Over the course of 75 years’ building, fighting and development, under the leadership, education and training of our Party and President Ho Chi Minh, generations of officers and soldiers of Viet Nam People’s Army (VPA) have shown their steadfastness and consistency to the goals and ideals of fighting for national independence and socialism, relied on the people and stood side by side with the people to generate overall power and achieve excellent feats of arms in the cause of struggling for national emancipation, national defence consolidation, defence of the Homeland, and fulfilment of its glorious international duty, deserving to President Ho Chi Minh’s praises “Our military is faithful to the Party, dedicated to the people, and ready to fight and sacrifice for independence, freedom of the Homeland and socialism. They are to accomplish any missions, surmount any difficulties, and defeat any enemies”, deserving to be the heroic military of the heroic Vietnamese people.
In the coming time, situation in the world and region continues to witness complex developments and many disadvantages that may lead to instability. Great powers enhance adjustment of strategies and compete for interest. Trade war, tech war and dispute over territorial sovereignty play out fiercely. Armed conflict, terrorism, cyberattacks, and nontraditional security issues cause instability in many nations. In particular, there are many factors in the East Sea, which potentially have destabilising effects on national security and sovereignty. Hostile forces and reactionaries continue to intensify their acts of sabotage against the Party and State, implement the strategy of “peaceful evolution,” “depoliticise” the VPA, and incite “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party with a view to abolishing the Party’s leadership and socialsim in Viet Nam, and sowing division between the Party, State, VPA and people. Against such backdrop, the mission of safeguarding the Homeland is placing new, higher and more comprehensive requirements, in which the resolute, persevering struggle for firmly defending independence, sovereignty, unification, and territorial integrity of the Homeland, protecting the Party, State, people and socialist regime, and maintaining a peaceful environment and political stability is an essential, regular mission of the whole Party, people and our military. Given its leading role in the cause of strengthening national defence and safeguarding the Homeland, the VPA needs to tap into its heroic tradition to successfully perform the following tasks.
 |
| An illustrative photo |
First, concentrating on building a politically strong military. This is a fundamental content and a matter of principle, which decides the nature and serves to improve the VPA’s overall power and combat capability. Over the past 75 years, the building of a politically strong VPA has always been at the forefront to ensure that the VPA is always an absolutely faithful fighting force to the Homeland, Party, State and people under any circumstances. Today, more attention must be paid to building the VPA in terms of politics via various expedient content and measures. First of all, there needs to promote political education and ideological leadership to make officers and soldiers steadfast in the goals and ideals of fighting for national independence and socialism, Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s Thought, and the Party’s guidelines on reform. It also serves to raise their awareness of the VPA’s functions and missions, objects of struggle and objects of cooperation, and improve their revolutionary vigilance and fighting willpower. The leadership, management and direction of ideology for officers and soldiers must be successfully executed right from grassroots level to create consensus and unity of emerging requirements.
The building of a politically strong VPA necessitates strengthening the Party’s leadership, enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of Party work and political work, deeply grasping and successfully implementing Resolution 51-NQ/TW, dated 20 July 2005 of the Politburo (tenure IX) on further improving the Party’s leadership mechanism. It also requires full leverage of the role of cadres, especially the leading ones, in political behaviour, morality, lifestyle, knowledge competence, working methodologies and styles. Priorities must be given to making the Military Party Committee strong in terms of politics, ideology, organisation and morality in connection with enhancing comprehensive leadership and combat strength of Party organisations at the grassroots level, ability to perceive and implement resolutions and directives of higher echelons as well as inspect and supervise the compliance of each party organisation and member. There needs to combine the building of pure, robust party organisations with the building of comprehensively strong units, development of a corps of cadres with cultivation of a corps of party members and building of a corps of leading cadres with building of party committees at all levels. In the short run, it is necessary to concentrate on making good preparation and successfully holding party congresses at all levels to advance towards the 13th National Party Congress as provided in Directive 35-CT/TW, dated 30 May 2019, of the Politburo and Directive 747-CT/QUTW, dated 23 July 2019 of the Central Military Commission’s Standing Committee, generating high solidarity and unity in the Military Party Committee and the whole military, and building a revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, and gradually modernised VPA, truly becoming the key force in building a robust all-people national defence and firmly safeguarding the socialist Vietnamese Homeland.
It is important to proactively recognise and respond to the hostile forces’ plot of “depoliticising” the VPA aimed at removing the Party’s leadership over the VPA and making the VPA “politically neutral,” distant from its combat goals and ideals, lack confidence and politically degenerate. The VPA’s role should be further brought into play in protecting the Party’s ideological foundation, opposing incorrect standpoints, defeating hostile forces and reactionaries’ plots of “peaceful evolution” and “depoliticising” the VPA. Every cadre and party member must criticise and rectify themselves, set bright examples for cadres and soldiers under their command, and try their best to successfully implement the Campaign of “promoting traditions, devoting talents, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new era to create momentum and pervasiveness in each unit. It is necessary to resolutely punish cadres, soldiers and party members, who are degenerate and violate state law and military discipline.
Second, ceaselessly promoting the VPA’s comprehensive quality and combat strength to meet the requirements and missions of safeguarding the Homeland both in the short and long term. The VPA’s combat strength is generated from many factors, including personnel, organisation, training quality, readiness, soldiers’ compliance with order and discipline, and so on. On the basis of resolutions and conclusions of the Politburo on the organisation of the VPA by 2021, the VPA continues to step up reorganisation in an “adept, lean and highly-efficient” direction with synchronous, proper composition among forces, taps on the role and responsibility of functional agencies, particularly the advisory ones at strategic and operational levels, for advising, proposing, instructing and coordinating implementation, ensuring synchronicity, unity and closeness in the whole military.
