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Vietnam Postwar Development
The chief changes in PAVN after April 1975 were enormous
growth, augmented by increased war-making capability and fire
power, and development away from a guerrilla-oriented infantry
toward a more orthodox modern armed force. Hanoi's public
statements indicated there would be a significant demobilization
of PAVN immediately after the war and that many PAVN units would
be converted into economic development teams. Within a few weeks,
however, PAVN units were engaged in a border war in Cambodia with
one-time ally the
Khmer Rouge (see Glossary) and were preparing
to defend Vietnam's northern border against China.
Following the end of the Second Indochina War, PAVN was in
worse condition than was generally realized. Having been
decimated by ten years of combat, it was in organizational
disarray, with a logistics system that was nearly worn out. Both
PAVN and the country were suffering from war weariness, and
restructuring and rebuilding were hampered in part because the
war's sudden ending had precluded planning for the postwar world.
Vietnamese military journals acknowledged at the time that the
new situation required the transformation of PAVN from an army of
revolutionary soldiers fighting with guerrilla tactics into an
orthodox armed force that could defend existing institutions and
fixed installations from internal and external threats. It was a
new and broader task, and Ho Chi Minh's observation made at the
end of the First Indochina War was frequently quoted: "Before we
had only the night and the jungle. Now we have the sky and the
water."
Several problems had to be addressed. These included the
dual-control system, i.e., the ill-defined division of authority
between the military command structure and the party leadership
within the armed forces, or between the military commander and
the political commissar; the lack of esprit de corps among the
rank and file, a general malaise termed "post-war mentality"; and
the officer corps' inadequate military knowledge and insufficient
military technological skills for the kind of war that had
emerged in the 1970s. There were also policy conflicts over the
conduct of large-scale combined or joint military operations and
the nature of future military training, a lack of standardization
of equipment, materiel shortages, administrative breakdowns,
general inefficiency and lack of performance by basic military
units, and an anachronistic party structure within PAVN stemming
from an outmoded organizational structure and inappropriate or
out-of-touch political commissars.
By 1978 the effort to restore PAVN had developed into the
Great Campaign. This was a five-year program with five
objectives: to increase the individual soldier's sense of
responsibility, discipline, dedication, attitude toward
solidarity, and mastery of weapons, equipment, and vehicles; to
encourage more frugal expenditure of fuel, supplies, and
materiel; to improve PAVN's officer corps, particularly at the
basic unit level; to improve military-civilian relations and
heighten international solidarity; and to improve the
material-spiritual life of soldiers. Of these, the most important
was the program to improve the PAVN officer corps, the heart of
which was a four-part statute called the Army Officers' Service
Law, drafted in 1978 and officially promulgated in 1981. The
Service Law, as it came to be called, established systematic new
criteria for the selection and training of officers; defined PAVN
officers' rights and military obligations; and overhauled,
upgraded, and formally instituted a new PAVN reserve officer
system. It also set up new regulations concerning officer
promotions, assignments, and ranking systems.
The reorganization was a deliberate effort to professionalize
the PAVN officer corps, in part by codifying the military
hierarchy within PAVN, which had never been officially
approved. Previous emphasis on egalitarianism had led to virtual
denial of even the concept of rank. There were no officers, only
cadres; no enlisted personnel; only combatants. Uniforms were
devoid of insignia, and references to rank or title were avoided
in conversation. With professionalization, distinctions emerged
between officers and enlisted troops. Accompanying the basic law
were directives from the Council of Ministers that dealt with
PAVN ranks, uniforms, and insignia. A thirteen-rank officer
system with appropriate titles was instituted. There were new
designations for navy flag rank, which had previously carried
generals' titles (although apparently navy officers below flag
rank continued to bear army ranks). Under the new regulations,
PAVN officers were distinguished as either line commanders, staff
officers, political officers, administrative officers, or
military-police officers. The new regulations additionally
stipulated the use of unit insignia--bright red for infantry, sky
blue for air force and air defense force, dark blue for navy,
green for border defense, and light gray for specialist
technicians--in all twenty-five separate services, each of which
had its own emblem
(see
fig. 16).
Technological improvements for PAVN were instituted chiefly
under the Great Campaign. Intensive technical training programs
were begun. Heavy emphasis was placed on the training of
surface-to-air missile (SAM) battery commanders, advanced air
defense technicians, fighter pilots, radar technicians,
communications-systems operators, and naval officers. The program
was fully supported by the Soviet Union, which provided military
aid and technical advisers and trainers. A costly developmental
effort, it had not been long under way before events began to
conspire against it.
Shortly after the Great Campaign was launched in 1978,
Vietnam's disputes with Cambodia and China sharply intensified.
On March 5, 1979, the government issued a General Mobilization
Order that established three "great tasks" for Vietnam: to
enlarge the national defense structure, meaning to increase
substantially the size of PAVN; to increase agricultural and
industrial production in support of the war; and to develop
better administrative systems in the party, PAVN, and the
economic sector. The emphasis was on young Vietnamese, who were
called to perform separate "great tasks," i.e., "annihilate the
enemy, develop the paramilitary system, do productive labor,
insure internal security, and perform necessary ideological
tasks." The order required all able-bodied persons to work ten
hours a day--eight hours in productive labor and two hours in
military training. It also required universal participation in
civil-defense exercises.
Data as of December 1987
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