Military science work represents an important task aimed at creating a strong incentive for the building of a “compact, lean, strong” Army towards modernity. Thus, the entire Army, particularly party committees and commands of offices and units shall proactively, synchronously employ groups of tasks and measures to well perform this crucial work and satisfy the requirements set by Army building and Fatherland protection in the new situation.

Over the years, under the leadership and direction by the Central Military Commission (CMC) and the Ministry of National Defence (MND), science and technology researches have been carried out in a synchronous, focalized, practical, effective manner, thus opportunely providing the Party, State, CMC, and MND with scientific arguments for formulating military-defence guidelines and policies. Notable achievements are listed as follows.

Military art science and military social science and humanities have focused on researching and analyzing global, regional, and domestic situations as well as new forms of warfare, proposing strategies to prevent risks of conflict and war from afar, and developing Vietnamese military art and theories of building all-people national defence and people’s war in the new condition. Moreover, attention has been paid to supplementing and completing theories of building a politically strong Army, maintaining and enhancing the Party’s absolute, direct leadership over the Army, upholding and promoting the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new situation.

Sr. Lt. Gen. Le Huy Vinh inspecting the work of science research and digital transformation at Military Technical Academy (photo: qdnd.vn)

Military science and technology have witnessed robust developments, gained significant achievements, mastered several modern military science and technology fields, proactively designed, manufactured, and upgraded a large number of weapons and equipment. Military logistics science and medical science have actively researched into methods of logistics and medical assurance for forms of warfare, natural disaster prevention and combat, climate change management, and environmental protection, thereby contributing to enhancing national defence potential, the armed forces’ combat strength, and the building of a modernity-oriented Army.

Military science potential has witnessed both quantitative and qualitative new developments, effectively serving science researches and technological transfer. Science research and technical innovation movements, especially the “Army-wide Creative Youth” movement has had robust, deep, and wide developments. On a yearly basis, hundreds of science projects and works of high value have been put into use as important contributions to improving the quality of training and combat readiness, building “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units, meeting the requirements of Fatherland construction and protection in the new situation.

In addition to those above-mentioned achievements, military science work has yet to keep pace with practical developments; the cadre of military scientists, particularly high-caliber human resources has been deficient; the quality of some researches has yet to be high or practically effective; digital transformation for military science work have been still slow.

In the upcoming years, the world will continue witnessing major, rapid, complex, unpredictable changes. Peace, cooperation, and development constitute a major trend, however, encounter challenges and difficulties. A multi-polar, multi-center world is being more clearly shaped, while strategic competition between major powers and disputes over territorial sovereignty, particularly at sea and on islands are more intense. The 4^th industrial revolution with its achievements in new materials, artificial intelligence, digital technology, Internet of Things, and cloud computing have been creating opportunities for and posing challenges to all aspects of social life, especially defence and security. Recent armed races and confrontations worldwide have revealed that the robust development of military science and technology together with the advent of many types of modern weapons and military hardware have led to new forms of warfare, new strategic spaces, and new methods of conducting wars.

As for Vietnam, after nearly 40 years of national renovation, its potential, position, and international prestige have been unceasingly improved as an important prerequisite for more sustainable and robust development in the new period. However, our country is still confronted with a lot of difficulties and challenges. Hostile forces and political opportunists have been enhancing sabotage against our Party, State, and Army via the “peaceful evolution” Strategy, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation”, and “depoliticization” of our Army together with extremely foxy plots and artifices. The building of a “compact, lean, strong” Army towards modernity has been placing pressing scientific and technological demands on not only exploiting but also designing and manufacturing modern weapons and equipment.

To satisfy the requirements set by Army building and Fatherland protection in the new situation, the entire Army shall step up military science work with new research thinking, objectives, and solutions. To that end, emphasis should be placed on main solutions as follows.

First, raising the quality of research and forecast to provide the CMC and MND with defence strategy-related advice. This is a solution of paramount importance to ensuring that the Fatherland will not fall into passivity in any circumstance especially when the world and region are now facing a lot of risks of instability with the complicated intertwining of partners and opponents. Therefore, the whole Army, particularly the Military Science Branch shall continue grasping and seriously implementing Resolution 1652-NQ/QUTW, dated December 20^th, 2022 by the CMC on leadership over military science work towards 2030 and beyond, while enhancing all-level party committees and commands’ leadership and direction over this important work. In the short term, emphasis should be placed on developing and supplementing solutions within highly feasible specialized resolutions at all levels to implement Resolution 1652-NQ/QUTW.

Significance should be attached to grasping the situation to opportunely give advice to the Party, State, CMC, and MND on effectively implementing Resolution of the 13^th Party Central Committee’s 8^th Plenum on the Fatherland Protection Strategy in the new situation, the National Defence Strategy, the Military Strategy of Vietnam, and other specialized strategies. In this regard, great weight should be placed on researching and correctly forecasting objects of combat, plots, artifices, methods of conducting wars, and new forms of warfare, particularly at sea, on islands, and in border areas. Due attention should be paid to analyzing, assessing, and correctly forecasting defence and security-related situations, opportunely proposing measures and strategies to prevent risks of conflict and war from afar, avoid falling into passivity, and maintain a peaceful environment for national development. Importance should be attached to developing theories about conducting people’s war for Fatherland protection, building all-people national defence and all-people national defence posture associated with people’s security posture, forming a firm “posture of people’s hearts and minds” as well as formulating modern Vietnamese military theories to meet the requirements of Fatherland protection in the new condition.

