Absolutely no country in SE Asia would able to stand up to either the US or China, but having those modern tanks makes an invasion from China or the US less likely, and since everyone in SE Asia will be forced to pick sides in a shooting war over Taiwan Vietnam isn't going to leave free military hardware on the table.
The chance of any major power launching a land invasion in SE Asia is very small. Relatively resource poor countries besides some offshore oil/gas. There would be no point.
I really just don't see tanks being at all a consideration if a major power sets its eyes on Vietnam. The deterrents are, like you say, the lack of resources, and like I say, guerrilla warfare and naval harassment. There will never be a situation where anybody's sitting in a war room and going like, "I dunno about invading Vietnam, they just got some new tanks." Agree to disagree I guess because this doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
Absolutely no country in SE Asia would able to stand up to either the US or China, but having those modern tanks makes an invasion from China or the US less likely, and since everyone in SE Asia will be forced to pick sides in a shooting war over Taiwan Vietnam isn't going to leave free military hardware on the table.
The chance of any major power launching a land invasion in SE Asia is very small. Relatively resource poor countries besides some offshore oil/gas. There would be no point.
I really just don't see tanks being at all a consideration if a major power sets its eyes on Vietnam. The deterrents are, like you say, the lack of resources, and like I say, guerrilla warfare and naval harassment. There will never be a situation where anybody's sitting in a war room and going like, "I dunno about invading Vietnam, they just got some new tanks." Agree to disagree I guess because this doesn't seem to be going anywhere.