The United States would achieve three objectives by purchasing a number of Shortfin Barracuda submarines from France and then giving them to Vietnam.
First, the Biden administration would repair relations with America’s oldest ally. Second, it would supply a rising security partner with newly potent means of challenging China’s imperialism. Third, it would test President Emmanuel Macron’s commitment to international security in the South China Sea.
This option bears note as France rages over Australia’s cancellation of a submarine contract worth tens of billions of dollars. France is mixing justifiable anger (it has lost a lucrative contract worth thousands of jobs) with a healthy degree of hypocrisy (France’s government-owned Naval Group was playing games with its timetable, cost estimates, and production/sourcing commitments).
Still, these submarines would provide outsize value to the U.S. and broader international security interests were they built for Vietnam. The Shortfin Barracudas would be very quiet and a major threat to the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
Vietnam remains in the control of a communist authoritarian government. That said, its people enjoy a degree of freedom and a heavily capitalist-influenced economy. In 2021, Vietnam is defined by a strong export market and a young, internationally connected population. This population is also hostile toward China — angered by Beijing’s arrogant claim that the South China Sea is its own private swimming pool and angered more by Beijing’s not-so-veiled expectation that Vietnam exists as its feudal state.
Recognizing China’s challenge, the U.S. and Vietnam are moving closer together. Though her trip was overshadowed by the chaos in Afghanistan, Vice President Kamala Harris recently visited Hanoi. Top line: The U.S. knows that Vietnamese sentiments, Vietnam’s proximity to China, and its possession of a deep-water port at Da Nang (capable of forward basing for the U.S. Navy) make the former enemy an ideal security partner for the future.
China’s threat is growing: The U.S. needs partners.
China says that the South China Sea and all its fishing and resource deposits belong to Beijing. These waters see at least $3.5 trillion in annual trade flows. By militarizing control over the South China Sea, China can extort political fealty from regional states and, gradually, international powers relying on the waters for trade. This is a profound threat to the post-World War II U.S. international order. China cannot be allowed to succeed.
So even as the U.S. rightly consolidates Australia with the new AUKUS security agreement, so, too, should Washington pursue strong relations with France. While France’s pursuit of economic ties with China has undermined Macron’s credibility as a leader for democratic values, he has shown subsurface support for upholding the South China Sea’s international status. From a U.S. perspective, Macron is certainly preferable to the isolationist-minded and pro-China Marine Le Pen, who seems set to be the president’s major challenger in next year’s elections.
Absent U.S. efforts to consolidate Macron, he risks being caught between an ever-present well of domestic anti-American populism (now being fueled by his foreign minister) and Chinese investment offers. Xi Jinping is no idiot. He will sense that now is the time to offer Macron vast new investments in return for his rejection of U.S. overtures targeting China. At the same time, Beijing is holding firm on its threats to Australia. China’s message to U.S. allies: Choose between its easy economic boosts and its uncomfortable coercive pressure.
Biden should use the two leaders’ upcoming phone call to offer to buy some of Naval Group’s Shortfin Barracudas — but only on the condition that most of the submarines are transferred to Vietnam (others can be used for U.S. Navy training and special operations purposes).
China would be enraged by such a deal, seeing it as a means of dramatically strengthening Vietnam’s navy and thus the strategic depth of the PLA’s South Sea Fleet. Macron would face a choice: accept an economic boon and support the international values he so eloquently salutes, or show that his rhetoric is paper-thin.
Either way, Biden should make the offer, then let us know what Macron decides. The stakes in the South China Sea demand it.
