Discipline is the Military’s strength. Therefore, together with the breakthrough in organizational structure and training, the Resolution of the 10^th Military Party Congress also set a breakthrough in the observance of discipline and law so as to make the Military “revolutionary, regular, seasoned, gradually modern”, unceasingly improve its combat strength, and successfully fulfil the task assigned by the Party, State, and people.

Enhancing the Military’s discipline management is an important policy and measure for its improved synergy and combat strength to ensure that the Military could readily undertake and successfully fulfil every assigned task. Thus, over the past years, the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the Ministry of National Defence (MND) have directed offices and units within the Military to synchronously adopt various measures to raise the quality and effectiveness of observing the Military’s discipline and the State’s law and building comprehensively strong offices and units.

Sr. Lt. Gen. Phan Van Giang inspecting the Air Defence - Air Force Academy’s training course on the training ground

It should be noted that there has been a rather comprehensive, positive change in observing the discipline and building safe units across the Military. The awareness and responsibility of all-level party committees and commands as well as cadres and soldiers towards the observance of State’s law, military discipline, and units’ regulations have been unceasingly improved. The work of political and legal education has been drastically renewed in terms of content, form, and method. Units have combined this work with the measures for administrative and discipline management and improved their cadres and soldiers’ life. The MND’s strategic offices, particularly the General Staff and the General Political Department (GPD) have thoroughly grasped the Party and State’s resolutions and directives as well as the situation to proactively advise the CMC and the MND on issuing directives and documents and taking the measures for raising the quality and effectiveness of ideological and discipline management. Due attention has been paid to building healthy cultural environment and promoting democracy, unity, and discipline. Campaigns and emulation movements on discipline management and traffic safety have been strictly maintained. As a result, the majority of cadres and soldiers within the Military have kept their mind on their work, and they have been self-ware to abide by discipline and law. The order for combat readiness, training, study, and daily activities has been maintained in a close, strict, scientific manner; a sense of unity within units has been encouraged; the relationships between cadres and soldiers and between superiors and inferiors have been harmoniously settled. Moreover, the values of military culture and the image of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period have been promoted.

However, the changes and progress in observing discipline and ensuring safety within military offices and units have yet to be drastic, profound, equal, or solid. The work of troop management has yet to be effective, close, or synchronous at all levels. Grass-roots level cadres’ method and experience in grasping and managing soldiers’ ideology and settling discipline violations have yet to be scientific; some of them have shown the sign of hiding soldiers’ weaknesses and shortcomings. Several soldiers have yet to achieve self-awareness towards the training task and the observance of discipline and social rules, particularly in rest hours and days off and on leave. Some offices and units’ party committees and commands’ capabilities in forecasting and preventing discipline violations and traffic accidents have been limited. Notably, several party committees, key cadres, and even senior-level cadres have managed and used finance, property, materials, and defence land ineffectively, thereby leading to violations of the State’s law and the Military’s discipline, negatively impacting on the Military’s prestige, nature, tradition, and combat strength and readiness. In addition, the dark side of the market economy and social networks as well as the hostile forces’ sabotage have been negatively, directly impacting on cadres and soldiers’ ideology, sentiment, and life and posing a lot of difficulties and challenges to the work of ideological and discipline management.

In order to overcome those weaknesses, opportunely prevent and settle violations, and enhance the Military’s discipline management and combat strength, in the upcoming time, party committees and commands of offices and units within the Military should heighten their responsibility and determinedly adopt various measures synchronously to build comprehensively strong offices and units, with a focus on the following.

