TAIPEI, Taiwan — With the lifting of the US arms embargo to Vietnam, a US defense industry source indicates Hanoi is seeking to improve its air defense and maritime security capabilities with the procurement of F-16 fighter aircraft from the US Pentagon’s excess defense articles (EDA) program and refurbished P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, armed with torpedoes.
The source also said Vietnam could seek US-made UAVs for maritime intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.
Torpedoes were banned under the embargo, but now the Vietnamese want the same P-3 program the US sold to Taiwan, the source said. On the F-16 EDA, they want the same deal the Obama administration gave Indonesia.
These include achieving air and maritime domain awareness, providing maritime security against traditional and nontraditional security threats, delivering all-hazards response and support to civil authorities, participating in regional contingency response and international peacekeeping operations, and addressing the impact of Vietnam War legacy issues on civil society.
“The SCO [Security Cooperation Organization] is manned and capable of providing in-country support and coordination for programs to expand US defense article procurement ... and assist Vietnam in developing and sustaining professional armed forces,” the report said.
According to the report, Vietnam’s strategic outlook involves the survival of the Communist Party by maintaining sovereignty and independence, achieving freedom of maneuver, and ensuring sovereignty over its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and unfettered access to natural resources and the global economic market.
China has been testing Vietnam’s EEZ claims with incursions by maritime patrol vessels, aggressive commercial fishing vessels and the stationing of an oil drilling test platform in 2014, dubbed the Haiyang Shiyou 981 standoff.
