Thoroughly grasping the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines on building the people’s armed forces and bringing into play the glorious traditions of the heroic Vietnam People’s Army, the Navy has intensely built the “revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled and modernized” Service, continuously improved the overall quality and combat power as the cores to firmly safeguard the sacred sovereignty over seas and islands of the Fatherland.

The Vietnam People’s Navy is an important service of the Vietnam People’s Army, which is tasked with safeguarding the Fatherland in one main direction; a core service in managing and protecting the sovereignty, sovereign rights, territorial unity and integrity, national interests in the seas and islands of the Fatherland, etc. and building the all-people national defence posture at sea. Thoroughly understanding these great responsibilities, generations of cadres and soldiers of the Service have inherited and brought into play the traditions of the Army and the nation to build a mature and strong force, which has achieved many excellent feats, successfully accomplished the tasks assigned by the Party, State and people, making deserving contribution to the glorious achievements of the Army.

Conducting live-firing exercise

In the anti-US resistance war for national salvation, the Naval soldiers took part in hundreds of battles, destroyed many enemy forces, sank hundreds of warships, aircrafts and foiled the plot of blocking the sealine of the enemies; opened the Ho Chi Minh Trail at sea, efficiently supported the Southern battlefield; bravely, courageously and timely attacked, liberated and took control of the Spratly, etc. together with our troops and people making contribution to completely liberating the South, and reunifying the country. In the era of renovation, the Service has actively and proactively made research, upheld the situations, well implemented the strategic consultation and accomplished the task of being a core to firmly protect the sovereignty, sovereign rights, and national jurisdiction rights at sea. Especially, in recent years, implementing the policies of the Party, State, Central Military Commission and Ministry of National Defence on advancing straight to modernity, the Service has intensely rearranged the organisation and staff, built the forces, modernised weapons and technical equipment, adjusted the strategic arrangement, etc. creating breakthroughs and improving the overall quality and combat power to be the core in protecting the sovereignty over seas and islands of the Fatherland.

Presently, there still exist complicated and unforeseeable situations in the world and region; the East Sea is concealing many unstable dangers, leading to new changes, etc. Inside the country, the revolutionary cause of our people is facing chances, advantages and difficulties, challenges which are intertwined. This situation sets higher requirements for the task of safeguarding the Fatherland in general, protecting the sovereignty over seas and islands in particular. To meet the task requirements, the Party Committee and Command of the Service have intensely made their leadership and direction on “Promoting the heroic traditions to build the revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, modernised Service having knowledge and high combat readiness to win in any situations” with many drastic and synchronous solutions as follows:

Firstly, continuing to effectively grasp and implement the Party’s policies on building the elite, compact and strong Navy with high combat readiness. The Service continues to grasp and implement Resolution No. 05-NQ/TW, dated 17 January 2022 by the Politburo; Resolution No. 230-NQ/QUTW, dated 02 April 2022 by the Central Military Commission and Plan No. 1228/KH-BQP, dated 25 April 2022 by the Ministry of National Defence on organising the Vietnam People’s Army in the 2021-2030 period and the following years, focusing on the leadership and direction over checking and adjusting the organisations and forces in the “elite, compact, strong” way, synchronously solving all 03 factors of humans, organisation and staff, weapons and technical equipment suitably with the guidelines of all-people national defence and people’s war at sea; adjusting the organisations, in-place and mobile forces to fit the disposition of the Naval forces in the sea waters and islands; giving priority to combatting forces, the Spratly, DK-1 platforms, radar stations and newly-founded units; completely merging the Logistics and Technique of the Service to be in quality and effective use; implementing strictly and synchronously all steps, taking the adjustment of “elite, compact” staff as the centre, the completion of the strong and typical party committees and organisations as the core; especially in the coming time, paying attention to leading and directing the preparation and successful organisation of the Party Congress at all levels and the Service Party Congress in the 2025-2030 period, creating new impetus and development.

The Service should proactive coordinate with other forces, actively make research, forecast and correct evaluation of situations in sea waters and islands; build and adjust the system of combat documents suitably with the organisation and staff of each force; strictly maintain the orders and regulations of combat readiness duty; continuously check and complete the legal documents to create the legal corridor and mechanism of enhancing the coordination and support between the Navy and other forces of Coast Guard, Fisheries Surveillance, Border Guard, local armed forces, etc., creating the synergy, timely, accurately and effectively solving all situations without any passiveness and suddenness.

A submarine in operation

Secondly, accelerating the renovation, improving the quality of political education and training, building the contingent of Naval cadres and soldiers who have stable political spirit, professional knowledge and meet the “highly-skilled” requirement. From the incident of “Gulf of Tonkin” in 1964 to the tricks of invading the sea waters, stipulating, excusing, colliding, etc. by foreign boats in recent years, the improvement of political spirit, professional knowledge and skills for cadres and soldiers appears to be an important and urgent issue. Therefore, the Service has advocated closely combining the political education with training to build the Naval soldiers who are “consistent in political spirit, good at naval operation and proficient in professional knowledge”, have good health and capacity of creativity, high adaptation to any changes, determination and effectiveness in solving situations, and high readiness in defeating all operational tricks and approaches from the enemies. To achieve this target, the Service enhances the grasp and implementation of resolutions and directives on the political education and training, focusing on the Directive No. 2423-CT/QUTW, dated 09 November 2023 by the Central Military Commission on “renovating and improving the political education in the new period”; Resolution No. 1659-NQ/QUTW, dated 20 December 2022 by the Central Military Commission; Resolution No. 1378-NQ/ĐU, dated 30 March 2023 by the Service Party Committee on improving the training quality in the 2023-2030 period and the following years. The Service is to pay attention to improving the effectiveness of the party and political work in education and training; appreciating the education of political spirit, traditions and transmission of combat experience, building the trust in weapons, technical equipment, combat methods of the Navy, etc.

