A year after Vietnam elevated its relations with Washington to the highest diplomatic level, an internal document shows its military was taking steps to prepare for a possible American “war of aggression” and considered the United States a “belligerent” power, according to a report released Tuesday.

More than just exposing Hanoi’s duality in approach toward the U.S., the document confirms a deep-seated fear of external forces fomenting an uprising against the Communist leadership in a so-called “color revolution,” like the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, or the 1986 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines.

Other internal documents that The 88 Project, a human rights organization focused on human rights abuses in Vietnam, cited in its analysis point to similar concerns over U.S. motives in Vietnam.

“There’s a consensus here across the government and across different ministries,” said Ben Swanton, co-director of The 88 Project and the report’s author. “This isn’t just some kind of a fringe element or paranoid element within the party or within the government.”

The original Vietnamese document titled “The 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan” was completed by the Ministry of Defense in August 2024.

It suggests that in seeking “its objective of strengthening deterrence against China, the U.S. and its allies are ready to apply unconventional forms of warfare and military intervention and even conduct large-scale invasions against countries and territories that ‘deviate from its orbit.’”

While noting that “currently there is little risk of a war against Vietnam,” the Vietnamese planners write that “due to the U.S.’s belligerent nature we need to be vigilant to prevent the U.S. and its allies from ‘creating a pretext’ to launch an invasion of our country.”

The Vietnamese military analysts outline what they see as a progression over three American administrations — from Barack Obama, through Donald Trump’s first term, and into Joe Biden’s presidency — with Washington increasingly pursuing military and other relationships with Asian nations to “form a front against China.”

In his term, Biden in 2023 signed a “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership” with Vietnam, elevating relations between the nations to their highest diplomatic level on par with Russia and China as “trusted partners with a friendship grounded in mutual respect.”

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In the 2024 military document, however, Vietnamese planners said that while the U.S. views Vietnam as “a partner and an important link,” it also wants to “spread and impose its values regarding freedom, democracy, human rights, ethnicity and religion” to gradually change the country’s socialist government.

“The 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan provides one of the most clear-eyed insights yet into Vietnam’s foreign policy,” Swanton wrote in his analysis. “It shows that far from viewing the U.S. as a strategic partner, Hanoi sees Washington as an existential threat and has no intention of joining its anti-China alliance. ”

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Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry did not answer emails seeking comment on The 88 Project report or the document it highlighted.

The U.S. State Department refused to comment directly on the “2nd U.S. Invasion Plan,” but stressed the new partnership agreement, saying it “promotes prosperity and security for the United States and Vietnam.”

“A strong, prosperous, independent and resilient Vietnam benefits our two countries and helps ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains stable, secure, free and open,” the State Department said.

Nguyen Khac Giang, of Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute research center, said the plans highlighted tensions within Vietnam’s political leadership, where the Communist Party’s conservative, military-aligned faction has long been preoccupied with external threats to the regime.

“The military has never been too comfortable moving ahead with the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the United States,” Giang said.

Tensions within the government spilled into the public realm in June 2024, when U.S.-linked Fulbright University was accused of fomenting a “color revolution” by an army TV report. The Foreign Ministry defended the university, which U.S. and Vietnamese officials had highlighted when the two countries upgraded ties.

Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, said the Vietnamese military still has “a very long memory” of the war with the U.S. that ended in 1975. While Western diplomats have tended to see Hanoi as most concerned by possible Chinese aggression, the document reinforces other policy papers suggesting leaders’ biggest fear is that of a “color revolution,” he said.

Further undermining trust between the U.S. and Vietnam were cuts made to the U.S. Agency for International Development by President Donald Trump’s administration, which disrupted projects such as efforts to clean up tons of soil contaminated with deadly dioxin from the military’s Agent Orange defoliant and unexploded American munitions and land mines.

“This pervasive insecurity about color revolutions is very frustrating, because I don’t see why the Communist Party is so insecure,” said Abuza, whose book “The Vietnam People’s Army: From People’s Warfare to Military Modernization?” was published last year.

“They have so much to be proud of — they have lifted so many people out of poverty, the economy is humming along, they are the darling of foreign investors.”

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While China and Vietnam have been at odds over territorial claims in the South China Sea, the documents portray China more as a regional rival than a threat like the U.S.

“China doesn’t pose an existential threat to the Communist Party (of Vietnam),” Abuza said. “Indeed, the Chinese know they can only push the Vietnamese so far, because they’re fearful that the Communist Party can’t respond forcefully to China (and will) look weak and it will cause a mass uprising.”

