Over the years, the work of discipline management and education and the building of safe units within the Military have achieved significant results, greatly contributing to raising its synergy and combat power. However, there have been several weaknesses in discipline management and the building of safe units, which need to be addressed to build the “revolutionary, regular, elite, gradually modern” Military and firmly protect the Homeland in the new situation.

Sr. Lt. Gen. Phan Van Giang, Chief of the General Staff addressing the Conference on reviewing the building of “exemplary, typical” comprehensively-strong units

Discipline management and the building of safe units play a decisive role in creating combat strength and ensuring victories against all enemies, represent a central task in the process of making the Military “revolution, regular, seasoned, gradually modern,” and serve as an important incentive for offices and units across the Military to develop comprehensively and to be capable of successfully fulfilling all assigned missions. Grounded on resolutions and directives by higher echelons, particularly the Directive 26/CT-TTg, dated September 5^th, 2016, by the Prime Minister on strengthening discipline within public offices, the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the Ministry of National Defence (MND) have issued directives, circulars, and guiding documents on discipline management and education, observance of discipline, and disciplinary action in order to achieve a consensus among offices and units within the whole Military. At the same time, they have focused on leading and directing offices and units to adopt a lot of scientific measures for maintaining the Military’s discipline and the State’s law as well as building the politically, ideologically, and organisationally strong Military with the high synergy and combat readiness capacity and making it capable of defending the Homeland in all situations.

Offices and units within the Military have grasped and rather effectively executed resolutions and directives by the CMC and legal normative documents by the MND. Thus, there has been a positive change in the awareness and responsibility of party committees, commands, cadres, employees, and soldiers towards discipline management and the building of safe units. The General Staff, the General Department of Politics, and the MND’s competent offices have given advice to the CMC and the MND on directing offices and units to closely combine political and legal education, introduction of task, and ideology and discipline management with the building of comprehensively strong offices and units, with emphasis placed on building “exemplary, typical” comprehensively-strong units as the basis for others to follow. At the same time, offices and units have been required to take a great deal of measures for ensuring safety in training, combat readiness, garrisoning, guard, traffic, and performance of other tasks. The ideology of officers, professional servicepeople, defence officials, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers have been stabilised and they have kept their mind on their work and showed a sense of responsibility for observing the Military’s discipline, the State’s law, and their units’ regulations. The rate of comprehensively strong and safe units has been pretty high. The Military’s prestige and status as well as the image and virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period have been increasingly consolidated and promoted.

However, positive changes and progress made by offices and units within the entire Military have yet to be really stable. Several party committees and commands’ responsibility for leadership and direction over discipline management and the building of safe units have yet to be high. Grass-roots level cadres’ capacity to grasp and anticipate soldiers’ ideological situation and take measures for discipline management and education has yet to meet the task requirements. The work of troop management has yet to be close or comprehensive. Measures for managing troop ideology, weapons, and military equipment have yet to be effective. Notably, a number of cadres and party members have yet to set good examples for soldiers to follow. Solutions to incidents and discipline violations have yet to be drastic or timely. The capacity of functional offices and especially legal ones to help their party committees and commands provide legal education and services for management of national defence land and finance has yet to be really great. It is worth noting that the number of serious violations of the Military’s discipline and the State’s law has not been reduced yet, which has directly, negatively impacted on our revolutionary Military’s nature, tradition, and prestige, formed negative public opinions, and facilitated the hostile forces’ acts of sabotage.

Against that backdrop, on November 28^th 2019, the MND released the Directive 103/CT-BQP on “continuing to enhance discipline management and education and ensure safety within the Vietnam People’s Army.” To grasp and strictly execute this Directive and improve the quality of discipline management and the building of safe units, in the upcoming time, the whole Military should focus on the main measures as follows.