Second, stepping up the development of military art science. Our Army and people’s Fatherland protection task is encountering very new issues. Grasping viewpoints, objectives, directions, tasks, and measures set in the Fatherland Protection Strategy in the new situation, lessons learnt from the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine, particularly the issues on identifying methods of combat and command, flexibly combining forms of warfare with weapons and equipment on the battlefield as well as on building and consolidating defensive postures, competent offices, units, and schools within the Army shall enhance practical review and develop theories about preparing and carrying out people’s war in the new condition, building the people’s armed forces and People’s Army, adjusting force disposition in strategic areas, formulating combat projects, and mobilizing the country’s potential for wars. At the same time, consideration should be given to developing theories about forms of strategic, campaign-level, and joint combat, military region defensive combat, defensive zone combat, and civil defence during a people’s war for Fatherland protection. Applying achievements in the 4^th industrial revolution, offices and units shall focus on the art of using forces provided with modern weapons and equipment, such as Air Defence – Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Technical Reconnaissance, Electronic Warfare, Cyberspace Warfare in order to opportunely, effectively respond to traditional and non-traditional security threats. Besides, it is important to further research, develop, and complete the system of operational regulations, regulations for operational and staff work, and documents for training and teaching so as to contribute to raising the quality of training, combat readiness, education, and military science research.

Third, fostering the development of military social science and humanities. This is an important solution to unceasingly consolidating and improving the Army’s working-class nature, people-ness, and nation-ness, ensuring that in any circumstance the Army will always be an absolutely loyal, reliable political and combat force of the Party, State, and people. To meet new task requirements, offices and units shall focus on researching into theoretical and practical issues to maintain and enhance the Party’s absolute, direct leadership over and the State’s focalized, uniform management of the Army and national defence cause, while supplementing and developing Marxist-Leninist theories, Ho Chi Minh Thought, and the Party’s guidelines and policies on military, national defence, Army building, and Fatherland protection in the new situation. Great value should be attached to providing the Party, State, CMC, and MND with scientific arguments for building a politically strong Army, struggling on theoretical and ideological fronts, defending Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh Thought, and the Party’s military-defence guidelines in order to creatively apply those scientific arguments to making the Army and all-people national defence increasingly strong. In the current situation, significance should be attached to unmasking hostile forces’ political, ideological, and organizational sabotage strategies, plots and artifices of enhancing “self-evolution”, “self-transformation”, and “depoliticization” of our Army; due attention should be paid to proposing measures to improve political steadfastness, uphold the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the market economy, and forge troops’ combat determination and morale in hi-tech wars.

Furthermore, military social science and humanities should research and clarify new developments in social classes and strata in general, the armed forces in particular, policies to guarantee social progress and equality, issues on culture and cultural development in line with personnel development within the armed forces and bringing into play the Army’s political – spiritual factor in the new situation. Importance should be attached to reviewing resistance wars in the history of national construction and protection to draw valuable lessons and apply them to the cause of Fatherland construction and protection.

Fourth, actively researching and developing military science and technology. Recent armed conflicts have revealed that using modern, smart, long-range, high-precision weapons, unmanned vehicles, electronic warfare systems combined with information warfare and cyberspace warfare has become more popular and helped create a lot of advantages for warring parties. For this reason, to satisfy the requirements of Fatherland protection, the whole Army shall continue stepping up research and development, applying scientific and technological advances to exploiting and mastering modern weapons and technical equipment as well as upgrading the existing military equipment. Moreover, it is vital to further design and manufacture modern weapons and equipment with Vietnamese brands. Offices and units, particularly the General Department of Technology, General Department of Defence Industry, Military Industry – Telecoms Group, and research centers shall focus on mastering high, core, and background technologies to develop more modern weapons and equipment. Due regard should be paid to developing new energy-related technologies, information technology, big data, artificial intelligence, automation, biological technology, electronics, biomedical technology, material technology, and technologies for responding to natural, chemical, biological, radioactive, and nuclear disasters in accordance with the Army’s equipment strategy, striving for “self-sufficiency” in the armed forces’ weapons and equipment, reducing dependence upon other countries. In addition, it is important to research and propose technological solutions to accelerate digital transformation and the building of an e-Government within the MND.

Fifth, developing potential and expanding cooperation in military science and environmental protection. Offices and units shall step up the consolidation and arrangement of scientific and technological organizations in a “compact, lean, strong, specialized, modern” fashion and in accordance with the requirements of Army building in the new situation. Due regard should be paid to developing military science potential for the tasks of research, training, and technological transfer. Priority should be given to building a contingent of high-caliber scientists, particularly for specialized or key fields, developing a pool of young talented scientists and world-class scientific cadres. It is essential to enhance and expand cooperation in military science to contribute to raising the quality and effectiveness of research, technological transfer, and human resources training. Due attention should be paid to transferring and mastering telecoms technology and information technology to meet the requirements of cyber safety and security. It is also necessary to improve the effectiveness of environmental protection and climate change response and adaptation, guarantee environmental monitoring capacity, and assess, forecast, and opportunely, effectively respond to environmental security challenges. Besides, it is important to continue effectively settling the consequences of post-war bombs, mines, and toxic chemicals as the basis for economic development and social stability.

Being fully aware of opportunities, challenges, and urgent task requirements, the entire Army shall enhance military science work to create a breakthrough incentive for raising its synergy and combat strength, enabling the Army to move straight to modernity, and making contributions to successfully fulfilling the cause of industrialization and modernization, building and firmly protecting the Socialist Vietnamese Fatherland in the new situation.

Sr. Lt. Gen., Dr LE HUY VINH,

Member of the Party Central Committee

Member of the CMC

Deputy Minister of National Defence