To some who know him, Nguyen Chi Vinh is Vietnam's shrewdest strategic thinker. Others are blunter. The deputy defence minister, they say, is the wiliest of old foxes.
Either way it is no mean feat in a nation that, while it may lack the technocratic classes of its neighbours, is full of strategic obsessives. Even schoolchildren are steeped in the history and tactics of victories against much larger foes; of ancient battles against Chinese occupiers and Vietnam's wars of the 20th century - against French colonialists, the Americans, the Khmer Rouge and then the Chinese (again).
Senior Lieutenant General Vinh's battlefield, however, is international relations - and the shifting sands of a region adapting to China's rise. In recent years he has emerged from the shadows of years within Vietnam's military-intelligence apparatus to work its military diplomacy, something new for one of the region's most secretive institutions.
For Hanoi, that means simultaneously attempting to improve relations with both China and the US, and other large powers, all the while shoring up Vietnam's sovereign claims in the intensifying South China Sea dispute.
Two years ago he shuttled back and forth across the region to bring to fruition the first meeting of Southeast Asian defence ministers with their peers from major regional powers, including China, the US and Russia - a formal gathering that will take place every three years. It is a possible first step in a meaningful security arrangement to help keep peace in a dangerous region.
More recently, Vinh has kept up the pace, meeting dozens of regional military officials and foreign envoys. Earlier this month he helped host the visit of US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta to meet his boss, Vietnam's Defence Minister Lieutenant General Phung Quang Thanh. Last week he met China's ambassador to Vietnam, Kong Xuanyou, in a closed door meeting in Vietnam.