The task of preventing and combating hostile, wrong viewpoints is an important part of the Homeland protection cause and the responsibility of the whole political system under the Party’s leadership. Accordingly, Military youth are the objects of hostile sabotage and in the vanguard of this task.

To sabotage our Party’s ideological ground, remove the leadership role of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and gradually abolish the socialist regime in Vietnam, the hostile forces have made “huge investments” in propagating and encouraging the viewpoints in opposition to the standpoint and interest of the working class and people of Vietnam. They step up the propagation of viewpoints which are hostile towards our Party’s ideological foundation, distorting the information about our country’s situation in order to spread doubt and pessimism among cadres, party members and the people, undermine their faith in the Party and the regime, and provoke a risk of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” from within. Based on the rapid development of information technology, they make best use of cyber space to more severely, quickly and deeply “attack” the people from all walks of life; the centrepiece of their strategy is to transform the ideology of the future generation of the country - the young generation. Clearly understanding that young people are quickly adaptable to the development of information technology and technical equipment, fond of exploring new things, flexible in languages but lack hands-on knowledge and experience, the hostile forces circulate pieces of fake or confusing information in cyber space in order to mess up the information and make the youth unable to distinguish right and wrong. That has greatly impacted on the awareness, ideology, and sentiment of the young people in general, the military youth in particular.

The military youth represent a large force of the Military, operating in a specialized field, playing an important role in training and combat readiness. Via the propagation of wrong viewpoints, the hostile forces hope to undermine the military youth’s morale, political will, combat ideal, sense of self-improvement, morality and lifestyle. It is one of the hostile forces’ artifices to realize their strategy for an “apolitical Vietnam People’s Army” (VPA for short).

Fully aware of those impacts, over the past years, grounded on the resolutions and directives by the Central Military Commission and the guidance by the General Political Department, all-level party committees, commands, commissars, political offices and Youth Union organizations within the VPA have paid due regard to well performing the work of political education and ideological orientation, improving military youth union members and young personnel’s “immunity”, awareness and responsibility towards the fight against wrong, hostile viewpoints. Young military personnel have promoted their pioneering role in writing thousands of pieces of news, articles, and comments, sharing the information, employing various methods to combat wrong, hostile viewpoints, thereby contributing to maintaining the Party’s ideological bas within the VPA.

In the upcoming time, the hostile forces will continue to circulate wrong viewpoints and distortions which could be more malicious and complex as their main method against our country. Thus, enhancing the military youth’s “immunity” and promoting their core role in the fight against wrong, hostile viewpoints represent an objective requirement and a fundamental factor for improving their political will and capability, building strong Youth Union organizations, and strengthening the VPA politically. To that end, it is necessary to focus on the following.

First, to ensure the military youth’s “immunity” and create a favourable environment for them to prevent and combat wrong, hostile viewpoints. That will provide a solid foundation for the military youth to remain firm and effectively refute the hostile forces’ viewpoints. To do so, military offices and units, particularly academies and schools should continue raising the quality of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology and CPV’s history education. All-level party committees, commands and Youth Union organizations should attach great value to improving the military youth’s political will, responsibility, knowledge, and combat skills on the ideological, theoretical fronts, making them fully aware of the hostile forces’ plots and artifices, and enabling them to recognize toxic information on the Internet. Thereby, the military youth’s awareness and their faith in the Party, State, socialist regime, national and military traditional values as well as their combat ideal could be enhanced. At the same time, a favourable condition could be created so that the military youth could prevent and combat wrong, hostile viewpoints. Due regard should be paid to gathering the youth and developing the plans for combating hostile viewpoints in a strict, close manner under the guideline: wherever the youth are, there should be Youth Union organizations which accompany, communicate with and act as the crutch for the youth. Offices and units should establish and complete the mechanisms and policies and invest in technical equipment for the fight against wrong viewpoints, while stringently, effectively maintaining the order for the work of information and propagation. Besides, there should be mechanisms for providing and using information on a quick, timely basis, particularly sensitive, hot issues for the youth to correctly understand the nature of the incidents as the basis for fighting against and effectively refuting hostile viewpoints.

