Building the political zeal for the cyberspace force

As a core force in protecting the Fatherland on cyberspace, the cyberspace combat force’s task is to directly assure security and safety, combat, and fight against high-tech crimes and conspiracies and tricks of “peaceful evolution” of hostile forces on cyberspace, etc., to contribute to protecting the Fatherland, the Party, and the regime. Therefore, building a stable and strong political zeal for the force is of particularly important content.

Facing the strong development of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, cyberspace has become a new territory with an important role in the socio-economic development, defence, security, and foreign affairs of countries. To our Military, cyberspace represents “the fifth theatre of battle” with close link to the air, land, sea, and space. Taking advantage of  the cyberspace, hostile forces have been sabotaging our country’s revolution in a different spheres, ranging from gathering intelligence information, crippling military information systems, controlling national, military, and defence essential information infrastructure, to infiltrating, collecting, and attacking to gain control and neutralise military hardware or even using these weapons to attack against us. At the same time, they have been organizing psychological and information warfare activities on cyberspace, such as posting false, negative, gratuitous, fabricated information, etc. to undermine people’s trust in the Party, the State, and the socialist regime, promote “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” internally, and incite, entice, and gather forces to form disruptive organizations and destabilize the country's politics, etc.

The cyberspace force, as newly established, is currently in the construction stage with mostly young and inexperienced technical personnel. Meanwhile, sophisticated and cunning intriguing tactics and tricks of hostile forces, highly-specialized cyber warfare environment, and independent operations require each soldier to have a strong political zeal, self-awareness, insights, and assertiveness. Therefore, building this special combat force with political steadfastness and absolute loyalty to the Party, the Fatherland, and the People is the current and urgent task. To that end, the Party Committee and High Command have focused on leading and directing the synchronous implementation of solutions, especially the following solutions:

Firstly, to strengthen the leadership and direction of the Party committees, commissars, and commanders at all levels in building the political zeal for the cyberspace force. The Party committees, commissars, and commanders of agencies and units should promote their roles and responsibilities in leading and directing the thorough grasp of the importance of building political zeal for soldiers. There should be mechanisms and policies to facilitate the soldiers’ sense of self-awareness and activeness in learning and training to raise their political zeal and standpoint. The inspection and supervision of implementation should be strengthened to promptly detect and have measures for overcoming the weak stages and aspects and fight against the manifestations of laziness in learning and training, one-sided political awareness, decline of will and belief, and poor performance. At the same time, there should be reasonable mechanisms and policies to create conditions and encourage, motivate, and expand the spirit of self-discipline, study, and practice as a basis to build a strong political zeal for cadres and soldiers in protecting the Fatherland on cyberspace.

Thirdly, to promote the activeness and self-awareness in studying and training in practical activities to build political zeal for the cyberspace force. Building the political zeal for the cyberspace force should be associated with practical activities, especially training and combat readiness, to constantly foster professional military knowledge and skills, raise awareness, and train the soldiers' combat skills. At the same time, it should be closely associated with discipline management and training and regularity building to make the force better understand the difficulties, hassles, unexpected situations, ideological and psychological tensions in combat, ... to train and build the force with a strong political zeal, not afraid of hardship and dangers, and perseverance to overcome difficulties and challenges to fulfill the assigned duties and tasks.Secondly, to improve the quality of political and ideological education and build firm political zeal and proper motives for the cyberspace force. The education contents should be comprehensive with focus on making the soldiers deeply aware of Marxism - Leninism, Ho Chi Minh thoughts, guidelines and viewpoints of the Party, policies and laws of the State, situation of revolutionary tasks, tasks of the Military, partners and adversaries of the revolution and the Military in general and the cyberspace force in particular, and conspiracies and tricks of hostile forces in the “Peaceful evolution” strategy. Attention should be paid to educating the soldiers to realize that the tasks of the cyberspace force are very heavy and related to the political, economic and military fields and all social activities. Forms and methods of education should be regularly innovated to combine with practical activities in performing duties and tasks to arouse the soldiers’ creativity. At the same time, it should be closely associated with the implementation of the instructions, resolutions, drives, and Determination-to-Win Emulation movements, especially the 4^th Central Resolution (the 12^th Tenure) on Party building and rectification, the Politburo’s Directive No.05-CT/TW and the Central Military Commission Standing Committee’s Directive No.87-CT/QUTW on promoting the learning and following Ho Chi Minh thoughts, ethics, and style or the Drive of Promoting tradition, dedicating talents, deserving “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” in the new period, etc. Thereby, it is to create great persuasion in both theory and practice and build and train the cyberspace force with proper awareness and firm political zeal, not afraid of sacrifice, difficulties, and hardships, and to be exemplary, actively participate in scientific research and study, and train and cultivate themselve to be ready to accept and fulfill their assigned tasks.

Finally, to regularly study and master the sabotage plots and tactics of hostile forces and proactively prevent and fight against the conspiracies and tricks of “peaceful evolution”, “self-evolution”, and “self-transformation” internally. To deal effectively with and create a political and spiritual initiative and build strong political zeal for the cyberspace force, agencies and units, especially those performing specialized tasks such as the High Command 86 should lead and direct to study and firmly grasp the nature and increasingly sophisticated conspiracies and tricks to sabotage Vietnam's revolution in cyberspace of hostile forces. It should also be proactive in improving the quality of management and reconnaissance to firmly grasp the situation and detect the opponent's weaknesses, such as: operation processes, computer network infrastructure, holes in the enemy network, etc., to exploit, analyze, and forecast, and accurately evaluate information to determine and provide appropriate combat plans with high efficiency. At the same time, to promote education for soldiers to be well aware of hostile forces’ conspiracies and tactics of “peaceful evolution” and “politicization” and “civilization” of the Army. To  regularly manage and firmly grasp the internal political situation and enhance education to raise vigilance and observation of resolutions, directives, ordinances, and regulations on assurance of national, military, and task. To build a beautiful, healthy, and rich cultural environment with the motto of “pitting the beauty against the bad” and “taking the positive to repel the negative” and proactively detect, identify, and fight against the manifestations of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” internally. Along with that, to continue researching and recommending the superiors to complete the mechanisms and policies and encourage adequately and promptly both material and spiritual life to contribute to building the cyberspace force with firm political zeal in the face of the enemy's sabotage, the adverse impacts of the market economy, and social evils to be always ready to receive and fulfill all assigned tasks.