China is Vietnam’s largest two-way trade partner, while the U.S. is its largest export market, meaning Hanoi needs to perform a balancing act in keeping up diplomatic and economic ties, while also hedging its bets.

“Even some of the more progressive leaders look at the United States, saying, ‘Yes, they like us, they’re working with us, they are good partners for now, but given the opportunity if there were a color revolution, the Americans would support it,’” Abuza said.

Under Vietnamese leader To Lam, who became Communist Party general secretary at around the same time the document was written, the country has moved to strengthen ties with the U.S., especially under Trump, Giang said.

Lam was reappointed general secretary last month and is expected to also assume the presidency, which would make him the country’s most powerful figure in decades.

With Lam at the helm, Trump’s family business has broken ground on a $1.5 billion Trump-branded golf resort and luxury real estate project in northern Hung Yen province. The Vietnamese leader almost immediately accepted Trump’s invitation to join the Board of Peace, which Giang said was an unusually swift decision given that foreign policy moves are typically calibrated with close attention to Beijing’s possible reaction.

But Trump’s military operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro have given Vietnamese conservatives fresh justification for their unease about closer ties with Washington. Any U.S. military action involving Hanoi’s ally Cuba could upset Vietnam’s strategic balance, Giang added.

“Cuba is very sensitive,” he said. “If something happens in Cuba, it will send shock waves through Vietnam’s political elites. Many of them have very strong, intimate ties with Cuba.”

Overall, the first year of Trump’s second term is likely to have left the Vietnamese happy about the focus on the Western Hemisphere but wondering about other developments, Abuza said.

“The Vietnamese are going to be confused by the Trump administration, which has downplayed human rights and democracy promotion, but at the same time been willing to violate the sovereignty of states and remove leaders they don’t like,” he said.

A wild bull elephant killed a tourist in a Thai national park on Monday, the third human fatality caused by the same animal, staff said in a statement.

The 65-year-old Thai tourist from Lopburi province was trampled to death while exercising near his tent in a campground in Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park, chief Chaiya Huayhongthong told AFP.

Thai newspaper the Bangkok Post said the elephant, known locally as Oyewan, charged at the man and slammed him to the ground with its trunk before stomping on him.

A doctor and rescue workers said the man bled through his mouth and nose and suffered several broken limbs and other injuries.

The camper was identified as Jirathachai Jiraphatboonyathorn, the outlet said.

His wife, who was nearby when the early morning attack occurred, escaped after park rangers frightened the animal off, according to AFP.

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“He was the third person killed by Oyewan,” Huayhongthong said, adding that the elephant could have been responsible for several more deaths that remain unsolved.

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In a statement on Facebook on Monday, the park acknowledged the death, saying, “Khao Yai National Park expresses its deepest condolences to the families of the deceased from the incident of wild elephants attacking tourists in Khao Yai National Park.”

Park authorities will meet on Friday to discuss what to do about the elephant, the chief said.

“We will probably decide to relocate him or change his behaviour,” Huayhongthong explained.

More than 220 people have been killed by wild elephants in Thailand since 2012, according to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation.

Wild elephant numbers have risen rapidly in Thailand — from 334 in 2015 to almost 800 last year — leading to the introduction of a contraceptive vaccine administered among female elephants in an attempt to curb birth rates, France 24 wrote.

Thousands more live in captivity, it added.

A rise in the population of elephants in Thailand increases the risk of conflict between elephants and humans, Sukhee Boonsang, a director of the Wildlife Conservation Office, told AFP last month.

Asian elephants, Thailand’s national animal, are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Last January, a 22-year-old tourist was killed by an elephant at a sanctuary in Thailand after the animal turned on her while she was giving it a bath.

Blanca Ojanguren García, from northwest Spain, was bathing an elephant alongside her boyfriend at the Koh Yao Elephant Care Centre when the elephant attacked her.

The sanctuary’s owner said the elephant struck the woman with its trunk. No one else was injured in the attack.

Experts told local media the elephant was likely stressed by the pressure of living and interacting with tourists.

Another tourist was killed by an elephant while walking on a nature trail in Loei’s Phu Kradueng National Park in northern Thailand in December 2024, CBS reported.

— With files from Global News staff

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Iran’s president said Tuesday he instructed the country’s foreign minister to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the United States, the first clear sign from Tehran it wants to try to negotiate as tensions remain high with Washington.

It comes after the Mideast country’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month.

The announcement marked a major turn for reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who had broadly warned Iranians for weeks that the turmoil in his country had gone beyond his control.

It also signals that the president received support from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for talks that the 86-year-old cleric previously had dismissed.

