Over the past years, under the leadership of all-level Party committees and authorities, the militia and self-defense forces (the forces for short) have been built according to the Law on the Militia and Self-Defense Forces (hereafter the Law). The forces have regularly worked with others to build the all-people national defense and the all-people national defense posture in association with the people’s security posture, greatly contributing to maintaining political security and social order and facilitate socio-economic development.

Comprehending the Party’s strategy to build the forces and their important role, after the Law was promulgated in 2009, sectors and localities nationwide have grasped, propagated, disseminated and seriously implemented it, and obtained impressive results. Awareness and responsibility of cadres, party members and people towards building the forces have been raised. The effectiveness of state management of the forces has been improved. Provinces and cities have concretized the content of the Law and the Government’s decrees in accordance with their particularities, while issuing and implementing resolutions, decisions, projects and plans on organization and operation of the forces. As a result, the forces have been made strong, extensive, operated effectively, played the core role in performing the military-defense tasks, and taken part in protection and maintenance of political security and social order at grass-roots levels, thereby contributing to building strong all-people national defense, all-people national defense posture and people’s security posture in each region and area and nationwide. Up to now, the number of the forces’ members accounts for 1.4% of the country’s population with rather proper structure. Great importance has been attached to building mobile, active, and arm militia forces and coastal militia and self-defense forces, while a number of models of self-defense have been established in private and foreign-invested enterprises. The total quality, especially the political quality of the forces has unceasingly improved. The percentage of party members has reached 20.1% of the forces (increased by 2.5% in comparison with 2008). Nearly 5,500 commune-level military party cells and 500 commune-level military party organizations have been founded. Almost 100% of communes, wards, and townships in the area of the military regions 5, 7 and 9 have established military party cells.

The work of training the forces has been renovated, and its quality has improved. Due attention has been paid to training commune-level military command cadres in local military major. Operations of the forces have been closely led, directed and managed according to regulations of law, while content and form of operations have been in accordance with their function and task as well as the area’s particularities. Sectors and localities have set up and multiplied models of the forces’ operations. Moreover, due regard has been paid to ensuring entitlements and policies for the forces in accordance with regulations of the Law and real conditions by localities, offices and organizations.

Delegation of the Ministry of National Defense led by Lt. Gen. Nguyen Duy Nguyen inspects the military - defense work of the Vietnam Airlines Corporation (photo: qdnd.vn)

Besides the recorded results, the implementation of the Law has exposed weaknesses. Awareness and responsibility of several local party committees and authorities, leaders of offices and organizations, and a proportion of the people towards building the forces have yet to be full. The building of the forces in private and foreign-invested enterprises have been confronted with difficulties, while the coastal militia and self-defense forces regularly operating in distant seas have yet to be built. Collaboration between the forces and others on settlement of complex situations in several localities has been still slow and not sufficiently effective. To overcome the weaknesses and continue effectively implementing the Law to contribute to building strong people’s armed forces and all-people national defense, sectors and localities should take the main measures as follows.

1. Strengthening the leadership and direction of party committees and management of authorities, promoting the advisory role in building the forces. Sectors and localities should continue to thoroughly grasp resolutions, directives, legal documents of the Party and State on the forces, with a focus on the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat’s Directive 16-CT/TW (9^th tenure) on “strengthening the Party’s leadership over the militia and self-defense forces and the reserve force in the new situation” and the fundamentals of the Law and guiding documents. At the same time, propagation and dissemination of legal documents on the forces to the people, particularly those living in remote, isolated areas, border areas and islands should be increased in order to raise awareness and responsibility of cadres, party members and people, particularly key cadres and leaders at all levels towards the implementation of the Law. Grounded in experience and recorded results, ministries, sectors, and localities should enhance the state’s management of the forces, attach the implementation of the Law to that of military-defense tasks, and promote the synergy of the entire political system and people in performing this important task. Military agencies at all levels should continue to counsel local party committees and governments to review, adjust and issue resolutions, directives, plans and programs for building and training the forces while promoting their core role in guiding, inspecting and speeding up the implementation.

