At present, the rapid development of military science and technology has turned technical work into one of the deciding factors in the combat power of modern armed forces. Hence, studying experiences in organising technical work in the armed forces of several countries around the world is of great importance to the development of technical work of the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) nowadays.

A workshop on developing theories about technical work of the Vietnam People’s Army (photo: qdnd.vn)

In the process of military modernisation, military technical work is regarded by many nations as a fundamental pillar ensuring combat power. Each country builds its own organisational model suitable for its economic, scientific, technological capacity and defence strategy; however, they all share common goals: technological self-reliance, unified equipment life-cycle management, and close integration between defence and civilian industries. Therefore, researching and analysing experiences in organising technical work in the armed forces of several countries to draw lessons for the VPA is of urgent importance to improving our Military’s overall capability, combat readiness, and capacity to firmly safeguard the Socialist Vietnamese Fatherland.

Realities of organising technical work in the armed forces of several countries around the world

1. The Russian Federation - a model of close integration between defence industry and life-cycle technical support. Based on its National Security Strategy, Russia has developed its defence industry comprehensively, focusing its investments on key sectors, such as missile technology, aerospace, electronics, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). A prominent feature of its technical support work is the life-cycle management mechanism; all stages from design, production, testing, operation, and maintenance to decommissioning are managed in a uniform system, with close coordination between defence industry facilities and military units.

The Russian Ministry of Defence assigns the Main Directorate of Armaments as the core body responsible for coordinating and directing technical work across the armed forces, ensuring uniformity among military branches and services. Besides, Russia structures its technical forces into three components, namely regular, paramilitary, and reserve ones, thus creating strong technical potential to ensure flexibility and mobility in any event. This model enables Russia to maintain high technical standards of its equipment, shorten the cycle of research - production - testing, and enhance adaptability in modern warfare. Despite all-round sanctions, Russia still maintains its defence production capability through a new “wartime economy” policy to mobilise the combined strength of research institutes, industrial corporations, and military technical forces, which can be seen as clear evidence of the sustainability and resilience of its life-cycle technical support model.

2. The People’s Republic of China - unified organisation and centralised management of technical work. From dependence on foreign aid, China has gradually achieved technological self-reliance and developed its defence industry towards “mechanisation, informatisation, intelligentisation”, and a product life-cycle management mechanism. To strengthen its military technical potential, China has built its technical forces in the three components, namely regular, paramilitary, and reserve ones, while establishing a centralised management mechanism from central level down to combat units. In 1998, China established the General Armaments Department to replace the previously fragmented system of management. This agency is responsible for directing research, development, testing, procurement, and technical support for equipment. At theatre command level, the Department of Armaments is responsible for managing technical work and providing weapons and equipment for training and combat readiness. This centralised management model helps facilitate the application of high technology, automation, and AI in technical support and raise operational efficiency and technical standardisation across forces. Currently, China is accelerating digital transformation in its defence industry, integrating AI and big data into management, maintenance, and production. The integration of defence and civilian industries, particularly within state-owned technology corporations, helps the country quickly improve its capacity to provide modern weapons and technical equipment and serve the goal of building a “a world class Military by the middle of the century”, in line with the vision set forth at the 20^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

3. The United States of America - scientific management and a decentralised but unified technical support system. Unlike China’s centralised mechanism, the US applies a decentralised model of technical work but maintains unified management in terms of standard, procedure, and equipment life-cycle process. Each service has its own specialised armament agency responsible for the entire process from research, development, procurement to technical support, standardisation, and decommissioning. The US technical management mechanism operates under a closed cycle of “investment - development - use - regeneration”, with emphasis placed on evaluating the technical performance, reliability, and service life of weapons in real time. In building its military technical potential, the US maintains three main technical components: regular force, reserve force, and National Guard, ensuring sustainability, flexibility, and rapid mobilisation. Besides, the US Military applies digital technology, big data, AI, and intelligent sensor networks in maintenance and repair, enabling real-time monitoring of equipment conditions, optimising costs, and improving combat readiness. The US technical management model demonstrates an advanced level of governance, effectively combining the roles of government, Military, and private defence contractors to create a unified, flexible, sustainable technical ecosystem.

It can be observed that despite differences in political systems, levels of development, and force structure, countries with advanced defence industries share several common characteristics in organising their technical work. They all pursue synchronisation, self-reliance, and close integration among equipment production, operation, maintenance, modernisation, and life-cycle management, considering this as an inevitable trend to maintain stable technical conditions, shorten equipment modernisation cycles, and optimise defence investment costs.

Truong Son missile system made in Vietnam (photo: Qdnd.vn)

Lessons for the VPA

Fully aware of the pivotal role of technical work in building a modern Military, our Party and State have consistently identified this work as one of the fundamentals of the national defence strategy and the strategy to build the VPA. Our consistent viewpoint is that the construction and development of technical work must be placed within the overall process of VPA modernisation and tightly integrated with the development of defence industry, science, technology, and national economy. Over the years, under the leadership of the Party, particularly the Central Military Commission and the Ministry of National Defence (MND), the VPA’s technical work has attained many important results. The technical management system has been gradually standardised; many repair and upgrade technology lines for technical equipment have been modernised; several hi-tech products have been researched and manufactured domestically. However, technical work still has shortcomings. As generations of both old and new weapons are managed and operated simultaneously, studying, grasping, and applying experiences in technical work from advanced countries to Vietnam’s specific conditions represent a matter of importance and urgency to meeting the requirements of building a modern VPA. To that end, it is necessary to focus on the following key aspects.

