Communist Review - Building a modern, advanced, strong and streamlined army is the great advocacy, reflecting the vision and strategic mindset of the Party and the State of Vietnam in terms of building and devence of the Fatherland. This is also the objective demand, ensuring that the army can be strong enough to fulfill victoriously all the assigned tasks in the new situation.

In His lifetime, President Ho Chi  Minh pointed out: “We must strive the hardest to build Our Army into a heroic army, a revolutionary army advancing to a modern, regular army so as to maintain peace and defend the Fatherland” (1). The Resolution of the 13^th Party Congress has affirmed: “Building the Revolutionary People’s army, the People’s Public security into the regular, elite and step by step modernized ones, in which a number of services and arms and forces will advance straight to the modern ones. By 2025, fundamentally, the army will be built into a strong, streamlined one, creating premises to be the solid army and it is to strive to 2030, the revolutionary people’s army and the people’s public security will be built into the modern, elite and regular ones” (2).

To build a modern army, in the past years, the military industry has step by step been developed in the direction of modernity and dual use, meeting in part the requirements of weapons and technical equipment for the armed forces and making an active contribution to the national industrialization and modernization. In which, the research work, design, mastery of manufacturing and production technologies have helped turn out some necessary weapons for national defence, so that step by step it can be able to guarantee sufficient quantity with improved quality to meet in time the requirements of weapons and technical equipment for the units which are carrying out the tasks of training, of combat readiness and of defending the sea and islands. These results are the premises of paramount importance to continue promoting the building of the elite and regular revolutionary army so as to step by step advance towards modernity, in which priority is given to modernizing a number of services and arms and forces; at the same time, it is to create firm premises so as to strive to 2030, a modern army will be built to meet the requirements and tasks of defending the Fatherland in the new situation.

In the years to come, it is forecast that the world and regional situation, the trend of peace, cooperation and development will remain the mainstream, but the complicated developments will also continue to happen fiercely. The Fourth industrial revolution has helped churn out a lot of new kinds of weapons; together with it, the war using the high tech weapons and the “non-contact” war has become ever more popular. The non-tradition security issues, particularly the cybersurity, terrorism, crimininals, natural disasters, epidemics have become ever more complicated.

As for Vietnam, after 35 years of renovation, the potential, position and international prestige have been constantly improved, creating important premises for more vigorous and sustainable development in the new stage. However, the country has still stood before a lot of difficulties and challenges. All the hostile and reactionary forces, the political opportunist elements have increased their sabotages against the Party, the State and the army with their strategy of “peaceful evolution”, of boosting “the self-evolution”, “self-transformation”, and of “depoliticizing” the army…. With their extremely subtle, wicked unrecognizable tricks and plots. This situation has posed the very high new demands for the building of the Army, the strengthening of the national defence and the protection of the Fatherland.

To build the army which is streamlined, strong and advances to modernity, it is necessary to grasp thoroughly and deeply and to carry out effectively the following contents:

Firstly, to grasp thoroughly and carry out strictly and effectively the Resolution of the 13^th Party Congress, the resolution of the Political Bureau and the resolution of the Central Military Commission on the building of the streamlined and strong army.

This is the inclusive content, the thorough-going guidance that is of decisive significance for the implementation of the goal of building the army which is streamlined, strong to advance to modernity, ensuring for the army to have the general quality, the ever higher fighting power, thus meeting the requirements and tasks of defending the Fatherland in the new situation. To do well this work, first of all, it is necessary to concentrate on the deep grasping of the Resolution No.05-NQ/TW on January 17, 2022 of the Political Bureau on the organization of the Vietnam People’s Army in the 2021-2020 stage and the following years; the Resolution No. 230-NQ/QUTW, on April 2, 2022 of the Central Military Commission on the leadership to implement the organization of the Vietnam People’s Army in the 2021- 2030 stage and the following  years…  On that basis, each level should be proactive in building their own specific plans, their close and scientific implementing methods with the concrete roadmaps and steps, the adjustment of the increase or the reduction of organization and soldier’s number of each block to be conforming to the line of all-people national defence, the people’s war, the capacities of ensuring weapons, equipment, of maintaining firmly and promoting the tradition of the army and the military art of Vietnam. To build and adjust the army organization in the direction of being streamlined and strong with the synchronous, reasonable structure among the elements and forces; to gradually reduce the intermediary link and ensure the service units. To continue to organize a number of strategic reserve units in accordance with the determination to defend the Fatherland of socialist Vietnam. To build the powerful mobilized reserve force, the strong and large self-defence and militia force, ensuring the army can be fully capable of being the core force to together with the entire people fulfil victoriously the tasks of defending the Fatherland in all circumstances.