The whole military needs to further enhance innovation, combat readiness and combat power, education and training quality, and qualification in every aspect of the corps of cadres at all levels. It is also requested to successfully carry out Resolution 765-NQ/QUTW, dated 20 December 2012, of the Central Military Commission (CMC) on improving training quality for the period of 2013-2020 and beyond. The VPA focuses on leading, directing and putting forth new solutions in combat training and readiness in conformity with the Party’s development of thinking on national defence and military and the requirement to safeguard the Homeland in the new situation. Attention is paid to renewing content, forms and methods of training and war gaming to ensure suitability to combat reality, areas of operation, types of enemy, organisation, personnel, equipment, and operational demands of high-tech wars. There needs to enhance training and war gaming according to operational missions and situations, promote mobility, closely combine training with war gaming, military training with political education, discipline strengthening and development of confidence in ways of fighting and existing weapons and equipment. More importantly, special attention is paid to training to master modern weapons and equipment, improving the quality of joint and combined armed training and war gaming, operations in defence zones, and so forth. In addition, the whole military advocates accelerating the building of comprehensively strong, exemplary, prominent units, upholding strict compliance with state law and military discipline, attaching importance to applying achievements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to research and development of military art and ways of fighting suitable to new conditions of the people’s war to safeguard the Homeland, and developing military science and technology, defence industry aimed at further accelerating the process of military modernisation, first and foremost the forces designated to advance straight to modernity, creating breakthroughs in combat power and combat readiness of the VPA.
Third, tapping on the key role in building the strong all-people national defence and the all-people national defence posture in connection with the people’s public security posture. Building a strong all-people national defence requires the VPA to grasp content, principles and solutions of the Viet Nam’s National Defence Strategy, Viet Nam’s Military Strategy, Strategy to Safeguard National Borders, and Strategy to Safeguard the Homeland in Cyberspace, closely follow realities, predict situations correctly, and proactively advise the Party and State on strategies and stratagems, ensuring timely, successful response to any situations relating to national defence, security and diplomacy without driving the country into strategic passivity and surprise. Therefore, defence diplomacy must give priorities to maintaining strategic balance and trust in addressing emerging international, regional issues, especially situations in the East Sea, to create an international environment conducive to firmly protecting the country from afar.
To accomplish this heavy responsibility requires the VPA to closely collaborate with commissions, ministries, sectors and unions at the Central and local levels to take synchronous, drastic measures suitable to practical situations and characteristics of each area and region, particularly the strategic, key areas in terms of national defence and security, borderland, waters and islands. The most important missions are to build the strong all-people national defence, people’s public security, and the all-people national defence posture in connection with the people’s public security posture and “people’s heart and mind posture,” and to develop a standing force and Reserve, which are robust, ready to combat and victorious in any situations. The VPA needs to closely collaborate with commissions, ministries and sectors at the Central and local levels to actively innovate and improve the quality of national defence and security education for the corps of cadres at all levels, disseminate knowledge of national defence and security among the people with a view to the whole people’s awareness and responsibility for the cause of national construction and defence. Additionally, the VPA has to successfully perform its function to exercise state management of national defence aimed to ceaselessly strengthening defence capabilities of the country. It is necessary to closely collaborate with the People’s Public Security to firmly preserve political security, social order and safety in each locality and nationwide, attach importance to raising the quality of collaboration in monitoring situations, exchanging information and protecting internal security, adopt plans to protect critical targets and political events, prevent and combat terrorism and subversion by violence, combat crimes, safeguard the Party and State, and firmly uphold political security, social order and safety, and people’s happly life.
Fourth, successfully completing the function as an army for work. Coming from the people, fighting for the people, relying on the people, and standing in solidarity with the people are laws of development and the sources of combat strength and victories of our military. On inheriting and bringing into play that fine nature and tradition, the VPA’s officers and soldiers need to actively follow the areas, stay close to the people and well perform their function as an army for work. Special attention is paid to innovating and improving the effectiveness of mass mobilisation and policies regarding military families, “gratitude,” and preferential treatment for families of war invalids, fallen soldiers and people who have rendered meritorious service to the country. The VPA should also promote propaganda to mobilise people to successfully implement the Party’s guidelines and State’s policies and law, participate in building new-style rural areas, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, provision of social security, and consolidating political bases, especially in key areas, hinterland, areas inhabited by ethnic minority people, border areas, islands, and revolutionary base areas.
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the All-People National Defence Festive Day and the 75th anniversary of the foundation of Viet Nam People’s Army is an important political event of the country and military. It is also an opportunity for officers and soldiers in the whole military to look back the historic journey full of effervescence and glory to take pride in the tradition of “determined to fight, determined to win” of a heroic People’s Army. On leveraging that tradition, officers and soldiers in the whole military are committed to standing in solidarity with one another, striving for building a revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, and gradually modernised People’s Army, and accomplishing every assigned task, contributing to, together with the whole Party and people, successfully realising reform, building and defending the socialist Vietnamese Homeland for the sake of a prosperous people and a strong, democratic, equitable and advanced country.
General Ngo Xuan Lich, Member of the Politburo, Deputy Secretary of the Central Military Commission, Minister of National Defence