First, organising a unified, synchronised technical management system towards equipment life-cycle management. This is an objective development trend that reflects modern managerial standards in technical work of advanced Militaries - an optimal solution to sustain effective operation, reduce costs, and ensure long-term technical readiness. However, our VPA’s current technical management system remains unsynchronised among services, arms, and grass-roots units. Mechanisms for operating and monitoring the technical condition of weapons and equipment have not been comprehensively digitalised, which has led to overlaps in reporting, statistics, and reliability assessment. Many old generations of equipment are still in service but lack life-cycle data or complete technical records, which causes difficulties in maintenance and repair.

Compared with advanced countries’ equipment life-cycle management models, our technical work has so far been limited to management by usage cycles and has not been fully closed under a true “product life-cycle” approach. Therefore, it is necessary to continue improving a unified technical management system from the MND down to grass-roots units, linking research, production, and operation, accelerating digital technology adoption, establishing a centralised database for managing technical documentation and condition of technical equipment. Due attention should be paid to consolidating technical specialties in an adept, compact manner and enhancing their command effectiveness and strategic advisory capacity. Moreover, emphasis should be placed on training and improving cadres’ scientific management thinking, technological knowledge, and mastery of modern weapon management systems.

T-90S/SK tank at Vietnam International Defence Expo 2024 (photo: qdnd.vn)

Second, closely integrating defence industry development with national industry. This is a common lesson on organising technical work in developed countries. Close integration of defence and civilian industries contributes to creating national synergy and ensuring harmonious, sustainable resources for military modernisation and economic growth. In Vietnam, although this connection has been acknowledged, it remains limited. Some defence factories still use outdated technologies; our research, design, and manufacture capabilities have yet to meet the requirements. Policies and mechanisms to encourage civilian enterprises to participate in defence production and technical support remain incoherent.

To overcome those problems, it is essential to strengthen coordination between research institutes, defence factories, and large domestic enterprises, particularly in precision mechanics, electronics, new materials, and software technology. It is important to formulate incentive mechanisms in terms of financing, taxation, and workforce training for enterprises to engage in dual-purpose production and repair of weapons and equipment to serve economic development and national defence. In addition, it is necessary to promptly form dual-purpose defence industry - technology complexes and promote interaction among research institutions, defence enterprises, and private companies. Research and development should be intensified to step by step master foundational and core technologies, remain proactive in manufacturing and providing strategic weapons, and affirm national self-reliance in defence and security.

Third, developing strong military technical potential that can be mobilised in any situation. Military technical potential is part of national defence potential, including infrastructures, personnel, weapons, equipment, technological level, and the capability to provide weapons and equipment for the armed forces. This type of potential must be developed synchronously in peacetime, with emphasis placed on stockpiling supplies, fuels, and strategic spare parts, forming a well-organised network of depots, stations, and workshops, and establishing a reserve technical support network for defensive zones.

Special attention should be paid to combining investment in the existing facilities with innovation in management, operation, and utilisation of equipment. Each technical unit should be developed into a core force capable of providing effective technical support, well performing their routine tasks, and expanding their operations in defence and security situations in their stationed areas. Strategic contingency mechanisms and regional technical networks should be developed, while international cooperation in technical support, especially in repair and restoration of technical equipment and in new materials should be strengthened.

Fourth, proactively fostering international integration and developing a high-quality technical workforce. International integration in military science and technology allows the VPA to access new knowledge, narrow technological gaps, and raise the professional expertise, managerial skills, and industrial practices of its technical personnel. In fact, the number of engineers and technicians with deep knowledge of advanced technologies remains limited; training and professional development models have yet to be closely linked to realities of equipment production and operation.

Therefore, it is necessary to develop a long-term strategy for training military technical personnel, maintain a close link between educational institutions, research centres, and defence production facilities, and encourage the formation of an “innovation ecosystem in military technology”. In addition to expanding international cooperation, emphasis should be placed on fostering domestic training appropriate to international standards, combining theory with practice, and integrating traditional military technologies with modern digital technologies. Consideration should be given to building a corps of “both red and expert” technical cadres with firm political will, professional expertise, and fluency in foreign languages to master new-generation weapons. At the same time, it is vital to promote the movement on science research and technical innovation and create a favourable environment for cadres and soldiers to bring into play their knowledge and master modern equipment and technologies.

Fifth, enhancing digital transformation and innovation in technical work. Digital transformation is an inevitable trend that contributes to changing methods of equipment management, operation, and utilisation. At present, a centralised database on the VPA’s equipment is being developed but remains unsynchronised. Diagnosis and maintenance technologies are still limited. Some management software systems have not yet been integrated across levels. Hence, it is essential to simultaneously build a unified digital database for all weapons and equipment, apply simulation and AI technologies in training and maintenance, and develop an online, inter-connected technical management system from the MND down to grass-roots units.

Particularly, it is necessary to develop “Made in Vietnam” software to serve technical work and ensure information security and digital sovereignty in the defence sector. Innovation should be closely aligned with the realities of training and combat readiness and placed within the overall orientation for building a “smart technical ecosystem” of the VPA. It is important to promote self-reliance and creativity among technical cadres and employees, encourage research into and application of new technologies, thereby forming models, such as “smart workshops”, “digital technical units”, and “automated maintenance stations”.

In the period of industrialisation, modernisation, and international integration, promoting the tradition of self-reliance and creativity and combining modern science and technology with Vietnam’s spiritual strength constitute a decisive factor in effectively organising the VPA’s technical work for the sake of firmly safeguarding the Socialist Vietnamese Fatherland in all situations.

Maj. Gen. DINH CONG PHUONG¹, PhD

Sr. Col. TRAN BINH TRONG², PhD

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1. Deputy Director of the General Department of Logistics and Technology

2. Head of the Military Science Division, General Department of Logistics and Technology