The process of adjusting the organization of the Army must be placed under the absolute, direct and all-sided leadership of the Party and here it is under the regular and direct leadership of the Political Bureau and the concentrated, unified management of the State; the leadership and guidance of the party committees, the party organizations and the commanders at all levels. The measures to carry them out must be comprehensive, synchronous and suitable to the realities; to closely combine the ideological work with the organizational work and the policy and absolutely not to be subjective, hasty, one-sidedly simple or administrationization.

Secondly, to be consistent in the principle of bulding the Army to be politically solid and powerful.

This is the fundamental requirement, the immutable principle going through the process of building, fighting and growing of the people’s army in order to firmly maintain and strengthen the nature of the working class, the Party’s objective and ideology of fighting; this is the decisive factor to implement victoriously all the assigned tasks. To grasp deeply and persistently the Ho Chi Minh ideology on building the army; accordingly, the building of the army must be comprehensive, comprising all the military, political, logistical and technical fields and on all the combat tasks, the combat readiness, training, labour, production and work, in which a special attention must be paid to building the army solid and strong in politics, because “military without politics is like a tree without its root, useless, let alone harmful” (3).

That the army is built into the streamlined and strong army must ensure the streamlining in organization, the improvement of  quality in all aspects, firmly maintain and enhance the absolute and direct leadership by the Party in all aspects of the army. Care is given to the building of the Army’s Party committee to be pure, strong and symbolic in politics, ideology, morality, organization and personnel. To enhance the leading capacities, the fighting power of the party committee levels, the party organizations, the vanguard and exemplary character of cadres and party members in the whole army. The party committee levels and commanders continue to renew, to improve the quality of the educational training and the ideological orientation, making cadres and party members always stand firm, be consistent in their standpoints, goals and ideology, deeply aware of the situation and tasks and see all the advantages and difficulties, determine clearly their responsibilities and are resolute to fulfill successfully all the tasks. Attention should be paid to enhancing the education of Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh thought, the line and viewpoint of the Party, the policy and law of the State, the superiority of the socialist regime…. To be active and proactive in taking the lead in the struggle against the wrong, hostile viewpoints, to protect the Party’s ideological foundation. To be resolute and consistent in implementing seriously and effectively all the advocacies and stipulations of the Party Central Committee, of the Central Party Military Commission on the building and revamping of the Party and of the political system, the things that party members are prohibited from doing, on enhancing the studying and following of the Ho Chi Minh ideology, morality and style. To promote the quality of “the soldiers of  Uncle Hồ”, resolutely fight against individualism in the new situation with the models and creative and suitable ways of doing things.

Thirdly, to regularly review and perfect the organization, staff, equipment of each agency, unit, meeting the requirements and tasks in the new situation.

The organization, staff and equipment are the important elements to form the general quality and the fighting power of the army. In the condition of developing the socialist-oriented market economy and the ever more intensive and extensive international integration, the task of defending the Fatherland has been upheld ever higher, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has made ever deeper impact on all the areas, in which there are the areas of defence and security, then the perfection of organization and staff of agencies and units in particular, the adjustment of organization of the armed forces in general are the urgent, objective requirements, making a contribution to  building the army which is streamlined, strong to advance to modernity.

In this spirit, it is necessary for each level to be proactive in reviewing, adjusting and perfecting the organization and staff, ensuring that equipment is suitable to the function, task, weapons and technical equipment available now and the military art of Vietnam in the new conditions.

Fourthly, to deeply grasp the viewpoints of “human beings first, guns later”, to pay constant attention and give better care to the building of high-quality human resources; to combine the building of the streamlined and strong army with the renovation of the training work.

This is one of the key, breakthrough links which is of decisive significance, ensuring that the army is streamlined and strong to advance to modernity, to fulfill satisfactorily all the tasks in the new conditions. The strength of the army is the general result of many elements: human beings, weapons, equipment, the operational art, in which human beings are the decisive element. Therrefore, the building of human elements, directly here is the high-quality human resources that must be paid attention to and considered as a factor of decisive significance in the building of the army which is streamlined, strong to advance to modernity. While conducting the building of human resources, it is necessary to pay attention to both quantity and quality in accordance with the roadmap of modernizing weapons and technical equipment of the services, arms and forces. It is necessary to have the breakthrough in training the contingent of cadres who do the researches in military science, the leading experts, the contingent of teachers in the military academies and schools. Attention should be paid to developing the contingent of high-quality military and political cadres; to building the contingent of logistical, technical cadres with their deep professional levels and capacities, thus meeting the requirements and tasks. All the agencies and units need to have their plans and plannings of building the high-quality human resources to ensure the requirements of use for the immediate and for the long term; to build the criteria of human resources served as the basis for consideration, assessment, training, fostering, promotion and appointment of cadres in a precise way.