1. Launching a deep and wide political campaign aimed at raising the awareness and responsibility of cadres and soldiers within the Military towards discipline management and the building of safe units. Party committees, commissars, and commanders of offices and units across the Military should consider it as a central task in the building of safe units and a determinant to raising their offices and units’ synergy and combat strength. Also, they should be determined to synchronously and drastically adopt measures for achieving a huge, comprehensive change in troops’ awareness of this important task. Party committees, commands and mass organisations at all levels should step up the work of propagation and education to render troops fully aware of the significance and necessity of observing the Military’s discipline and the State’s law. The Politburo’s Directive 05-CT/TW on studying and emulating Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle and the Campaign entitled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to Uncle Ho’s soldiers” must be carried out seriously, practically, and effectively. We all know that discipline is an important factor and a source of internal strength to create the Military’s synergy. Thus, while stringently maintaining military discipline, offices and units should provide an inspiration for troops so that they would be “self-aware” to observe the Military’s discipline, as instructed by Ho Chi Minh that “a powerful Army is the result of clever education, sound policy, and strict discipline. Hence, discipline must be severe.” 

The MND’s competent offices, namely the General Staff, the General Department of Politics, particularly the Department of Politico-Military Training, the Department of Propaganda and Training, and the Department of Legal Affairs should direct offices and units to continue stepping up a drastic, comprehensive reform in the work of propagating, disseminating, and educating the State’s law and the Military’s discipline. A focus should be placed on making troops grasp the Regulations on Troop Management, the Regulations on garrisoning and guard, the Law on Road Traffic, the Railway Law, the Civil Aviation Law, resolutions, directives and regulations by the Party, the State, the CMC, and the MND as well as circulars and guiding documents by the General Staff, the General Department of Politics, and functional offices on ideology and discipline management and education and the building of safe and comprehensively strong units. To make the work of propagation and education effective and practical, offices and units should focus on improving their cadres’ competence, experience, and methodology, while diversifying measures for conducting this work in accordance with each group of troops and each area. In addition, it is necessary to raise a sense of vigilance and the awareness of observance of discipline, and the responsibility for building safe and comprehensively strong units, and protecting internal political affairs and military and national secrets among soldiers. Significance should be attached to opportunely drawing lessons from serious violations of the Military’s discipline and the State’s law in order to orientating troops’ ideology and public opinion.

2. Enhancing the all-level party committees and commands’ leadership and direction over discipline management and education and the building of safe units. Party committees and commands of offices and units should continue to review and adjust their work regulations in accordance with the system of regulations and legal normative documents by the Military, the State, and the Communist Party of Vietnam, with a focus on the Circular 192/2016/TT-BQP, dated by November 26^th, 2016, by the Minister of National Defence on types of disciplinary actions and authority to take disciplinary actions within the Military. In the process, importance should be attached introducing regulations on discipline management and safety assurance in training, exercises, garrisoning, guard, and traffic as well as new documents, such as the Government’s Decree 100/2019/NĐ-CP, dated December 12^th, 2019 on “administrative penalties for road traffic offences and rail transport offences” and the MND’s Directive 103/CT-BQP, dated November 28^th, 2019 on “continuing to enhance discipline management and education and ensure safety within the Vietnam People’s Army.” At the same time, it is essential to strictly adhere to adjustments in organisational structure, build strong party organisations and command systems, and make a contingent of cadres and party members at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels capable of meeting the task requirements.

Commander of the Division No.3 talking with soldiers

In the process, offices and units should encourage the role of party organisations, commands, mass organisations, cadres, and party members, particularly at grass-roots level, heighten a sense of unity, strictly execute the Regulations on Grass-Roots Level Democracy, harmoniously manage the relationships between cadres and soldiers, between superiors and inferiors as well as between old soldiers and new recruits, and ensure troops’ life. Doing so will help add a new incentive to raise the quality of discipline management and build safe units. Discipline management and the building of safe units must be seen as an important criterion for assessing the task performance of collectives and individuals (comprehensively strong units, pure and strong party organisations, and the quality of key cadres and political cadres) on a yearly basis. As 2020 is set to be the year of “discipline,” it is important to develop plans with specific targets in all types of units, at all strategic, operational, and tactical levels (especially, detachment-level units must formulate more specific plans). All staff members must always express their determination, match words with action, and associate every deed with discipline. The all-level party committees should include the issues on military standard order building, discipline management, and safety assurance in the Political Reports at the all-level Party Congresses within the Military Party Organisation. Besides, they should concretise these issues into guidelines and measures for resolutely minimising and gradually putting an end to serious violations of the Military’s discipline, the State’s law, and units’ regulations.

