When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the world was ushered into a new era of heightened great power rivalry and weakened international order. In Europe, countries such as Finland and Sweden responded to this by discarding neutrality and joining a military alliance in the form of NATO. But not so Vietnam, whose situation is in many ways similar to that of Ukraine. Like Kyiv, Hanoi lives next door to a far bigger and more powerful neighbor that harbors territorial and hegemonic ambitions against it.
Hanoi’s response to the war in Ukraine has been to strengthen its existing foreign policy paradigm entailing a delicate and dynamic omnidirectional balancing act, especially between the great powers.
Vietnam’s foreign policy paradigm resulted from its own historical experiences dealing with a Ukraine-like situation. As with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, China in 1979 attacked Vietnam without provocation. The Chinese invasion occurred after Vietnam had secured a mutual defense treaty with the Soviet Union, a nuclear-armed great power. As Beijing explained it, the war was to “teach Vietnam a lesson.” But Hanoi did not learn the lesson once and for all. The lesson it learned has evolved over time, reinforced or modified by subsequent experiences.
This lesson had crystallized by the late 1990s into a defense doctrine known as the “three no’s” policy, which would evolve by the late 2010s into “four no’s.” The policy stipulates that Vietnam must not join any military alliance, not side with one country against another, not allow any foreign military bases on its soil, and not use force or threaten to use force in international relations. More than a year into the Russia-Ukraine war, these “four no’s” were elevated to become “guiding rules” within the “Strategy for Safeguarding the Fatherland in the New Situation,” adopted by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in October 2023. The document serves as a kind of national security strategy.
The self-imposed restrictions of the “four no’s” do not work alone but are predicated on Vietnam’s “all people’s defense,” its membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and a thick web of partnerships with global and regional powerhouses. These principles and relationships constitute the core architecture of how Vietnam provides security for itself in the world today.
With its multiple directions and interlocking ties, the web of partnerships serves as Vietnam’s “safety net” in the international arena. However, the Russia-Ukraine war has rearranged its configuration and caused a tear in this safety net. The conflict has deepened and intensified the strategic competition between the United States and the West on one side and Russia and China on the other.
The Russia-Ukraine war has rearranged the configuration of Vietnam’s web of partnerships but has not drastically changed its foreign policy approach.
