As the leading banner of the military and political theory of the Party in the Military, for the past 75 years, National Defence Journal has always clearly affirmed its role and position, making worthy contributions to the revolutionary cause of the Party and the nation. Promoting that role and position and facing the new requirements of the cause of national construction and defence today, the Journal continues to make efforts and strives to improve the quality of its research and propaganda work, contributing to the development of the Party’s military theory system.

The National Defence Journal is one of the earliest media outlets of our Military. In April 1948, due to the urgent demands of our war effort against French colonialism, especially the need of improving our troops’ education and political awareness, as well as the necessity to draw lessons and exchange experience in combat at all levels, the Military Journal – the predecessor of the National Defence Journal today was founded and published the first issue in accordance to the Resolution of the 3^rd National Military Conference (June 1947) and President Ho Chi Minh’s Directive. This was an event of significant historical importance, marking the birth of a leading military and political theoretical research and propaganda agency of the Military; at the same time, affirming the position of the Military Journal in the revolutionary military theory system of Vietnam.

Right in the first issue, the Journal was honoured to receive and publish a letter from President Ho Chi Minh to the Military Journal, a Letter from the Minister of Defence and the foreword from the Chief of the General Staff. In the letter, the President admonished: “Research without practice is empty research. Practice without research is acting blindly. So we have to study previous experience to improve new practice, and apply the new practice to develop previous experience, make it more complete and copious”. The letter from the Minister of Defence affirmed: "The Military Journal is an outlet to gather, challenge, and exchange experiences and current combat theories, it will pave a bright path for constructive ideas of the future”. That shows the deep concern and strategic vision of the Party and President Ho Chi Minh in affirming the importance, and the pioneering and leading role of military theory in the revolutionary cause of our nation.

During the past 75 years, under many different names, the Journal has always followed the political, military, and defence policies of the Party; military and defense tasks of agencies, units, and localities; the global political, defence, and security situations, etc. to carry out research and propaganda work, executing all assigned task successfully, and being worthy of the title "the theoretical banner of the Party in the Military".

General Luong Cuong, Chief of the General Political Department - VPA, chairs the directing session of the National Defence Journal for 2023

In the War against French Colonialism, the Journal focused on grasping the resistance strategy of the Party, and clearly demonstrated important roles such as political guidance, theoretical study, and reviewing lessons from the practice of people’s warfare in resisting colonialism; truly becoming an invaluable educational material for cadres at all levels in the Military to improve their military and political knowledge.

In the War against US Imperialism, due to the emergence of new requirements and tasks of the Revolutionary, the Journal was constantly developing in terms of content, form, target reader, and volume of circulation, becoming a think tank specified in the revolutionary war in the South, and the work of defending the socialist regime in the North. With a capable and seasoned corps of journalists who thoroughly understood the military and political strategies and viewpoints of the Party and closely followed the combat reality in both the North and the South, the Journal focused on propagandising Marxism – Leninism, the military strategy and policies of the Party and the Government, working guidelines of the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defence; reviewing combat and political practices and developing theories on socialist construction in the North and the struggle for national liberation in the South, especially the work of disseminating and propagandising on the revolutionary method for the South, and the idea of revolutionary offensive, encouraging the Military and the People to muster an overwhelming strength to defeat the US invader. The highlight of this period was that the Journal regularly dispatched its reporters to different theaters and campaigns to have articles with high scientific and theoretical values on military and political matters associated with the latest situation on the battlefield. These articles made substantial contributions to the reviews of combat lessons of military units and generalised those lessons into theories to direct the operation of military contingents more effectively; several articles were broadcasted and replayed repeatedly on the Voice of Vietnam.  These contributions affirmed the role of the Journal in analysing and clarifying issues in the Party’s revolutionary policies and methods; the method of conducting people’s warfare; our military art; the art of directing strategic, operational and tactical activities, etc. Thanks to this, the Journal has always attracted great attention and been highly appreciated by its readers.

In the period of building and protecting the Motherland, to fulfill the demands and tasks of this new period, the Journal always closely followed the direction of the Party, the Central Military Commission, the Ministry of National Defence, and its Steering Committee with the direct leadership of the Head of the General Political Department, etc. to constantly reform and improve the quality and the effectiveness of the work of research and propaganda, and ensure it always stayed true to its purposes and principles, preventing any deviations in political directions and viewpoints. On the basis of thoroughly understanding and grasping the Doi Moi policy of the Party, the task of defending the Motherland, and clearly recognising its role as a political and military theoretical agency of the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defence, the Journal focused on comprehensively covering political, military, economic, cultural, social, security and diplomatic issues; with the emphasis on studying and propagandising theories on people’s warfare, the work of building people’s national defence, the development of the people’s armed force, as well as the creative application and development of Marxism and Leninism on war and army and Ho Chi Minh thought on the revolutionary practice in our country. In recent years, besides regular tasks, with high-quality articles, the Journal actively participated in the development of many strategic documents such as reports of the Party’s National Congresses on the issues of military, national defence, the defence of the Motherland, etc. Again, this further affirmed the role of “the Party’s theoretical banner for the work of defending the Motherland”. Notably, in response to the sabotaging acts of adversary forces in the field of ideology and theoretical matters, the Journal takes the lead in publishing many series of articles to directly, regularly, and constantly debate and defeat distorted viewpoints, becoming “a sharp theoretical weapon”, and contributing to the work of firmly defending the ideological basis of the Party in the new situation.