Second, to encourage the military youth’s vanguard role in the fight against wrong, hostile viewpoints. Military youth are at the forefront of the hostile forces’ plan which is aimed to transform the youth’s ideology and action. Thus, the military youth must play a vanguard role in preventing, detecting, combating, and neutralizing distorted information and wrong viewpoints, particularly regarding the defence and security fields. To that end, the military youth should promote their flexibility, young enthusiasm, and capability to take advantage of technology and connection, actively recognizing hostile viewpoints and employing measures to create a robust movement against distorted information, preventing it from spreading among the people. Nowadays, special attention should be paid to combating and quickly removing distortions of national events and religious activities which are aimed to incite the people to hold gatherings and destabilize political security and social order and safety.

To combat hostile viewpoints effectively, it is important to flexibly adopt forms and measures. There should be severe, resolute, persistent criticisms against hostile, wrong viewpoints without compromise. Besides, it is essential to criticize wrong viewpoints of cadres and party members, not to offend or attack individuals or “push” them towards the other side. At present, wrong, hostile viewpoints are disseminated mainly on the Internet. Therefore, the military youth should produce articles and comments with scientific, convincing arguments to clarify right and wrong and avoid uncivilized struggle. At the same time, the military youth should actively give feedback on hostile distortions to the internet service providers so that they could opportunely remove and prevent those distortions from spreading in cyber space.

Third, to actively propagate the Party’s guidelines and policies and unmask the hostile forces’ plots and artifices. It is believed that the forces of evil will become overwhelming if there is no raised voice. Thus, the military youth must raise their voice to defend the good and make it widespread. Among the young people, to some extent, the military young personnel have higher prestige as they are educated and trained in the military environment; therefore, the information shared by this staff will be more reliable. Promoting that advantage, they should actively disseminate the Party’s guidelines, the State’s law and policy as well as the good, the country’s achievements, and good traditions of the nation and the VPA to their families, relatives, friends and communities. The work of propagation must be conducted regularly and continuously so that the good could become superior to the bad while the people’s faith could be consolidated. This is a method to fight against hostile, wrong viewpoints proactively from afar. Propagation should be carried out mainly by sharing articles, images, and videos on the Internet and social networks. There is a fact that under the bandwagon effect, many people are not sure about the incident which they see on the Internet only but quickly come to a conclusion; even though they know it is wrong, they are afraid of expressing their opinion as the opposition are too large. Thus, during their communication, the military youth should confidently express their opinion and make everyone clearly understand the truth.

Fourth, the military youth should be active in self-improving and observing the State’s law and the military discipline. This solution is aimed at preventing the hostile forces from afar from seizing the opportunity to sabotage the VPA. Every military youth should be fully aware that each of their wrongdoing (intentionally or unintentionally) could become a reason for the hostile forces to distort the situation and the VPA’ nature and tradition, defame the image of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers”, and undermine the military-civilian solidarity and the people’s faith in the VPA. Thus, the military youth should be continuously active in self-improvement, observing the military discipline, particularly the regulations on the relationship between the Military and the people, expression, and soldiers’ manners, raising a sense of vigilance, preventing infiltration and information leak when using the Internet, avoiding sharing locations and posting information related to operations of persons and units on social networks. Moreover, they should unceasingly improve their knowledge, skills, and political will, know how to recognize, prevent and resist material temptation and evil culture, and improve their “immunity” against the hostile forces’ attack and against negative side of the international integration and global social networks. Under any circumstance, the military youth must preserve and heighten the virtues and image of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” which serve as the symbol and great power to smash all plots and distortions of the hostile forces.

Preventing and combating hostile, wrong viewpoints is an extremely hard, complex struggle and necessitates the participation of the entire Party, Military and people with the military youth playing an important role. Promoting the attained results, the military youth should be in the vanguard of this front to contribute to protecting the Party’s ideological base within the VAP and defend the Party, State, people, socialist regime, and national interests.

Mai Truong Giang, Political Academy, the Ministry of National Defence