Bringing into play the experience and the achievements, the Service continues to direct the education and training in the “basic, practical, solid” motto, and “the training quality of schools decides the combat readiness capacity of units”; emphasises the training which is synchronous, in-depth and close to combat objects, tasks, battlefields, organisation and staff, taking the tasks of protecting the sovereignty over seas and islands, and building the revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled and modernised Service as the training target; continues to breakthrough into basic and in-depth training, exploitation and mastery of new and modern weapons and technical equipment; enhanced the training at far seas, and training in complex weather conditions, combination between training with doing the tasks at sea; actively holds real-troop military exercises, large-scale military exercises, antagonistic military exercises or joint military exercises, etc. in order to train soldiers’ spirit and skills, health, operation competence and cadres’ capacity of organisation, command and operation; especially, enhancing the application of IT, digital technology, automatic commanding and cyberspace operations in training and military exercises; builds and well practises all plans on readily dealing with traditional and non-traditional challenges. All academies and schools in the Service continue to reform and improve the quality of education and training, widen the education cooperation domestically and internationally; selectively acquire the experience of education and training from schools, armies and navies in other countries in order to build and develop the high-quality human resources, meeting the task requirements in the new situation.

Thirdly, making investment to develop and modernise weapons, technical equipment, and build the synchronous system of logistic-technical support. Being the force prioritised to advance straight to modernity; the Service has been invested and reinforced with many types of new and modern weapons and technical equipment. Moreover, it has repaired and built centres of logistic-technical support, making foundation for the improvement of overall quality and combat power. However, the strong development of military science and technology together with the requirement of implementing the target of “… striving to 2030 to build the revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled and modernised Army” have requested the stronger process of modernisation of the Service. To meet the above requirement, the Service continues to make research and grasp the development trends of new weapons and equipment in the world and industries within the country, on those bases, to coordinate with the functional organs to advise the Central Military Commission, the Ministry of National Defence to build and execute research plans and programmes, designs of weapons and equipment which are suitable with the operational conditions of seas and islands in Vietnam, gradually self-managing the weapons and equipment. At the same time, the Service continues to advise the Party and State to purchase modern equipment to be able to observe and supervise the airspace, sea surface and beneath in the main areas, new-generation weapons to be ready for protecting the off-shore sea waters and islands in all situations; attends humanitarian aids and prevents non-traditional threats at sea. Together, it will continue to upgrade and build the system of logistic-technical support in the “basic, regular, synchronous, modern” way combined with building the logistic-technical potentials in the coastal defence zones; actively make research and renovation to improve the logistic-technical support capacity, especially the one of supporting new-gen weapons and equipment for forces doing specific tasks of locating for long time on high seas and islands, meeting the support requirement in all situations.

Fourthly, actively researching and developing the art of naval combat. In the two resistance wars against the French feudalists and American imperialists, despite facing the enemies possessing superiority in weapons and equipment, our Army in general, the Navy Service in particular inherited and creatively brought into play the art of Vietnam people’s war, the determination of “daring to fight, being determined to fight and to win” to achieve such great victories. Presently, in the context of turning-point development of the military science, technology and art, it requires to make research to develop the art of naval combat suitably with new conditions of the cause of safeguarding the Fatherland, directly the requirements of protecting the sovereignty over seas and islands. Accordingly, the Service directs its offices and units to continuously grasp and implement Resolution No. 1652-NQ/QUTW, dated 20 December 2022 by the Central Military Commission on leading the military science to 2030 and the following years; enhances the research of summaries of military campaigns, battles and operational activities of the Navy in the revolutionary wars, especially the features of sea battle art, lessons in combatting on rivers and seas of the nation and the practical experience on protecting the sovereignty over seas and islands, considering them as the foundations to complete the theories of combat methods for forces and the art of naval combat, at the same time, research and forecast the development trends of new operation methods in airspace, overland, sea surface, in water, magnetic and underground environments; strong points and weak points of new types of technical equipment, etc. in order to apply and develop the art of naval combat in the highly-developed people’s war protecting the Fatherland, making it suitable with the development of the situations, tasks, organisations and staff, weapons and technical equipment of the Service and its operational objects.

Being proud of the glorious traditions of the Vietnam People’s Army and the heroic Naval soldiers, the Navy continues to raise the spirit of resilience, self-reliance, solidarity and creativity, be determined to build the “revolutionary, regular, highly-skilled, modernised” Service, deserving to be the core force in protecting the sovereignty over seas and islands, the peaceful and stable environment at sea, contributing to the steady growth of Vietnam in the era national rise.

Vice Admiral TRAN THANH NGHIEM, Member of the Party Central Committee, Member of the Central Military Commission, Commander of the Navy