General Phung Quang Thanh chairs the Conference on Strategy to safeguard the Fatherland in the new situation (Photo: qdnd.vn)

First and foremost, it is necessary to continue to grasp  thoroughly the Resolution 8 (XI tenure) on the Strategy to safeguard the Fatherland in the new situation through out the military.

Party executive committees and commanders at all levels must grasp thoroughly: firstly, the goals of the strategy are “To  firmly protect independence, sovereignty, unity and integrity of the country; the Party, State, people and the socialist regime; protect the renovation cause, industrialisation and modernisation; protect national interests and political security, social law and order, and the country’s culture; maintain political stability and peaceful environment for national construction and development towards  socialist orientation.”; secondly, the basic viewpoints determined in the Resolution should be firmly grasped are: to maintain the  absolute,   direct and all-round  leadership  of the Party over the cause of the protection of the Fatherland; be steadfast with the aim of national independence associated with socialism; to combine closely the two strategic tasks of constructing and protecting the Fatherland; to build the country’s synergy from political, economic, social, defence, security, cultural, …elements and to combine national strength with the power of times to firmly protect the Socialist Fatherland; be consistent with independence and self-reliance orientation and be active and proactive in international integration; to soundly apply the Party’s view of partner and opponent; to enhance the quality of forecasting and controlling the situation to actively prevent, early detect and destroy unexpected and harmful factors. Parallel with this, they also have to be deeply aware of directive guidelines, missions and basic  solutions set out in the Resolution 8.

To successfully accomplish the Strategy to safeguard the Fatherland, one of the primary tasks set out for the military  is to enhance the quality of strategic forecasting work; be active in consulting and proposing to the Party, State the guidelines, policies and solutions for protection the Fatherland. Studying, assessing  and anticipating the situation must be carried out strictly at all levels, especially the strategic ones. Functional agencies of the Ministry of National Defence must  actively coordinate with other ministries , in particular the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security to update changes in the world and  regional situation, as well as domestic issue and the East Sea and border areas situations and opportunely consult and propose sound and flexible settlements for complicated situation and sensitive matters in terms of internal and external affairs, especially those relating to defence and security and, at the same time, not allow the enemy to take advantage and conduct sabotage actions. Military units must grasp their missions, opportunely adjust and supplement their combat plan and solution in accordance with the developments of the situation, with the features of the combat area, especially the focused areas of defence and security, such as: border, sea, island. Combat strength of the military is manifested in the capability to carry out and accomplish the mission to protect Fatherland in any situations. As the key force in carrying out the Strategy to safeguard the Fatherland, the VPA must be active and proactive in building a strong all-people defence. First, functional bodies of the Ministry of National Defence need to screen, supplement and perfect system of laws on Fatherland protection and legal documents relating to military and defence; at the same time, they need to be active in guiding, promoting and checking the law enforcement army-wide so that implementation of the laws are made easy with high effectiveness. Military agencies at all levels must be active in consulting for party executive committees and authorities in localities in defence and security education, making this a routine, contributing to enhance the awareness and responsibility of cadres, party members, students, and people of all strata for the mission to protect the Fatherland. In addition, all people’s defence posture associated with people’s security posture  must be consolidated in each area throughout the country. Besides, importance need to be attached to perfecting mechanism, capability in coordinating operations among forces, especially between the VPA and Public Security to enhance the effectiveness in avoiding, preventing and dealing with incidents relating to defence and security. On this basis, to promote synergy of the whole political system, boosting defence struggle in peace time, defeating every act of “peaceful evolution” of hostile forces and actively smash down any aggressive wars once wars occur..

To successfully implement the Strategy to protect the Fatherland, it is a must to build the VPA towards “revolutionary, regular, seasoned and gradually modern” direction with high quality and capability in combat and combat readiness. Accordingly, units must pay special attention to making the VPA strong politically, ideologically and organizationally, making the military truly a faithful and reliable political and fighting force of the Party, the State and the people; educate each cadre and soldier so that they are deeply aware of their fighting goals, have strong political will, not to oscillate in difficult situations; to deal with the incidents calmly, flexibly in accordance with the Party’s viewpoint, guidelines and policies…; attach importance to restructuring the organization for both the regular and the reserved forces  towards seasoned, compact and powerful with high mobility and reasonable correlation among  forces, between quality and quantity, between human resource and weapon.

Training must be renovated comprehensively, focusing on the motto of  “basics, practicalities, thorough grasp”; push up renovating content and method of training; pay attention to training for all kinds of troops so that they can master and make the best use of the existing weapons and equipment; strengthen joint exercises, defensive areas conduct exercises on defence zones to meet the combat requirement in the new situation, especially in sea and island combat. Military arts science  work needs to be kept updated with reality, in particular new types of wars, armed conflicts; as well as new emerged methods of conducting warfare. Simultaneously much importance should be attached to the combination of developing combat  experiences and  studying combat arts to defend the Fatherland in the new situation, ceaselessly develop Vietnam’s art of people’s war which is composed of both traditional and modern factors. On the other hand, military units need to push up law propagation, dissemination and education, disciplining to enhance the synergy, capability and combat readiness of the VPA

To build the VPA towards the direction of “revolutionary, regular, seasoned and gradually modern”  in light of the Party’s Resolution at the XI National Congress, in the coming time, the whole military  needs to broaden foreign relationship to attract resources, share experience in building the military and enhance defence capacity. Besides, the whole military  needs to attach importance to the building and developing the defence industry to improve capability in producing weapons, technical equipment for armed forces in general and the VPA in particular, meeting the demand of Fatherland protection in the new situation.

One of the fundamentals is to focus on the building of the  VPA Party Commitee  and party organizations strong and pure in politics, ideology and structure, ensuring the capable leadership for fulfilling the mission to protect the Fatherland  in the new situation. To carrying out the Party building work is, in essence, to maintain and strengthen the Party’s resolute and direct all-round leadership over the VPA This is also the foundation for the VPA always to be a truly loyal and reliable political force of the Party, the State and the People and the key force in fulfilling the task to protect the  Fatherland .

General Phung Quang Thanh

Member of the Politburo, Vice Secretary of the Central Military Commission

Minister of National Defence