Grasping the Party’s viewpoints and lines on building the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) in the new situation, the province of Ha Tinh has been taking measures synchronously to build “adept, compact, strong” armed forces with a high degree of synergy and combat power, making them worthy of a loyal, reliable political and fighting army of party committees, authorities, and people, allowing them to play a core role in performing military - defence tasks.

Ha Tinh is a sacred land with extraordinary people, rich culture, and honourable revolutionary tradition; it holds a position of importance in political, economic, defence, security, and diplomatic terms to the North Central Coast. Fully aware of those characteristics, over the years, the Provincial Military Party Committee (PMPC) and the Provincial Military Command (PMC) have always kept a close watch on situational developments to actively give advice to the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People’s Committee on exercising leadership and direction over military - defence work. In this regard, all-level party committees and commands have focused on building “adept, compact, strong” armed forces with a high level of synergy and combat power.

Commander of the PMC encourages troops during the provincial defensive zone exercise of 2023

With political resolve and practical measures, up to now, the provincial armed forces have been adjusted towards a balance between offices and units as well as between the standing force and the reserve force. Notably, the province has accomplished the re-organisation of the PMC and its affiliated units, while adjusting and classifying 13 district-level military agencies under the pre-set plans, goals, and requirements. In spite of a reduction of offices and units, the provincial armed forces’ synergy and combat power have been improved considerably. Offices and units across the PMC have always promoted their core role in grasping situational developments and collaborating with other forces to effectively perform military - defence work, build provincial defensive zone potential and posture, opportunely deal with defence - security situations, firmly protect national sovereignty and border security, and create a favourable condition for socio-economic development within the province.

Currently, our country is entering a new period of development - the era of the nation’s rise, having a lot of opportunities but facing numerous difficulties and challenges. Within the province, there are many complex issues on border security (both at sea and on land), religion security, and non-traditional security, thus imposing increasingly high task requirements on the provincial armed forces. Against that backdrop, the PMPC and the PMC advocate giving advice to the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People’s Committee on the building of “adept, compact, strong” armed forces with great synergy and combat power to play a core role in performing military, defence, and Fatherland protection tasks. To that end, emphasis will be placed on several main measures as follows.

Swearing-in ceremony of new soldiers at Regiment 841

First, enhancing education and propagation work to raise public awareness among organisations and citizens towards the building of “adept, compact, strong” armed forces. The building of an “adept, compact, strong” VPA represents an objective requirement of urgency, providing a solid prerequisite for building a modern VPA from 2030; effectively executing that line will also enable the provincial armed forces to be increasingly strong, highly mobile, and capable of undertaking and successfully fulfilling all assigned tasks. However, this is a complex task that will impact on troops’ ideology and sentiment and require comprehensive, synchronous adoption of measures, ranging from force adjustments to the improved quality of training, combat readiness, and logistics - technical support. To achieve a consensus among party committees, authorities, the armed forces, and all people about this important task, the PMC will continue to give advice to provincial leaders on grasping resolutions and directives by the Party, State, Central Military Commission, Ministry of National Defence, and Military Region 4 on merger and dissolution. Due attention will be paid to rendering troops fully aware of the goals and requirements of training, combat readiness, and logistics - technical support as well as difficulties and challenges in the process. The PMC will renew forms and methods of education and propagation, closely combining basic political education with ideological orientation, resolutely combating signs of oversimplification, fearfulness of hardship, impatience, and refusal of tasks, creating a new incentive for building comprehensively strong offices and units with high combat readiness.

