Protecting the Fatherland from early and afar and safeguarding the country before it is under existential threat has been Vietnam’s consistent policy throughout historical periods. As opposed to being dismissed by hostile forces as groundless, this policy continues to be developed by our Party due to its immediate relevance to our present-day cause of Fatherland construction and protection.

The history of building and defending the nation demonstrates that our ancestors always attached much importance to protecting the Fatherland from early and afar through various measures. Today, safeguarding the Fatherland from early and afar has become our Party's major viewpoint in leading and directing national defence and security sectors, which is manifested in many a document and resolution. The Resolution of the 13^th National Party Congress reasserts: "There must be strategies to prevent the risks of armed conflicts and wars from early and afar".

However, hostile forces made an allegation that "Protecting the Fatherland from early and afar is nothing short of groundless". In order to rebuke this allegation, it is necessary to clarify the scientific and practical basis, thereby affirming the truthfulness of our Party's viewpoint.

Proactively building firm postures of all-people national defence, people’s security, and people’s hearts and minds (photo: dangcongsan.vn)

Protecting the Fatherland from early and afar is inherited from valuable lessons learnt from the Vietnamese people's millennia-old history

This is common for many nations. For Vietnam, "safeguarding the country before it is under existential threat" has always been a pressing issue. It took Vietnam a total of 12 centuries since the 3rd century BC, to fight foreign aggression, as evidenced by tens of national protection wars and hundreds of uprisings and national liberation wars. Almost every feudal dynasty in Vietnam had to prepare for and fight national protection wars, not to mention riots, subversion, separatism, and so on. Therefore, protecting the Fatherland involves fighting "both domestic and foreign enemies".

Our forefathers always emphasised the importance of safeguarding the nation, adhering to the principle of "safeguarding the country before it is under existential threat" and "peace at home and abroad". Foresight and vigilance in their thoughts and actions served to achieve that overriding objective. History suggests that if any dynasty prioritises national solidarity and defence, it deters enemies from invasion. Conversely, it is acutely vulnerable to the risk of invasion. Painful lessons have been learned from neglecting national defence, from separating nation-building from national defence, from underestimating enemies and from lacking vigilance, leading to disastrous defeats and subjecting the nation to foreign domination. It is clear that the principle of protecting the Fatherland from early and afar is based on practical lessons drawn from the Vietnamese people's millennia-old history of nation building and defence, which is irrefutable.

Protecting the Fatherland from early and afar originates from the practice of Vietnamese revolution

The formation and development of the Party's viewpoints on safeguarding the Fatherland from early and afar have reflected the faithful adherence to Marxist-Leninist theory, Ho Chi Minh Thought, which is in line with periods of Vietnamese revolution. Since its inception, the Party has always attached great importance to leading the cause of safeguarding the Fatherland. Whether it is before or after seizing power, the Party has always closely linked the task of safeguarding the Fatherland with each historical period of the country based on its scientific analysis of global, regional and domestic situations as well as on its revolutionary missions.

After the victory of the August Revolution in 1945, alongside external enemies, hostile and reactionary forces within the country intensified their efforts to undermine the revolutionary government, which was compounded by famine, illiteracy, financial crisis, and so on. This caused the country to hang by a thread. To proactively address these challenges, on November 25^th, 1945, the Party Central Committee issued the directive "National Resistance and Building", outlining the urgent tasks of consolidating the revolutionary government as the centrepiece, of fighting French aggressors, of eliminating domestic traitors and of improving people's lives. Together with the Vietnam People's Army established before the August Revolution in 1945, the Vietnam People's Public Security Force was founded right after the liberation of Hanoi. These forces played a core role in ensuring victory against domestic and foreign enemies, safeguarding revolutionary achievements and protecting the Fatherland from early and from afar from the very early days of the revolutionary government.

Following the breakdown of negotiations in Fontainebleau in 1946, our Party recognised that sooner or later, French colonialists would invade our country and we had to strike back. Accordingly, the spirit of protecting the Fatherland from early and afar as well as safeguarding the country before it is under existential threat was manifested in the proactive and resolute actions of the entire Party, people and armed forces in order to prevent and eliminate security threats to the country and to the regime from the very early days.

During the resistance war against French colonialists, the principle of protecting the Fatherland from early and afar was implemented through a comprehensive approach, encompassing economic, political, ideological-cultural, scientific, military, defence, security and diplomatic tools. Emphasis was placed on diplomatic, political and legal struggle to maintain the initiative. From the practice of leading the people to defeat French colonialists, our Party drew experiences in leading and directing the resistance war for national liberation, one of which was: "fighting enemies while developing forces and building the rear area".

During the resistance war against American imperialists for national salvation, our Party creatively applied Marxist-Leninist doctrine, proactively grasping the revolutionary situation to identify the tasks, objectives and strategies for protecting the Fatherland from early and afar, ensuring that we were not caught off guard in any situation. Furthermore, we actively engaged in both military actions and diplomacy to protect the Fatherland from early and afar and to safeguard the country before it is under existential threat. The accurate prediction that the US would employ B-52 aircraft for bombing raids over Hanoi and  admit defeat only when being subdued in the skies over Hanoi, is a vivid manifestation of the Party Central Committee and President Ho Chi Minh's foresight in protecting the Fatherland from early and afar. This greatly contributed to the historic victory of "Hanoi - Dien Bien Phu in the Air", compelling the US to return to the negotiating table and sign the Paris Peace Accords on ending the war and restore peace in Vietnam.

Protecting the Fatherland from early and afar results from sabotage plots of imperialism and hostile forces

The reality demonstrates that imperialism, hostile forces and reactionary elements have never abandoned their plots and activities to sabotage our revolution. Foreign aggressive forces have continuously harboured their evil intentions of invading Vietnam. Over the past years, hostile forces, reactionary elements and political opportunists have stopped at nothing to undermine the ideological foundation of the Party, subvert the Party, State, people and the socialist regime in our country. In fact, cases of social disturbances  in Thai Binh province (1997), the Central Highlands (2001, 2004), Muong Nhe (2011), Binh Thuan province(2018), Dong Tam commune, Hanoi (2020), and the recent terrorist attack in Cu Kuin district, Dak Lak province (11 June 2023) have shown that hostile forces, reactionary elements and political opportunists inside and outside the country have colluded to intensify comprehensive sabotage in political, military, economic, ideological, cultural aspects, etc. by exploiting issues of democracy human rights, ethnicity and religion, provoking and deepening internal divisions to sabotage our revolution and to disrupt the national unity bloc, as well as promoting "self-evolution," "self-transformation" within the Party and the country. Our Party has acknowledged that: "Hostile forces continue to intensify their sabotage against our Party, State and country". This poses both a danger and a serious challenge to our country in the coming time, which can be prevented by protecting the Fatherland from early and afar.

The afore-mentioned rationale proves that "protecting the Fatherland from early and afar is nothing short of groundless" is just a rhetoric that intends to cause a lack of vigilance regarding the task of national defence. Due to insufficient willpower and awareness, some individuals have fell prey to this rhetoric. To conclude, our Party’s viewpoint of "protecting the Fatherland from early and afar" is based on firm scientific, theoretical and practical foundations.

Assoc. Prof., Dr PHAN TRONG HAO

Member of the Central Theoretical Council