After 75 years of striving, building and maturing with the Military and the revolutionary cause, the National Defence Journal has achieved comprehensive developments in both breadth and depth. From a small, internally-circulated, in-print-only journal, today it is widely published both domestically and abroad. Along with the constant quality improvement of the printed journal, the National Defence Journal Online is uploaded in three versions: Vietnamese, English, and Chinese. Today these versions are updated regularly and securely, with high quality and an increasing number of viewers, becoming a close friend of many readers domestically and abroad. This is a very important and official news source, aiming to widely propagandise the viewpoints and principles of Vietnam on its peaceful defence strategy to international friends. Not only that, articles of the Journal have made crucial contributions to the ideological and theoretical work of the Party in general, and the work of military and political study in particular in each period and the entire revolutionary process of Vietnam. Thereby, the Journal not only contributes to the improvement of professional skills, intellectual capacity and military knowledge for our senior and middle-level military and civilian cadres but also makes suggestions and assists the review work in various fields to generalise them into theories to direct military and defence practices in the new situation.

Today, due to the demanding tasks of national defence, the Journal’s cadres and reporters must constantly strive to improve their political awareness, professional skill, and theoretical thinking skill, etc. to fulfill their assigned tasks; to do that, these are several issues that need to be focused:

First, regularly grasp and firmly understand the Party’s military and defence viewpoints and policies in each period to effectively implement research and propaganda work. This is the most important issue, and the decisive factor in identifying political orientations; at the same time, it is the prerequisite to uphold the principles and purposes of the Journal – “the Party’s Journal of national defence theory”. For that reason, the most important requirement for the Journal’s staff and reporters is to regularly grasp and firmly understand political, military, and defence policies of the Party; resolutions and directives of the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defence and the direction of the General Political Department and political guidance of the Central Propaganda Commission and the Ministry of Information and Communications, etc. to implement research and propaganda work systematically, widely and in-depth. So that it can contribute to the work of generalising and disseminating the Party’s policies and viewpoints, especially those regarding military and defence matters, to military agencies and units, and localities. During the process of implementing this work, the first focuses should be key contents and core issues in building people’s national defence, people’s armed forces, and the People’s Amy, especially newly established and specialised forces as well as development trends in military science and arts in the new situation. Along with that, it is necessary to deeply understand the revolutionary, scientific and especially theoretical nature of the National Defence Journal to improve the theoretical thinking ability of its cadres and reporters to fulfil its assigned tasks.

Second, always closely follow the reality of national defence work and the development of emerging types of warfare to innovate the work of research, reviewing, and propagandising, contributing to the supplement and development of our revolutionary military theory system in the new period. This is a very demanding requirement, but as “the Party’s military theoretical banner”, the Journal must continue to uphold its position and strive to make further contributions to Vietnam’s military theory system in the new period. The key issue for the Journal is not only to thoroughly grasp the Party’s viewpoints and Ho Chi Minh military ideology but moreover, it must contribute to the perfection of these ideologies. All in all, it is the pathway to build the people’s national defence posture and the people’s armed forces and the method of fighting a people’s war for the defence of the Motherland. To meet these demands, the Journal’s cadres and reporters must closely follow the current situation, especially the everchanging reality of military and defence work in agencies and units of the armed forces and localities, as well as new developments in the field of military and defence in the world, etc. to comprehensively improve their working skills, especially research ability and military mindset; on this basis, they will be able to generalise knowledge into lessons and theories to contribute to the development of the Party’s military theoretical work.

Third, step up the constant innovation and quality improvement of the research and propaganda work. This is an important issue and a decisive factor in the development and maturity of the Journal over the past 75 years and the future. Because innovation and creativity are in the nature of journalism, and these features are even more important for the National Defence Journal. Therefore, the Journal needs to actively innovate in terms of content, form and publishing methods, etc., and be creative in the presentation of its articles on the basis of grasping and closely following the Party’s military and defence viewpoints and policy as well as firmly uphold its established principles and purposes to win the trust of its viewers and become the “handbook” of generations of military and civilian cadres. Besides, the Journal must closely follow the needs of the practical situation and contemporary media models to reform and reorganise its presentation to keep up with the trend of modern journalism. In particular, it is necessary to innovate the Journal’s presentation methods and focus on improving professionalism, the ability to grasp the reality, the methods to approach, identify and select much-anticipated issues, and editing and writing skills to generate indepth and topical articles with high practical and theoretical values, contributing to the development of the military theory system of our country. Along with that, the Journal needs to attach great importance to the work of discovering and expanding the corps of collaborators, especially research experts and scientists to diversify its content across all fields to constantly improve the quality and effectiveness of the propaganda work as well as the influence and coverage of the Journal in the society.

Fourth, permanently pay attention to the work of building a transparent and robust Party committee; improving the comprehensive capability of the Journal’s cadres, reporters, and editors. As a military and political theoretical agency of the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defence, the Journal is highly responsible for contributing to the development of the Party’s military theory. Therefore, it has to permanently pay attention to the work of building a transparent and robust Party committee with strong solidarity and unity and considers this “the key” to accomplish all assigned tasks and constantly develop and mature. On the basis of upholding its legacy, achievements and experience over the past 75 years, the Journal Party Committee needs to continue to thoroughly and seriously grasp and implement resolutions and directives of the Party, the Central Military Commission, the Ministry of National Defence, and the General Political Department on the work of Party building, with the focus on the building exemplary transparent and robust Party organisation and the corps of Party members with equal capabilities and qualities. Along with that, the Journal must also build a staff of cadres, reporters, and editors with strong political awareness, comprehensive capability, sharp military mindset, and professional journalism qualifications; at the same time, there should be a steady succession of staff to meet the demands for the development of modern revolutionary journalism. That is also the goal that the Journal always strives for to always be worthy of the title “the Party’s military theoretical banner”.

Major General TA QUANG CHUYEN