By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
WASHINGTON: One word from Defense Secretary Ash Carter yesterday opened the door to US arms sales to Vietnam, a former enemy turned potential ally against a rising China. The administration has tiptoed towards easing the ban on lethal weapons sales ever since Vietnamese president Truong Tan Sang met with Obama in 2013, but Carter’s statement goes farther at a critical time, on the eve of Obama’s first visit to Vietnam.
It was an exchange so brief and muted I had to listen to the audio half-a-dozen times and check with sources before I could believe Carter had really said something so momentous, yet apparently so casually. At yesterday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Dan Sullivan showed a map revealing how Chinese fighters could potentially strike throughout the South China Sea, the northern Philippines, and Vietnam. SASC chairman John McCain — a former prisoner of war in Hanoi turned advocate of reconciliation — followed up with this question to Carter: “You would support lifting restrictions on provision of weapons to the Vietnamese?”
Carter’s response? “We’ve discussed this in the past, and I appreciate your leadership in that regard, Chairman, and yes.”
That final “yes” is the figurative bombshell that might let the US sell literal bombshells to Vietnam, which has fought multiple wars and skirmishes with its ancient enemy, China, since the US withdrawal in 1973.
Read the full story at Breaking Defense