2. Focusing on making the forces “strong, extensive” and improving their quality. Conforming to regulations of the Law and its guiding documents, localities, offices and organizations should strictly follow the procedure for building the forces to ensure openness, democracy and closeness right at grass-roots levels. Selecting and admitting citizens into the forces must follow the principle: leadership from party committee, direction from authority, advice from commune-level military command, as well as the motto “people know, people discuss, people recommend, people take care”. Military offices at all levels and military commands of communes, offices and organizations should stringently carry out the work of registration and management of militia and self-defense members, regularly review and consolidate the organizational structure in accordance with particularities of regions, areas and localities. Great importance should be attached to building mobile, active militia units and coastal, air defense, artillery militia and self-defense forces in the area of importance to national defense. Ministries, sectors and localities should improve the quality and effectiveness of military commands, multiply the model of commune-level military party cell, and accelerate the work of admitting new party members among the forces, especially in border, coastal and island communes. Military regions and localities should continue to conduct the work of planning, training and using commune-level military command cadres, and gradually standardize the quality of this staff. In the short term, the Department of Militia and Self-Defense Forces will cooperate with functional offices, military regions and localities in counseling the Central Military Commission and National Defense Ministry to offer recommendations to the Party and State on dealing with difficulties in organizing and training self-defense force in private and foreign-invested enterprises.

3. Continuing to synchronously implement measures for improving the quality of training and the effectiveness of the forces. Localities and units should continue to comprehensively renovate the work of training the forces under the guidelines of the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 765-NQ/TW: “basics, practicality, quality”, meeting the requirements of building local armed forces and provincial, municipal defensive zone in the new situation. Military regions should direct provincial military commands to develop programs for training the forces properly. It is necessary to closely combine military training with legal, political education and mass mobilization; to focus on enhancing the capabilities of combat readiness and collaboration with other forces on protection of political security, social order, settlement of defense and security situations, natural disaster mitigation, search and rescue operations, particularly in the area of utmost importance to defense and security. Localities should proactively design plans to hold commune-level defensive exercises and increase mobilization of militia and self-defense members in defensive zone exercises, natural disaster prevention and control drills, search and rescue exercises at all levels. Moreover, localities should maintain and closely manage the operation of the forces, ensuring that they correctly perform their function and task. Resources should be mobilized to well implement entitlements and policies for militia and self-defense members in accordance with local socio-economic development.

4. Studying, adjusting, supplementing and completing the system of legal documents on the forces. Implementing the Prime Minister’s Directive 09/CT-TTg, dated March 24^th 2017, and the guiding document of the Ministry of National Defense, recently, sectors and localities nationwide have reviewed the implementation of the Law. Besides positive points, after 8 years of implementing the Law, it has exposed shortcomings as it has yet to meet the development of reality and the Party’s new viewpoints and guidelines on military area and national defense. Therefore, to continue to successfully implement the Party’s strategy for building the forces, it is necessary to quickly adjust, supplement and amend the Law properly. To this end, functional agencies of the Ministry of National Defense, first and foremost the Department of Militia and Self-Defense Forces, should actively inspect and guide localities, ministries and sectors’ implementation of the Law. At the same time, they should summarize recommendations at all levels and issues in reality, and work with other functional agencies to counsel, draw up and complete the Project on (amended) the Law on the Militia and Self-Defense Forces to soon submit to the National Assembly for approval and promulgation of supplemented normative legal documents on the forces, thereby creating complete legal corridor for the implementation both in short term and long term.

Building strong, extensive militia and self-defense forces provides an important basis for building the all-people national defense, the all-people national defense posture, and the people’s security posture, which is the responsibility of the entire political system and people. Fully aware of that great significance, ministries, sectors and localities should continue to accelerate the implementation of the Law and bring it into practice.

Lt. Gen. Nguyen Duy Nguyen, Director of the Department of Militia and Self-Defense Forces