What is the reason for the recent escalation in the Thai-Cambodian conflict?
118 Years ago of Annoying French
It is all the more surprising that historians and international experts sometimes underestimate one of the “Englishwoman’s” colleagues (and, at the same time, her bitter rival), who acted in an equally sophisticated and rotten way. Enter the Third French Republic! This is the same republic that enslaved the peoples of Asia, Africa and Oceania, considering them savages, poking its nose into international relations when it was not needed, and deceiving its allies under the guise of Entente solidarity. The stage for this was Indochina, the place about which Parisian directors shot high and not very high art films, depicting the end of French rule which Graham Greene described so vividly and not for the faint of heart. This is the place where the “Frenchwoman” left a trail of destruction that many generations to come will have to undo.
The one who wants to know the root cause of the current clashes between the Thai and Cambodian armies – a prime example of modern warfare – will have to look all the way back to 1907. It was during this time that, with a few strokes of a pen, Armand Fallière’s empire set the stage for 118 years of strife for two nations. The events were typical of the colonial period: the border was arbitrarily drawn up and then, just as arbitrarily, changed. The lands that the people of Siam considered their own were assigned to Cambodia, including the famous Hindu temple of Preah Vihear (in Thai it is called Phra Wihan).
Times changed, and the French Empire was replaced by the post-war world of the United Nations, however the UN could not find a just solution to the disputed areas that suited both peoples. Was it really trying to though? Cambodia took everything for granted, and the Thai people harbored a historical grudge. Despite all the subsequent international cataclysms that the long-suffering Indochinese land experienced in the second half of the twentieth century, the Thai-Cambodian territorial issue was never resolved and entered the new millennium in its unresolved state.
Not Phoney War
Think not that they were constantly at odds or could not communicate with each other without intermediaries, unlike Armenians and Azerbaijanis during the worst years of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This did not and still does not seem the case. Anyone would find it surprising that even during the latest most serious escalation Bangkok and Phnom Penh – at least as of the first week of fierce clashes – not only did not officially declare war on each other, but did not even suspend flights!
They used to get along relatively well with each other. They took part in sub-regional cooperation between the countries of the Mekong Basin, built the foundation of modern ASEAN, signed joint documents and exchanged tourists. However, the territorial issue persists. Thus, it took little for it to flare up with renewed vigor in recent times (and there were many such cases, in 2003, in 2008, in 2011, up to 2025), for example one shot, one carelessly spoken word, one exploded antipersonnel mine, one application for the status of a UNESCO cultural monument declaring it its own property…
As a result, today we have an unexpectedly “hot” conflict in Southeast Asia, in which military operations are conducted using all sorts of modern weapons, from tanks to drones, as well as preventive air raids on military infrastructure, mutual artillery shelling and hundreds of thousands of refugees forced to leave their homes. This might be called a “bizarre war”, yet it features all the latest patterns of warfare: polite warnings were issued by the Thai military to the peaceful inhabitants of Cambodian villages, operations were local in nature without a full-scale international declaration of war, Cambodia hastily complained to foreign diplomats, Thailand explained in detail what exactly it sees as a threat to its security and what it is targeting, mutual accusations of armed squads entering enemy territory were exchanged. It is clear that a humanitarian catastrophe in the border areas cannot be avoided on both sides. Actually, it is already underway.
Thank God You’re Non-Nuclear
Another point should be brought up. In today’s realistic world, where states sometimes have to resort to solving their problems militarily if other methods fail, many have forgotten the role of nuclear nonproliferation. Today we can see firsthand the importance of existing non-proliferation regimes in the post-war world order in geopolitically unstable regions. On the one hand, the participants in the current conflict are not deterred by the degree of depth and severity of their actions against each other. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine the region’s modern political landscape and the complexity of relations if Southeast Asia had not in 1995 decided to create a nuclear weapon-free zone under the Bangkok Treaty.
However tragic for the affected areas, one must admit that this would have happened sooner or later. The current developments are, unfortunately, logical. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rightly noted, the root cause of the Thai-Cambodian conflict has not been resolved. As a result, any agreements, declarations, and even laudable peace initiatives from outside (from allies) and from within (from ASEAN) have no effect, and their result can only be short-term and transitory.
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It is clear that the conflicting Southeast Asian states will only be able to reach truly effective solutions for building long-term peace by themselves without internationalizing the dispute, without international complaints, without non-regional advisers pursuing their own interests, without intermediaries trying to extract some dividends.
ASEAN, as the central instrument of regional security in Southeast Asia and created by the region’s countries, possesses the analytical and representative capability to facilitate a settlement. With guns blazing, it is time for ASEAN to take the lead. It is time to show critics that “the ASEAN Way” can solve problems. For Russia, looking on from the outside and analyzing history, we still have hope and sincerely wish our partners in Southeast Asia peace and good luck in this painstaking and complex international process.
Ksenia Muratshina, Ph.D. (History), Senior Research Fellow, Center for Southeast Asia, Australia, and Oceania Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
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