. Vietnam has territorial disputes with all but
Indonesia and Singapore.

But it doesn't want to rely solely on regional contacts and,
in the areas of technology and training, the Vietnamese army is
turning to the west.

Although its military equipment is obsolete, the army cannot
afford to make large purchases because its budget has remained
stagnant as the government concentrates on economic development.

"They have quantity but not quality and they have become adept
at cannibalization" to repair equipment, said an Asian military
expert.

As Vietnam's military concerns are now primarily maritime
disputes -- and as China is modernizing its navy -- the country's
naval force is the poor sister to an army which has fought all
its major wars on the ground.

Vietnam's regular army strength has fallen greatly since 1986
to around half a million men. But with its paramilitary forces
including militia, it can mobilize another one million to 1.5
million combatants.

But "if there was real aggression, they could not defend
themselves alone, " said an expert, explaining this fact was
behind the interest in strengthening ties with ASEAN and a
rapprochement with Washington.

Particularly for Hanoi, haunted for centuries by a fear of
Chinese power, the United States figures as an important
counterpoint for regional security, he said.

The concern for "normalization" in its relations with the
outside world, however, must not conceal the fact that Vietnam's
"will to open up remains timid," according to a western expert.

"They don't have any military publications. It isn't very easy
to work with them because we don't know them well," he said.