Vietnam is a country bursting with youthful energy. The nearly 100 million Vietnamese have an average age of just 31, and despite living under single-party communist rule, they have a thriving capitalist economy that may hit 10 percent growth this year. And, of great importance to the United States and its allies, Vietnam is strategically positioned along the western side of the South China Sea, and has a series of maritime disputes with its neighbors, especially China.

I recently spent over a week visiting the country from north to south, including coastal cruising along 1,600 km of shoreline — waters I have sailed before.

In the late 1970s, I was on the South China Sea as a young U.S. Navy officer undertaking humanitarian mission rescuing the so-called boat people of what had been South Vietnam — refugees from the brutal communist re-education camps and the vengeful government in the north.