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HANOI, Vietnam — <\/span>A year after Vietnam elevated its relations with Washington to the highest diplomatic level, an internal document shows its military was taking steps to prepare for a possible American \u201cwar of aggression” and considered the United States a \u201cbelligerent\u201d power, according to a report released Tuesday. <\/p>\n More than just exposing Hanoi’s duality in approach toward the U.S., the document confirms a deep-seated fear of external forces fomenting an uprising against the Communist leadership in a so-called \u201ccolor revolution,\u201d like the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine<\/a>, or the 1986 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines. <\/p>\n Other internal documents that The 88 Project, a human rights organization focused on human rights abuses in Vietnam, cited in its analysis<\/a> point to similar concerns over U.S. motives in Vietnam. <\/p>\n \u201cThere’s a consensus here across the government and across different ministries,\u201d said Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project and the report\u2019s author. \u201cThis isn’t just some kind of a fringe element or paranoid element within the party or within the government.\u201d<\/p>\n The original Vietnamese document titled \u201cThe 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan\u201d was completed by the Ministry of Defense in August 2024. It suggests that in seeking \u201cits objective of strengthening deterrence against China<\/a>, the U.S. and its allies are ready to apply unconventional forms of warfare and military intervention and even conduct large-scale invasions against countries and territories that \u2018deviate from its orbit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n While noting that \u201ccurrently there is little risk of a war against Vietnam,\u201d the Vietnamese planners write that \u201cdue to the U.S.’s belligerent nature we need to be vigilant to prevent the U.S. and its allies from \u2018creating a pretext\u2019 to launch an invasion of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n The Vietnamese military analysts outline what they see as a progression over three American administrations \u2014 from Barack Obama, through Donald Trump’s first term, and into Joe Biden’s presidency \u2014 with Washington increasingly pursuing military and other relationships with Asian nations to \u201cform a front against China.\u201d <\/p>\n In his term, Biden in 2023 signed a \u201cComprehensive Strategic Partnership\u201d<\/a> with Vietnam, elevating relations between the nations to their highest diplomatic level on par with Russia and China as \u201ctrusted partners with a friendship grounded in mutual respect.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 2024 military document, however, Vietnamese planners said that while the U.S. views Vietnam as \u201ca partner and an important link,\u201d it also wants to \u201cspread and impose its values regarding freedom, democracy, human rights, ethnicity and religion\u201d to gradually change the country\u2019s socialist government. <\/p>\n \u201cThe 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan provides one of the most clear-eyed insights yet into Vietnam’s foreign policy,\u201d Swanton wrote in his analysis. \u201cIt shows that far from viewing the U.S. as a strategic partner, Hanoi sees Washington as an existential threat and has no intention of joining its anti-China alliance. \u201d<\/p>\n Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not answer emails seeking comment on The 88 Project report or the document it highlighted. <\/p>\n The U.S. State Department refused to comment directly on the \u201c2nd U.S. Invasion Plan,” but stressed the new partnership agreement, saying it \u201cpromotes prosperity and security for the United States and Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA strong, prosperous, independent and resilient Vietnam benefits our two countries and helps ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains stable, secure, free and open,\u201d the State Department said. <\/p>\n Nguyen Khac Giang, of Singapore\u2019s ISEAS\u2013Yusof Ishak Institute research center, said the plans highlighted tensions within Vietnam’s political leadership, where the Communist Party\u2019s conservative, military-aligned faction has long been preoccupied with external threats to the regime.<\/p>\n \u201cThe military has never been too comfortable moving ahead with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the United States,\u201d Giang said.<\/p>\n Tensions within the government spilled into the public realm in June 2024, when U.S.-linked Fulbright University was accused of fomenting a \u201ccolor revolution\u201d by an army TV report. The Foreign Ministry defended the university, which U.S. and Vietnamese officials had highlighted when the two countries upgraded ties.<\/p>\n Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, said the Vietnamese military still has \u201ca very long memory\u201d of the war with the U.S. that ended in 1975<\/a>. While Western diplomats have tended to see Hanoi as most concerned by possible Chinese aggression, the document reinforces other policy papers suggesting leaders’ biggest fear is that of a \u201ccolor revolution,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Further undermining trust between the U.S. and Vietnam were cuts made to the U.S. Agency for International Development by President Donald Trump’s administration, which disrupted projects such as efforts to clean up tons of soil contaminated<\/a> with deadly dioxin from the military\u2019s Agent Orange defoliant and unexploded American munitions and land mines.<\/p>\n \u201cThis pervasive insecurity about color revolutions is very frustrating, because I don’t see why the Communist Party is so insecure,\u201d said Abuza, whose book \u201cThe Vietnam People\u2019s Army: From People\u2019s Warfare to Military Modernization?\u201d was published last year. <\/p>\n \u201cThey have so much to be proud of \u2014 they have lifted so many people out of poverty, the economy is humming along, they are the darling of foreign investors.\u201d<\/p>\n While China and Vietnam have been at odds over territorial claims in the South China Sea<\/a>, the documents portray China more as a regional rival<\/a> than a threat like the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cChina doesn’t pose an existential threat to the Communist Party (of Vietnam),\u201d Abuza said. \u201cIndeed, the Chinese know they can only push the Vietnamese so far, because they’re fearful that the Communist Party can’t respond forcefully to China (and will) look weak and it will cause a mass uprising.\u201d<\/p>\n China is Vietnam’s largest two-way trade partner, while the U.S. is its largest export market, meaning Hanoi needs to perform a balancing act in keeping up diplomatic and economic ties, while also hedging its bets.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cEven some of the more progressive leaders look at the United States, saying, ‘Yes, they like us, they’re working with us, they are good partners for now, but given the opportunity if there were a color revolution, the Americans would support it,’\u201d Abuza said. <\/p>\n Under Vietnamese leader To Lam,<\/a> who became Communist Party general secretary at around the same time the document was written, the country has moved to strengthen ties with the U.S., especially under Trump, Giang said. <\/p>\n Lam was reappointed general secretary last month<\/a> and is expected to also assume the presidency, which would make him the country\u2019s most powerful figure in decades.<\/p>\n With Lam at the helm, Trump\u2019s family business has broken ground on a $1.5 billion Trump-branded golf resort<\/a> and luxury real estate project in northern Hung Yen province. The Vietnamese leader almost immediately accepted Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace<\/a>, which Giang said was an unusually swift decision given that foreign policy moves are typically calibrated with close attention to Beijing\u2019s possible reaction.<\/p>\n