First, enhancing the all-level party committees and commands’ leadership and direction over the observance of Military discipline and State’s law. Party committees, commands, commissars, and political offices should be fully aware that it is a political task of utmost importance which helps create the combat strength of offices and units together with the streamlining of the organizational structure, political education, military training, and logistics-technical support. Therefore, offices and units should grasp and effectively implement resolutions and directives by the CMC and the MND as well as guiding documents by the General Staff and the GPD on the work of educating and managing Military discipline and State’s law. Grounded on those documents, they should adjust and supplement the policies and measures to achieve a breakthrough in discipline management and safety maintenance in combat training. Moreover, they should concretize those documents into the requirements, criteria, and measures in party committees’ resolutions and commanders’ working plans in accordance with units’ particularities and tasks as well as each group of troops.

To raise the effectiveness of this work, offices and units should frequently review, supplement, complete, and stringently implement the system of working regulations for all-level commands. Based on the MND’s experiences in building “comprehensively strong, typical, exemplary” model units, it is necessary to multiply this model across the Military and amend and supplement the Directive 917 in accordance with the new situation, with a focus on setting specific targets and requirements for the observance of Military discipline and State’s law and the building of safe units. In the medium term, the whole Military should strive to reduce the rate of soldiers’ minor violations of discipline (below 0.3%), minimize serious violations of discipline, and avoid letting incidents in combat training and exercises as well as traffic accidents due to subjective reasons happen.  To strictly maintain discipline, all-level party committees and organizations should include this work in monthly, quarterly, yearly resolutions, introduce those resolutions to all staff members, and organize democratic discussions about the measures to successfully execute those resolutions. Moreover, they should step up the work of education to raise troops’ awareness of conformity to directives, leadership, direction, and decisions by party committees and commands. At the same time, measures should be taken to overcome weaknesses in observing discipline and law, building units, especially fulfil the targets of the Campaign 50, and achieve a breakthrough in building “politically strong, militarily powerful, disciplined units with great combat strength” and making them ready to undertake and accomplish all assigned tasks.

In the process, strategic offices, particularly the General Staff and the GPD need to focus on leading, directing, inspecting, and helping offices and units, with emphasis placed on the units tasked with combat readiness, sensitive fields, and stationed in complex areas, and the forces working independently and far away from their headquarters. Party committees and commands of offices and units should renew their leadership, adopt the measures drastically, synchronous to enhance discipline management and responsibility, attach importance to conducting reviews and drawing lessons on the observance of Military discipline and State’s law in line with the Resolution of the 12^th Party Central Committee’s 4^th Plenum on Party building and rectification and the Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW on studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle in order to seek the measures for more scientific, effective, practical leadership and direction. 

Second, continuing to renew the work of political, ideological, and legal education, raising troops’ awareness of observance of Military discipline and State’s law. In order to build sustainably strong offices and units across the Military without serious violations of discipline and law, the all-level party committees and commands should take various measures, with significance attached to political, ideological, and legal education and dissemination. Offices and units should concentrate on comprehensively renewing this work synchronously, practically, effectively in accordance with each group of troops, each area’s particularities, and each assigned task. Focuses of propagation and education must be placed on rendering soldiers fully ware of the importance and necessity of observing military discipline and law, and making them responsible, determined, and self-aware in the process. Great value should be attached to sufficiently, qualitatively executing the programs for political and legal education on a yearly basis and updating new points of the regulations, directives, and documents on discipline management and observance of law. Notably, it is vital to educate troops’ awareness to abide by superiors’ orders, laws on land road traffic, interior waterway traffic, civil aviation, and cyber security, and regulations on social activities, public order, and behaving culture in public places.

