PANO – Vietnam and the United Kingdom has witnessed considerable development in defence cooperation, especially in education and training.

This was stated by Lieutenant General Sandy Storrie, Deputy Commander of the UK’s Royal College of Defence Studies (RCDS), who is leading a mission of the school’s officers and cadets during their visit to Vietnam.

RCDS, established in 1927, is tasked with training and studying defence strategies. It runs an annual course for a maximum of 90 full-time members from over 50 nations worldwide.

RCDS delegation visiting Vietnam

During the course, trainees will join a fact-finding trip in different countries. This year, Vietnam is one of their three destinations, along with Japan and China.

At the talks with the People’s Army Newspaper in Hanoi, the UK officer applauded the increasing development of the two sides’ defence relationship over the past few years. Notably, the UK has had its first defence attaché in Vietnam since November 2013 and hopes that Vietnam will soon send its defence attaché to London.

According to the UK officer, education, especially English training, is considered the prominent and most effective field under the Vietnam-UK defence cooperation. Underlining the important role of the English training in the army, he held that if officers are good at English, they will have an opportunity to learn about peoples and armies in other countries, as well as more effectively participate in international activities like defence workshops and forums, UN peacekeeping operations or just studying overseas.

As a result, the two defence ministries have attached special importance to this cooperation. Since 2013, the UK Ministry of Defence provided courses for 102 Vietnamese officers. In addition, it is operating English training courses for Vietnamese peacekeeping forces. Particularly, RCDS also wants to receive more Vietnamese officers in the time to come.

Translated by Van Hieu