Instead, all ground troops, army corps, military districts and special forces are designated under the umbrella term combined arms (Vietnamese: binh chủng hợp thành) and are belonged to the Ministry of National Defence, directly under the command of the CPV Central Military Commission, the Minister of National Defence, and the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army.

The PAVN was first conceived in September 1944 at the first Revolutionary Party Military Conference as the Propaganda Unit of the Liberation Army (alternatively translated as the Vietnam Propaganda Liberation Army, Việt Nam Tuyên truyền Giải phóng Quân) to educate, recruit and mobilise the Vietnamese to create a main force to drive the French colonial and Japanese occupiers from Vietnam.

[15][16] Under the guidelines of Hồ Chí Minh, Võ Nguyên Giáp was given the task of establishing the brigades and the Propaganda Unit of the Liberation Army came into existence on 22 December 1944.

The first formation was made up of thirty-one men and three women, armed with two revolvers, seventeen rifles, one light machine gun, and fourteen breech-loading flintlocks.

The United States' OSS agents, led by Archimedes Patti – who was sometimes referred as the first instructor of the PAVN due to his role - had provided ammunitions as well as logistic intelligence and equipment.

The PAVN also fought the Japanese 21st Division in Thai Nguyen that year, and regularly raided rice storehouses to alleviate an ongoing famine.

Then in September, the army was renamed the Vietnam National Defence Force (Việt Nam Vệ quốc Đoàn).

However, some of the legionnaires, such as Stefan Kubiak, deserted after witnessing torture of Vietnamese peasants at the hands of French troops and began fighting for the Việt Minh, volunteering to join the PAVN.

In 1957, the theatres of the war with the French were reorganised as the first five military regions, and in the next two years, several divisions were reduced to brigade size to meet the manpower requirements of collective farms.

By 1958, it was becoming increasingly clear that the South Vietnamese government was solidifying its position as an independent republic under Ngô Đình Diệm, who staunchly opposed the terms of the Geneva Accords, which required a national referendum on unification of north and south Vietnam under a single national government.

On 20 December 1960, anti-government forces in South Vietnam joined to form a united front called National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng Miền Nam Việt Nam) or simply known as the Vietcong in the United States.

The decision was made to continue to pursue "main force" engagements even though "there were others in the South – they were not military people – who wanted to go back to guerrilla war," but the strategic aims were adjusted to meet the new reality.

We had to change our plan and make it different from when we fought the Saigon regime, because we now had to fight two adversaries — the United States and South Vietnam.

[25]During the Vietnamese Lunar New Year Tết holiday starting on 30 January 1968, the PAVN/VC launched a general offensive in more than 60 cities and towns throughout south of Vietnam against the US Army and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), beginning with operations in the border region to try and draw US forces and ARVN troops out of the major cities.

Although the PAVN lost militarily to the US forces and ARVN in the south, the political impact of the war in the United States was strong.

Without direct support of the U.S., and suffering from stresses caused by dwindling aid, the ARVN was ill-prepared to confront the highly motivated PAVN, and despite the on paper superiority of the ARVN, the PAVN quickly secured victory within two months and captured Saigon on 30 April 1975, ending the 20 year Vietnam war.

Towards the second half of the 20th century the armed forces of Vietnam would participate in organised incursions to protect its citizens and allies against aggressive military factions in the neighbouring Indochinese countries of Laos and Cambodia, and the defensive border wars with China.

Conscription is in place for theoretically every male, age 18 to 25 years old, with the exception of the disabled and men who attended universities right after high school.

Apart from its occupation of half of the disputed Spratly Islands, which have been claimed as Vietnamese territory since the 17th century, Vietnam has not officially had forces stationed internationally since its withdrawal from Cambodia and Laos in early 1990.

In addition to training Cambodian, Laotian, Soviet, and Cuban military personnel, their publications revealed that among the foreign revolutionary forces that received training in sapper tactics, bomb-making, and the use of weapons and explosives, were members of the Marxist El Salvadoran FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), the Chilean MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left) fighting against the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet, as well as the Colombian FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) movement, a Marxist guerilla group.

[42] The first Vietnamese UN peacekeeping officers were sent to South Sudan, marked the first involvement of Vietnam into a United Nations' mission abroad.

[44] As an effort to help Turkey overcome the consequences of the 2023 earthquake, PAVN has sent 76 servicemen of the Border Guard, Army Medic, and Engineering Corps (alongside personnel from Public Security) to participate in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief including search-and-rescue missions.

During peacetime, the standing forces are minimised in number, and kept combat-ready by regular physical and weapons training, and stock maintenance.

In 1991, Conboy et al. stated that the PAVN Ground Force had four 'Strategic Army Corps' in the early 1990s, numbering 1–4, from north to south.

Ross wrote in 1984 that economic construction division "are composed of regular troops that are fully trained and armed, and reportedly they are subordinate to their own directorate in the Ministry of Defense.

From the 1960s to 1975 the Soviet Union, along with some smaller Eastern Bloc countries, was the main supplier of military hardware to North Vietnam.

Russia remains the largest arms-supplier for Vietnam; even after 1986, there were also increasing arms sales from other nations, notably from India, Turkey, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and France.

[54] Many new Vietnamese weapons, armor, and equipment are also greatly influenced by Israeli military doctrines, due to Vietnam's long and problematic relations with most of its neighbors.