To that end, the work of inspection and investigation must be carried out in accordance with its function and task. The all-level politico-military training offices should step up inspection and supervision of realisation of 5 criteria for building comprehensively strong units, with emphasis placed on the criterion No.3 (military standard order building and discipline management) and new points of the criteria No. 1, No. 4, and No. 5 on building “exemplary, typical” comprehensively strong units. Great value should be attached to inspecting and supervising offices and units’ handling of weaknesses as well as resolutely combating, preventing, and stringently settling serious violations of the Military’s discipline and the State’ law, such as corruption, negative practices, group interest, misapplication of principles, degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle, and violation of party members’ don’ts.

3. Continuing to achieve a comprehensive, synchronous reform and huge, solid positive change in ideology and discipline management and the building of safe units within the Military. Over the time, offices and units across the Military have implemented many measures for improving the quality of discipline management and the building of safe units. However, the number of discipline violations and particularly serious ones tends to increase. Thus, right in the beginning of 2020, the entire Military should strive for a synchronous, comprehensive, drastic, effective reform and a huge positive change in ideology and discipline management and the building of safe units.

Regarding discipline management, offices and units should continue closely combining measures of education with administrative penalties so as to resolutely, opportunely, effectively, strictly, completely deal with violations of discipline under the Military’s regulations and the State’s law. Coordination between offices of propaganda and education, politico-military training, and operations in legal and political education, ideological management, and discipline management should be closely maintained. Offices and units should improve cadres’ experience, method, and capacity to grasp, anticipate, and assess troops’ ideological situation, their skills in legal education, and their capability in taking measures for preventing violations of discipline, while raising the quality of recruiting young people to the Military and training officers and non-commissioned officers. At the same time, they should closely manage relationships of their staff members, particularly those working in the sensitive fields and independent units.

The General Staff and the General Department of Politics should direct military schools to review and renew their training content and programmes, with a focus on increasing duration for training skills and methods of troop and ideological management in accordance with reality of grass-roots level units. Due regard should be paid to requiring cadres, superiors, offices, schools, instructors, and party members to set good examples for soldiers, inferiors, units, cadets, and the masses respectively to follow.

With reference to the building of safe units, offices and units within the Military should adhere to and fulfil the criteria and requirements set by the MND for building comprehensively strong and safe units in accordance with their assigned tasks. In this regard, significance should be attached to implementing regulations and measures for managing the quantity and quality of soldiers, weapons, technical equipment, and military means during the process of training, exercise, garrisoning, guard, search, rescue, and performance of other missions. Notably, it is vital to adopt measures for closely managing individual equipment, such as cars, motorcycles, smart phones, and tablets under units’ regulations, the Military’s discipline, and the State’s law. Moreover, due regard should be paid to multiplying the model of “exemplary, typical” comprehensively-strong unit for all types of offices and units, frequently drawing lessons, and opportunely dealing with weaknesses as the basis for proposing measures for building safe units. Due attention should be paid to building healthy cultural environment and excellently strong and effective mass organisations, promoting democracy, and creating a favourable condition for troops to keep their mind on their work.

The whole Military should preserve the fine nature of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers,” make discipline “self-conscious and strict,” and continue grasping and effectively executing the Politburo’s Resolution 35-NQ/TW, dated October 22^nd, 2018 on “enhancing the defence of the Party’s ideological foundation and the struggle against the hostile, wrong viewpoints in the new situation” so as to ensure the safety and purity of organisations and cadres within the Military. To that end, offices and units should promote the role of organisations, especially the force 47 in combating and foiling the hostile forces’ plots and acts of sabotage in order to resolutely defend the Party’s ideological foundation and the Military’s revolutionary nature and tradition, while keeping raising the Military’s prestige, status, and combat power to meet the requirements set by the Homeland protection in all situations.

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