Building strong provincial, municipal defensive zones is a strategy by our Party and State, which inherits and develops the nation’s thought on “protecting the country from afar” in the new situation in order to prevent and settle the defence-security situations effectively. The 10-year implementation of the 10^th Politburo’s Resolution 28-NQ/TW, dated September 22^nd 2008 on building cities and municipalities into strong defensive zones in the new situation has made positive changes in the whole political system’s awareness and action and contributed to maintaining political security and social order in each locality and area, safeguarding the Socialist Vietnamese Homeland in all situations.

Comprehending the strategic role of provincial, municipal defensive zones in the Homeland construction and protection, over the past years, the entire Party, Military and people have comprehensively performed the task of building defensive zones under the 10^th Politburo’s Resolution 28-NQ/TW and gained significant results. Notably, the work of leading and directing the building and operation of defensive zones has been valued and renewed. The awareness and responsibility of cadres, party members and all people towards this important mission has been raised considerably. The mechanism for leading, directing, and running the building and operation of defensive zones has been gradually perfected and proved effective. The whole Military, particularly military regions and local military offices have promoted their core role in cooperating with and giving advice to local party committees and authorities on leading, directing and building the defensive zones effectively. The potential, posture, and strength of the defensive zones, especially their economic, politico-spiritual potential, “people’s hearts and minds posture” and military posture have been consolidated. Local armed forces’ synergy and combat readiness capability have been raised. The operation of defensive zones in localities has basically met the requirements for building and defending the Homeland in the new situation.

Sr. Lt. Gen. Phan Van Giang and leaders of localities and the Military Region 7 visit and give presents to units taking part in the 2018 provincial defensive zone exercise of Binh Duong (photo: qdnd.vn)

The results from the building and operation of the defensive zones have affirmed our Party and State’s sound guidelines as well as the political effort and resolve of our entire Party, Military, and people, bringing about new advantages and strength in the postures of all-people national defence and people’s security in each locality and region and across the country, contributing to thwarting the hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy and plots of riots and conversions, maintaining political security and social order, particularly in the key areas and the border, sea, and island areas, defending the national independence and territorial integrity, facilitating the socio-economic development, and improving the country’s potential and strength.

However, in addition to the obtained results, the building and operation of defensive zones have exposed weaknesses in the process of leadership, direction, inspection, supervision and implementation. The building of defensive zones in some localities has yet to be relevant to the area’s particularities. The coordination between ministries, committees and sectors has yet to be uniformed and synchronous. Regard paid to combining economic development with defence-security consolidation is sometimes insufficient. The investment in building the defensive zones in some localities is still low. The mechanism and policy for defence mobilization has yet to keep pace with the development of reality. The building of the three-category armed forces, particularly the reserve force and the militia and self-defence force has yet to meet the requirements. Forces’ capacity to give advice on and coordinate the settlement of defence-security situations in some localities is limited.

Those weaknesses have been pointed out by the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Ministry of National Defence (MND), military regions, provinces, and municipalities via the conference on reviewing the 10-year implementation of the 10^th Politburo’s Resolution 28-NQ/TW (2008-2018).

Our people’s Homeland construction and protection cause now has opportunities, advantages and faces difficulties, challenges. The world and the region witness many factors which could destabilize the situation. Local wars, territorial disputes, ethnic and religious conflicts, military interventions, separatism, terrorism, and armed races are complex. As for our country, the hostile forces continue to step up their “peaceful evolution” strategy and tricks of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” from within, while inciting separatism and riots in a bid to destabilize the situation in each area and invent the pretext for external interventions. The 4^th industrial revolution has been posing challenges to the Homeland protection task. Those difficulties and challenges impose very high requirements for the Homeland construction and protection on the whole Party, Military and people. To lay a solid foundation for defending the Homeland from afar, it is necessary to continue building strong provincial, municipal defensive zones with great potential and increasingly higher synergy via synchronous, drastic measures, with a focus on the following.

First, enhancing the work of information and propagation to further raise the awareness and responsibility of forces, sectors, socio-political organizations and the people towards the building of defensive zones. This important work is aimed at achieving a consensus on awareness and action and promoting the synergy for the building of defensive zones; at the same time, acts as a measure to build the politico-spiritual potential of defensive zones. To do so, forces, sectors, and localities should step up the work of political, ideological, defence and security education for all people, rendering party committees, authorities, cadres and party members fully aware of the Party’s guidelines on building the defensive zones as well as difficulties, challenges, and requirements. The contents of propagation and education must be comprehensive but centred on legal documents on the task of military region-level defence and the building of defensive zones, particularly the 10^th Politburo’s Resolution 28-NQ/TW, the 11^th Party Central Secretariat’s Directive 07-CT/TW, and the Government’s Decrees 152/2007/NĐ-CP and 02/2016/NĐ-CP. In this regard, it is necessary to flexibly employ various forms and methods of propagation. Emphasis should be placed on carrying out the work of mass mobilization and defence-security education and propagating localities’ results and experience and effective models in the building of defensive zones. It is vital to be fully aware that building strong provincial, municipal defensive zones is a strategic matter and an objective urgent and long-term demand for the Homeland construction and protection as the basis for building the all-people national defence and the posture of all-people national defence associated with the posture of people’s security. This is also a central, routine task and the responsibility of the whole political system, Party, Military and people. In the process, it is essential to proactively detect, rectify, and resolutely fight against the ideological deviation, subjectivity, lack of vigilance, absolutization of economy, disregard for defence and security, and formalism; to unmask and effectively combat distortions and sabotage by the hostile forces against this task.

