Building the all-people national defence represents a consistent guideline of our Party and State; in fact, it has been brought into play in the cause of national liberation, construction, and protection. However, hostile forces have always placed emphasis on distorting that guideline, with a view to undermining our country’s national defence strength and capacity. Therefore, identifying and resolutely fighting against those distortions really matter in both long and short term.

The guideline on building the all-people national defence has been specified in documents of many national congresses of our Party and it has been proved sound and creative by our country’s revolution. Nevertheless, hostile forces have always held arbitrary views on this subject. They argue that according to documents of our Party’s recent national congresses, “peace, cooperation, and development are still the mainstream”; for that reason, there is no need for the building of a strong all-people national defence. They believe that doing so will hinder the development of economic sectors, badly affect the market economy, and disperse resources of our society. They also adopt unscientific distortions that our all-people national defence was only effective in previous national liberation wars, but it will not work in modern wars as our militia and self-defence force and people are not able to deal with state-of-the-art weapons and equipment of foreign invaders. Thus, they call on our country to concentrate resources on building a professional, modern Viet Nam People’s Army (VPA) like other developed nations ever did, which is believed to be in accordance with our Party and State’s guideline on building a “revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, and increasingly modernised” VPA. They even deny the peaceful, self-defensive nature of our Party’s national defence policy. They state that Viet Nam’s guideline on building the all-people national defence will “threaten peace of other countries in the region”. They fabricate that our country’s national defence is only aimed at protecting the Party and the socialist regime; it is not built for national interests or “of the people, by the people, for the people”. For that reason, they deny the Party’s absolute, direct leadership and the State’s uniform management towards the all-people national defence and the Fatherland protection cause. A part from their theoretical sabotage, they take advantage of “hot” issues or incidents to foster their sabotage strategy. More specifically, when the East Sea situation witnessed complex developments, hostile forces sparked a public outcry that our all-people national defence and people’s war were no longer capable of defending offshore waters and islands; therefore, only the navy and the air force, equipped with modern weapons, are able  to protect seas and islands. Recently, they have incited foreign businesses operating in Viet Nam not to organise or train the self-defence force, not to establish or financially contribute to defence and security funds under statutory regulations. Some bad people deliberately encroached upon the land for national defence and destabilised political security and social order and safety within localities, particularly in Dong Tam commune, My Duc district, Ha Noi. It is worth noting that those distortions and offences have been hyped by discontented people, political opportunists, and hostile forces both at home and abroad via malicious artifices. While taking advantage of mass media and social networks, such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Blog to incite our people, they also give recommendations and opinions on documents of our Party’s national congresses and call for amendment of our Constitution and some other legal documents. Their propagation is aimed at misleading the people, causing a panic within our society, and undermining the people’s faith in the Party’s guidelines, and provoking acts of sabotage. More dangerously, their sabotage against our Party’s policy on building the all-people national defence will possibly lessen our country’s defence power and capacity, lead to the degradation in the Party’s leadership and the State’s management towards national defence and security, divide the national great unity block, and gradually remove the Party’s leadership and the socialist regime in Viet Nam.

