Defense relations between the United States and Vietnam: the process of normalization, 1977 - 2003

Although the hostilities of the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the diplomatic repercussions lasted for several more decades. Eventually, however, the dedicated perseverance of diplomats on both sides paid off. In November 2003, Major General Pham Van Tra, defense minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, met with U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the halls of the Pentagon, signaling a new era in U.S.-Vietnamese defense relations. This book traces the development of that relationship in the years since the Vietnam War. It focuses especially on the 1990s, a decade in which the author se