But possible talks were thrust into question when U.S. Central Command said Tuesday a U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching an American aircraft carrier.

In an e-mailed statement, U.S. Central Command said the drone “aggressively approached” the aircraft carrier with “unclear intent” and it “continued to fly toward the ship despite deescalatory measures taken by U.S. forces operating in international waters.”

Turkey had been working behind the scenes to make the talks happen there later this week as U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling in the region. A Turkish official later said the location of talks was uncertain but that Turkey was ready to support the process. The official did not provide further details.

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Foreign ministers from Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also been invited to attend the talks, if they happen, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity as they did not have permission to speak to journalists.

But whether Iran and the U.S. can reach an agreement remains to be seen, particularly as U.S. President Donald Trump now has included Iran’s nuclear program in a list of demands from Tehran in any talks.

Trump ordered the bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in June.

Writing on X, Pezeshkian said in English and Farsi that the decision came after “requests from friendly governments in the region to respond to the proposal by the President of the United States for negotiations.”

“I have instructed my Minister of Foreign Affairs, provided that a suitable environment exists — one free from threats and unreasonable expectations — to pursue fair and equitable negotiations, guided by the principles of dignity, prudence and expediency,” he said.

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The U.S. has yet to acknowledge the talks will take place. A semiofficial news agency in Iran on Monday reported — then later deleted without explanation — that Pezeshkian had issued such an order to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who held multiple rounds of talks with Witkoff before the 12-day war.

On Tuesday, Araghchi spoke by phone with his counterparts from Oman, Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait, but did not mention anything about a possible venue.

Late Monday, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Mayadeen, which is politically allied with the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, aired an interview with Ali Shamkhani, a top Khamenei adviser on security.

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Shamkhani, who now sits on the country’s Supreme National Security Council and who in the 1980s led Iran’s navy, wore a naval uniform as he spoke.

He suggested that if the talks happened, they would be indirect at the beginning, then move to direct talks if a deal appeared to be attainable. Direct talks with the U.S. long have been a highly charged political issue within Iran’s theocracy, with reformists like Pezeshkian pushing for them and hard-liners dismissing them.

The talks would solely focus on nuclear issues, he added.

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Asked about whether Russia could take Iran’s enriched uranium like it did in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Shamkhani dismissed the idea, saying there was “no reason” to do so. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday said Russia had “long offered these services as a possible option that would alleviate certain irritants for a number of countries.”

“Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, will not seek a nuclear weapon and will never stockpile nuclear weapons, but the other side must pay a price in return for this,” he said.

Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The International Atomic Energy Agency had said Iran was the only country in the world to enrich to that level that wasn’t armed with the bomb.

Iran has been refusing requests by the IAEA to inspect the sites bombed in the June war.

“The quantity of enriched uranium remains unknown, because part of the stockpile is under rubble, and there is no initiative yet to extract it, as it is extremely dangerous,” Shamkhani said.

Witkoff is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli security officials on Tuesday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.

While in Israel, Witkoff will meet with the head of the Mossad intelligence service and the Israeli military’s chief of staff, according to another official who was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Israel is expected to ask that any agreement with Iran include removing enriched uranium from the country, stopping the enrichment of uranium, limiting the creation of ballistic missiles and ending support for Tehran’s proxies.

However, Shakhani in his interview rejected giving up uranium enrichment — a major obstacle in earlier talks with the U.S. In November, Araghchi said Iran was doing no enrichment in the country because of the U.S. bombing of the nuclear sites.

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Witkoff will travel to Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, later in the week for Russia-Ukraine talks, the official said.

“We have talks going on with Iran, we’ll see how it all works out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. Asked what his threshold was for military action against Iran, he declined to elaborate.

“I’d like to see a deal negotiated,” Trump said. “Right now, we’re talking to them, we’re talking to Iran, and if we could work something out, that’d be great. And if we can’t, probably bad things would happen.”

Mike Pompeo, a hard-liner on Iran who served as CIA director and secretary of state in Trump’s first term, said it was “unimaginable that there can be a deal.”

“I think they may come away with some set of understandings,” Pompeo said at Dubai’s World Governments Summit. “But to think that there’s a long-term solution that actually provides stability and peace to this region while the ayatollah is still in power is something I pray for but find unimaginable.”

Also Tuesday, a ship transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, reported being hailed on the radio “by numerous small armed vessels,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

There was no identifying information on the vessel, which continued into the Persian Gulf. The position of the incident appeared to be in Iranian territorial waters, where officials had warned of a naval drill by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in recent days.