In fact, from the first Political Platform (February 1930) to documents of its National Congresses, our Party has supplemented, developed, and creatively applied theories about building the all-people national defence in each revolutionary period, thus obtaining significant achievements. In the two resistance wars against the French and the US aggressors, under the Party’s leadership, the strength of the all-people national defence was unceasingly developed and effectively exploited to create great synergy for Vietnamese revolution, which was a determinant to our victories over professional militaries equipped with modern weapons and equipment. In the period of national construction and protection, under the Party’s guideline on building the all-people national defence, provinces and municipalities have focused on building themselves into solid defensive zones, while fostering rapid, sustainable socio-economic, cultural development, improving the people’s mental and material life, and consolidating defence-security potential simultaneously. Such a combination has been stipulated in development plans of sectors and localities to ensure that socio-economic development will always help consolidate defence-security potential. Priority has been given to developing potential economic sectors, constructing modern, dual-purpose infrastructures, carrying out the planning of the national economy, especially economic zones in accordance with defensive projects and the disposition of military postures within defensive zones. The work of defence and security education has been actively conducted in line with each group of learners and citizens. Economic, cultural, social, and diplomatic potential has been robustly developed with a high level of readiness to serve military, defence, and Fatherland protection tasks. Notably, correctly assessing the situation at sea, our Party has advocated the building of a strong all-people national defence on land to give timely, effective support to seas and islands; at the same time, the all-people national defence at sea has been made solid to create a complete defensive posture of the country. Movements for seas and islands, such as “The whole country joins hands for Truong Sa” and “Accompanying fishermen at sea” have contributed to enhancing our remote seas and islands’ defence potential and posture. The Navy, the Air Defence – Air Force, the Coast Guard, the Border Guard Force, and fishermen have fostered coordination between themselves to safeguard national sovereignty over seas and islands in all situations. Those activities have made significant contributions to strengthening the all-people national defence, protecting the Fatherland in any situation, facilitating socio-economic development, and raising our country’s status on regional and global scales.

To answer the question of the relevance of the building of the all-people national defence in modern wars, we should look at recent wars in Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya, and Iraq which have proved that when a government manages to utilise its country’s comprehensive strength  together with unity between the military and the people, that country will be firmly protected. On the contrary, being unable to earn support from their citizens, governments and militaries will rapidly suffer defeats. Things mentioned above provide us with a solid foundation to assert the soundness and creativity of our Party’s guideline on building the all-people national defence, while allowing us to prove all arguments and distortions of hostile forces groundless and unscientific.

Currently and in the foreseeable future, all-level party committees and authorities should enhance their leadership and direction over the fight against hostile forces’ wrong viewpoints on the building of the all-people national defence. More importantly, due attention should be paid to identifying and preventing deliberate distortions of the Party’s guideline on building the all-people national defence and the “peaceful, self-defensive, autonomous, of the people, by the people, for the people” nature of our national defence. Consideration should be given to strengthening leadership and direction of party committees as well as managerial, operational, and organisational work of authorities and offices towards defence and security education as the basis for building a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds”. At the same time, it is necessary to step up the work of propagation and education so that the people clearly understand the Party’s guideline on building the all-people national defence. People should be fully aware that building the all-people national defence is a consistent guideline of our Party and State in the process of leading and directing the Vietnamese revolution. That guideline, needless to say, is the creative inheritance and application of the tradition of all people’s unity against foreign invaders in thousands of years of our country’s history. In the Ho Chi Minh era, that is the creative application of Marxist-Leninist theories about arming all people and considering revolutions as the cause of the masses to our country’s practical conditions. Successfully performing the work of propagation and education will enable the entire Party, Military, and people, particularly our cadres and party members to identify wrong arguments and hostile forces’ plots and artifices against the Vietnamese revolution.

Our cadres and party members should actively take part in preventing and pushing back the degradation in political ideology, morality, and lifestyle, especially the declining faith in the Party’s guideline on building the all-people national defence, and the follow-up to wrong, hostile viewpoints and arguments. It is important to continue enhancing the fight against “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” amongst a section of cadres and party members and their refusal to study the Party’s guidelines, particularly on building the all-people national defence. Moreover, competent agencies at all levels should resolutely, strictly handle organisations and individuals’ distortions of our Party’s guideline on building the all-people national defence. In this regard, the VPA, the public security force, and the diplomatic sector should attach great value to implementing measures for detecting and preventing hostile forces’ plots and artifices from afar. Due attention should be paid to closely combining ideological, theoretical struggle to unmask hostile forces’ nature, plots, and cunning artifices with legal struggle. Well implementing those above-mentioned measures will make contributions to firmly protecting the Party’s ideology foundation and the socialist Fatherland in the new situation.

Sr. Col. NGUYEN MANH DUNG, MA., and Sr. Col. NGUYEN DUC THANH, MA.