Together with this, it is necessary to renew and improve the quality of training in the military schools, creating the source of cadres with necessary revolutionary qualities, mindset, professional capacities, the commanding and managing level, according to their responsibilities and titles. To build schools and research institutes in a streamlined and modern way; to combine the training in schools with the training and fostering of cadres in units; to connect schools to battle fields; to combine theories with practices; to combine the responsibilities of the party committee levels, the commanders with the results of training in the units, in which the organization of training must be close, flexible and in tune with the motto, viewpoints, principles; attention should be paid to imparting factual experience, improving the practical abilities, mastering new and modern weapons and ammunitions, the mobility and the combat capacities in the new conditions for all objects; to be active in applying information technology, simulation technology and the modern technical facilities in training soldiers. In the immediate, it is necessary to concentrate on improving quality of the military exercises, of the military games and competitions; to issue and deploy the implementation of the strategy and schemes for developing the educational and training work in the army in accordance with the motto “The training quality in school is the capacities of combat readiness of units”, contributing to building the streamlined and strong army to meet the requirements and tasks.

Fifthly, to concentrate on building and developing defence industry to meet the requirements of modernizing weapons and technical equipment.

In the time to come, it is necessary to continue to build and develop defence industry in the direction of self-reliance, self-supporting, modernity and dual use, becoming the spearhead of the national industry and reaching the advanced and modern scientific and technological levels; to have the suitable managing and operational mechanism; to promote well the role, responsibilities and the active and effective participation of the economic sectors, contributing to improving the national defence and military potential and strength. To combine the development of defence industry with the national industry, with the reasonable structure in the overall national industry, to prioritize the modern, highly effective industries, meeting ever better the requirements of weapons and technical equipment for the people’s armed forces.

To be able to obtain these goals, it is necessary to soon perfect the system of legal documents, mechanism, policies, strategy, planning and plan for the development of defence industry in the middle term and long term, conforming to the new conditions. To give priority to developing the sectors and products of the basic industry with high dual use. To make investments in building with key points a number of establishments of defence industry with advanced and modern technologies in an advance towards the establishment of economic groups, the high-tech dual-use defence industrial complexes with the task of researches and production and gurantee weapons and military technical equipment. In the immediate, to concentrate on building and developing defence industry with the suitable scope, organization and managing mechanism, promote the role and responsibility of self-support of the defence industry establishments. To perfect the organization of the technical sector in the direction of being “streamlined, strong and unified”, suitable to the technological features of weapons and technical equipment and the tasks of each level; to guarantee that the management, command and guidance must be thorough without overlapping. To renew the mode to ensure techniques for weapons and technical equipment of new generation, high technologies in the direction of concentration and unification; to renew the mindset in materials production and techniques in the direction of expanding joint venture, linkage, socialization. To continue to improve the efficiency of international integration and foreign relations in defence in order to make full use of and to mobilize the external resources in service of modernizing the army. Accordingly, together with enhancement of cooperation in various fields, it is necessary to promote cooperation in developing defence industry, military techniques, in combination with procurement of new, modern weapons and ammunition in association with technology transfer, particularly the new, modern technologies.

Building the army which is streamlined, strong to advance to modernity is the consistent, correct advocacy of the Party and the State of Vietnam. By implementing this advocacy, it will guarantee that the Vietnamese army will be powerful enough to fulfill satisfactorily its role as the key force in strengthening national defence and protecting firmly the Fatherland of socialist Vietnam./.

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(1) Ho Chi Minh: Complete works, the National Political Publishing House Su That, Hanoi, 2011, tomb 11, p. 585

(2) The documents of the 13^th Party Congress, the National Political Publishing House Su That, Hanoi, 2021, tomb 1, p. 157-158

(3) Ho Chi Minh: Complete works, Ibid, tomb 7, p. 217

(4) See: The documents of the 13^th Party Congress, Ibid, tomb 1, p. 158-159

This article was published in the Communist Review No. 992 (June 2022)