At present, the hostile forces are taking advantages of weaknesses in troop management, training, combat readiness, and task performance in a bid to sabotage our Military, particularly in cyber space. Thus, the MND’s competent offices, particularly the High Command 86, the Department of Legal Affairs, the Department of Propaganda and Training, and the Department of Military Security should closely cooperate with one another in developing the programs and methods of political, ideological, and legal education and directing offices, units, and press agencies within the Military to perform this work. To make this work effective, the entire Military should better organize training courses on the legal knowledge, method, skills in psychological and legal education and assistance for all-level cadres, with a focus on political cadres and those who are in charge of managing troops. At the same time, it is essential to actively renew the method of education and propagation in the process of training and teaching, orientate troops’ ideology, equip troops with basic, necessary skills in receiving and settling information, raise their vigilance, resolutely prevent the hostile forces from inciting troops to violate the Military’s discipline and the State’s law, especially in cyber space. In addition, it is imperative to diversify forms and methods of propagation and education, closely combine political and legal education with training in troop management regulations under the yearly program, include political and legal education in units’ Determined to Win Emulation Movement and troops’ daily activities, and create a healthy legal cultural environment for troops’ self-improvement. Via political education and administrative measures, it is essential to build up troops’ political zeal and absolute faith in the Party’s ideal, the country’s renewal, and the Military’s modernization process, raise their awareness of discipline, make them immune to negative practices from the society, dark side of the market economy, and sabotage by the hostile forces against the Military, and ensure that in any circumstance, the Military must preserve and promote the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” and traditions of revolutionary soldiers.

Third, taking the measures synchronously to strengthen troop and discipline management within the Military. Offices and units should closely, effectively stick to the plans for work and training, strictly maintain the order for the management of units’ strength at each level, and closely cooperate with soldiers’ localities and families in grasping their ideology and closely managing their observance of discipline, with emphasis placed on those who have unusual signs of psychology and sentiment so as to adopt the measures to prevent and completely settle violations, particularly complex violations, and avoid falling into passivity.

 To make the work of ideological and discipline management practically effective, offices and units should attach importance to improving all-level cadres and especially new officers’ capability, experience, and method of human and materiel management as well as their skills in handling the arising ideological issues. At the same time, consideration should be given to strictly, justly, openly, transparently, democratically handling violations of the Military’s discipline and State’s law and opportunely informing troops of violations of discipline and law within the Military monthly, quarterly as the basis for drawing lessons and orientating troops’ ideology, awareness, and action as well as locals’ opinion in the areas. In the process, each soldier, unit, and sector should grasp and flexibly, effectively perform their task and work relationships under the military regulations and law. Superiors should set examples for inferiors to follow; cadres set examples for soldiers to follow; and offices set examples for units to follow. Party committees and commands of offices and units should promote their role in advising, inspecting, supervising, and helping competent offices, particularly the offices in charge of operations, military training, legal affairs, inspection, investigation, and military security to determinedly prevent and repel the signs of “self-evolution”, “self-transformation”, abuse of power, negative practices, irresponsibility, and poor management which could lead to violations of the Military’s discipline and the State’s law.

Besides, offices and units should promote the role of mass organizations, better implement the Regulations on Grass-Roots Level Democracy, and conduct reviews to draw lessons, point out the reasons for their weaknesses, seek the remedial measures, and opportunely commend collectives and individuals with the outstanding achievements in managing and observing the Military’s discipline and the State’s law as well as building safe units. Due regard should be paid to grasping the areas’ political security, formulating the measures for troop management scientifically, effectively, improving troops’ mental and material life, and well implementing the policy for military families to keep their mind on their work. At the same time, great weight should be added to building healthy cultural environment, raising the effectiveness of soldiers’ clubs, actively building units’ “bright, green, clean, beautiful” barracks, and stepping up cultural, artistic, and sport activities in order to improve troops’ fitness and make them capable of the requirements set by training and combat readiness. Besides, offices, units, schools, and military press agencies should enhance the work of propagation to opportunely, effectively fight against the hostile forces’ distortions and tricks of “depoliticizing” and “civilizing” the Military and resolutely safeguard the Party’s ideological background, State, people, socialist regime, and the Military’s prestige.

Grasping and following the direction “discipline is the Military’s strength” will make contributions to making the Military “revolutionary, regular, seasoned, gradually modern”, unceasingly raising its combat strength and readiness, and making them capable of defeating all invaders and successfully fulfilling the mission assigned by the Party, State, and people.

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

Member of the CMC Standing Board, Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army, Deputy Minister of National Defence