Second, enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the Party’s leadership and the State’s management over the building and operation of defensive zones. This is a principle, a matter of utmost importance, and a deciding factor in ensuring that the building of defensive zones is under the guidelines and meets the requirements. Grounded on the hands-on experience and current situation, more than ever before, forces, sectors, offices, units, and localities should continue to strengthen the party committees’ leadership and the authorities’ direction and management at all levels, ensuring that the Party absolutely, directly, comprehensively leads the defence-security missions in general, the building of defensive zones in particularly. Based on the resolutions and directives by the Party and the Government, it is necessary to continue reviewing, supplementing and following the plans/programs for implementing the Resolution 28-NQ/TW in line with the Homeland Protection Strategy, National Defence Strategy, National Defence Law, socio-economic development strategy, and newly-issued specialized strategies via the synchronous, highly feasible measures appropriate to the characteristics of localities and areas. Due attention should be paid to effectively operating the mechanism for leading and directing the task of military region-level defence and the building and operation of defensive zones; to flexibly operating the mechanism for cooperation on leadership and direction between military regions’ party committees and commands and provincial (municipal) party committees and people’s committees. It is important to focus leadership and direction on making a breakthrough in building all types of potential of defensive zones, particularly political bases, “people’s hearts and minds posture”, economic and military potential, and military posture in the key, strategic areas. Great value should be attached to consolidating and improving the operation of the organizations in the defensive zones, especially the Military Region-level Defence Steering Boards and other ones at all levels. Functional agencies of the MND should further coordinate and inspect localities’ building and operation of defensive zones, opportunely grasp the issues arising from reality, undertake researches, and complete the system of legal documents in tune with the development of reality to create a favourable legal corridor for the performance of the task of military region-level defence and the building of defensive zones.

Third, combining socio-economic development with defence-security consolidation and creating material, technical resources for making the defensive zones increasingly strong. While the country’s economic potential is limited, the demand for building the defensive zones is great. Thus, forces, sectors and localities should grasp and execute the guidelines on fostering rapid, sustainable socio-economic development and improving the people’s material, spiritual life in line with consolidating defence and security in the plans for socio-economic development at all levels, ensuring that each economic development step will help strengthen defence and security. In this regard, priority should be given to developing potential key economic sectors, constructing modern, dual-use infrastructure, partitioning and planning economic, industrial, and export processing zones in line with the master plans for defence disposition and military postures of the defensive zones as well as the building of defensive postures of the military regions, resolutely saying no to economic development at any rate. Notably, it is important to continue combining socio-economic development with defence-security consolidation in the key, strategic, border, sea, and island areas in order to build a firm posture of all-people national defence in the frontier areas. Localities should properly allocate the resources and proactively develop the plans to ensure the budget for building the defensive zones, particularly the military posture in proportion to their economic development and potential. In the process, priority should be given to building essential works in the combat bases, rear bases, logistics and technical bases, key defensive areas, all-level headquarters, and key campaign-level positions in order to establish an extensive, inter-connect, solid posture between the defensive zones and the military regions’ defence and in each strategic direction as well as maintain readiness for defence-security situations.

Fourth, continuing to promote the core role of the armed forces in the building and operation of defensive zones. Local armed forces act as an important element and subject of the building of defensive zones. Thus, it is necessary to make local armed forces “compact and strong” with the great synergy and combat strength and capable of playing the core role in the building and operation of defensive zones and military regions’ defence, meeting the requirements for the Homeland protection in the new situation. The whole Military, particularly the commands of the military regions and Hanoi Capital City should direct local military offices to well perform their key role in cooperating with other offices, committees, sectors and organizations in advising local party committees and authorities on leading and directing the building of defensive zones. In this regard, significance should be attached to counseling localities to enhance the state management of national defence, combine socio-economic development with defence, security, and diplomacy consolidation, build the posture of all-people national defence associated with the posture of people’s security and the potential and posture of defensive zones, particularly the posture of people’s hearts and minds, and plan and invest in building the increasingly strong military postures of defensive zones. At the same time, it is essential to conduct surveys and formulate the plans for defence mobilization, direct localities and sectors to develop the plans for defence support in the first year of a war feasibly in accordance with the practical conditions. Military units should well perform the function as an army ready for work, actively conduct the work of mass mobilization, take part in building political bases, help the people with hunger eradication and poverty reduction and natural disaster prevention and mitigation, and develop economic-defence zones so as to make the postures of all-people national defence and “people’s hearts and minds” strong, particularly in the country’s key areas and strategic directions. Notably, it is vital to frequently maintain a sense of revolutionary vigilance and combat readiness and closely cooperate with forces under the Government’s Decree 77/2010/NĐ-CP in grasping and making accurate forecasts about the situation, and advising all-level party committees and authorities on proper responsive strategies in order to avoid falling into passivity in all situations.

Thoroughly grasping our Party and State’s guidelines on building the defensive zones, the entire Party, Military and people should continue raising a sense of responsibility, promoting the obtained results, and resolving to overcome all difficulties to fulfil this important mission and meet the requirements for the Homeland construction and protection in the new situation.

Sr. Lt. Gen. Phan Van Giang, Member of the Party Central Committee

Standing Member of the CMC, Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army

Deputy Minister of National Defence