The Dynamics of Vietnam´s Foreign Policy

The communist victory in Saigon in April 1975 began a new era in Southeast Asian politics. For the first time in over a decade, the region was fundamentally at peace. Great power rivalries, which had seemed to be an almost permanent fixture of Southeast Asian polirics, now subsided. There was cautious optimism that the countries in the area could attempt to reach a degree of political accommodation and reduce cold war tensions. To many observers of the political situation in Southeast Asia, however, there were disquieting aspects in the new situation. For all projections of future conditions in Southeast Asia hinged on the answer to one crucial question: would the dynamic revolutionary forces which had propelled the communists to power in Vietnam now be turned to domestic pursuits ?to the peaceful construction of an advanced socialist economy? Or would the r?gime in Hanoi devote its legendary energy to expanding its influence in neighbouring regions in Southeast Asia? The question, of course, was of more than academic interest. As the heir to massive amounts of American military equipment left in South Vietnam, the new, unified Vietnam (renamed in 1976 the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, or SRV) has become militarily one of the strongest and best-equipped nations in the world. And, as recent events in Southern and Eastern Africa have demonstrated, the injection of considerable amounts of modern weapons in a politically unstable area can have a seriously unsettling effect and significantly alter the balance of power.