Second, effectively implementing plans and resolutions by Military Region 4’s Party Committee and Command on making the provincial armed forces “adept, compact, strong”. Adhering to viewpoints and objectives set by the Politburo’s Resolution 05-NQ/TW, dated 17 January 2022, the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 230-NQ/QUTW, dated 2 April 2022, on leadership over the organisation of the VPA in the period of 2021 - 2030 and beyond, as well as directives and plans by the Military Region in this regard, the PMC and all-level military agencies will concentrate on carrying out an overall review of positions and job titles to opportunely propose plans on streamlining forces, adjusting and supplementing the system of functions, tasks, work relationships, and work regulations, and building adept, compact, strong offices and units capable of meeting their long-term and short-term task requirements. The PMPC and the PMC will continue to give advice to the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People’s Committee on adjusting and supplementing personnel planning and settling redundancies to ensure a balance between components of the provincial armed forces and materiel supply. Emphasis will be placed on reviewing, formulating, and proposing plans to train, retrain, and use logistics - technical cadres and employees and district-level military agencies’ staff (after adjustments) in accordance with criteria for their job titles. At the same time, consideration will be given to re-organising units of the militia and self-defence and reserve forces. The province will continue to build a “strong, extensive” militia and self-defence force and a “strong, high-quality” reserve force. The PMC will advise provincial leaders on using local budgets for training reserve officers and cadres of commune-level military commands in order to standardise a pool of military cadres at grass-roots level.

In addition to force adjustments, the PMPC and the PMC will consolidate and build typically pure, strong military party committees and party organisations at all levels, improving their capacity of leadership over military - defence tasks and the building and operation of defensive zones. On a yearly basis, 99.5% of party committees, party organisations, and party members shall successfully or excellently fulfil their tasks. In the short term, great value will be attached to coordinating with the Provincial Party Committee, district-level party committees, and commune-level party committees to prepare and successfully organise all-level party congresses for 2025 - 2030 tenure, creating a new atmosphere and motivation for making the provincial armed forces politically strong.

Third, making a breakthrough in raising the quality of training, regularity building, and discipline management as the basis for building “regular, elite” provincial armed forces. Grasping and implementing Directive 79/CT-BQP, dated 22 July 2022, by the Minister of National Defence on building “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong units and Resolution 775-NQ/ĐU, dated 15 February 2023, by Military Region 4’s Party Committee on raising the quality of training in the period of 2023 - 2030 and beyond, the PMPC and the PMC will step up a reform in their leadership, direction, and operation of training, regularity building, and discipline management, reviewing and supplementing targets and measures in action programs/plans for the Resolution in a highly feasible way. In the process, significance will be attached to closely combining regularity building with training and discipline management, strictly maintaining training activities, closely managing troops and weapons, particularly during exercises, natural disaster prevention and mitigation, and search and rescue. At the same time, the provincial armed forces will adhere to the training motto of “basics, practicality, and solidity”, focusing on synchronous, specialised training relevant to reality, tasks, projects, and operational areas. Emphasis will be placed on training the standing force in manoeuvrability and camouflage on all types of terrains and in hi-tech warfare, enabling this force to master the existing weaponry, improving their skills in independent combat and coordination with main units and competent agencies in exercises, combat readiness, and the building of defensive zones. As for the reserve force, due attention will be paid to training members of this force to master infantry combat skills, specialised skills, and joint combat skills, making them capable of independent combat at detachment level. Regarding the militia and self-defence force, great weight will be added to training this force under combat projects, bettering their coordination with other forces within defensive zones, improving their combat readiness capacity, enhancing their coordination with the Public Security Force to opportunely deal with situations, maintain political security and social order and safety at grass-roots level, and take part in natural disaster, incident, and epidemic prevention and response, and search and rescue. Doing so will help achieve a huge positive change in training, regularity building, discipline management, and the building of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units with high combat readiness.

Furthermore, the PMC will continue to work with relevant agencies to give advice to the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial People’s Council, and the Provincial People’s Committee on measures to align socio-economic development with defence - security consolidation. Due regard will be paid to constructing defensive works, key combat positions for standing militia units along the border, headquarters for commune-level military commands, and training grounds at all levels. The system of logistics - technical depots will be planned and adjusted in accordance with training, combat readiness, and response to non-traditional security challenges.

Thoroughly grasping the Party’s viewpoints and lines, Ha Tinh province will keep building its armed forces, contributing to realising the goal of basically building an “adept, compact, strong” VPA by 2025 as a solid precondition for building a revolutionary, regular, elite, modern VPA from 2030, meeting the requirements of Fatherland protection in the new situation.

Sr. Col. NGUYEN XUAN THANG

Member of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Board

Commander of the PMC