By Eric Tegler
Despite converging strategic and economic interests, expect a slow start to U.S. military sales to Vietnam.
During his early July visit to Washington DC, Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party, did at least two highly symbolic things.
He spent over an hour – more time than scheduled – meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House. The following day, in a speech he gave at the Center for Strategic and International Studies he said, “A fast changing world requires ourselves (sic) to be exposed to new ways of thinking and new ways of action.”
A few extra minutes with the president and musing about change might not seem like much when set against the shear novelty of the Vietnamese Communist Party secretary general actually visiting D.C., but these examples speak to the pragmatism which will make the once unthinkable sale of American weapons systems to Vietnam a reality. What’s driving it?
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