SEWING CHAOS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The sudden outbreak of border hostilities between Thailand and Cambodia Who is in whose interest and why?

 

By Sidney Hey

The sudden outbreak of hostilities between two Indo-Pacific countries, Thailand and Cambodia, is not simply a matter of border friction or the settling of old scores dating back to French colonial times. From a strategic point of view, we should look at who benefits from this discord and who it could complicate if the war spreads.

It has not yet been determined who initiated the attacks as both sides accuse each other of having been attacked without justification. It could be the usual tactic of victimisation despite being the aggressor, or perhaps both are telling the truth; so, who could have attacked?

Let's look at the context and see who might be behind it. There is a simmering regional arm wrestling match between the US and its NATO partners against China and North Korea, which provides a rather suspicious framework for what happened. If we go back to contemporary history, we see that Washington, through its agencies, has artfully created casus belli that gave it the key to enter the regions where they were created. One of the tactics employed and which has become well known is the so-called ‘false flag operation’ in which, by imitation, it is attempted to make people believe that a third party was the aggressor.

Precisely in the same region but in the second half of the last century, the Americans, in order to get involved in Southeast Asia over the North Vietnam issue and to prevent the advance of the communist bloc's influence, fabricated an alleged North Vietnamese attack on one of the US ships (USNS CARD) in Tonkin Bay, which served to justify to Congress and public opinion the US entry into Vietnam.

These kinds of deceptive operations, in which aggression is fabricated through an attack by a regular force or an attack by a terrorist group, are usually carried out by cells recruited, paid for and commissioned by Western agencies. The reactivation of border conflicts by means of a deception operation would not be far-fetched, especially when Donald Trump acts as a mediator hours later.

For years, the US has been trying to bring the Indo-Pacific states in line with its geopolitical guidelines, which, not coincidentally, run counter to China's interests. As part of this, Washington has concluded bilateral agreements and accords linked to (among other things) military assistance under the grandiose and merely enunciative headings of security, regional stability and peace.

In the case of relations with Thailand, they go back a long way and are based on a very good understanding that materialised in the so-called ‘Manila Agreement’ of 1954, which, under the label of a treaty for the collective defence of Southeast Asia, allowed the entry and operation of US military forces in the region, and which a decade later would actively intervene in neighbouring Vietnam. Despite the problems of recurrent human rights violations by military governments, it is considered an ‘extra-NATO ally’, and after the military coup of 2006, relations between the Pentagon and the Thai military leadership have always remained solid, as evidenced by the proportion of armaments such as cluster bombs and US-made F-16 aircraft.

Nor should we forget Thailand's role in cooperating with the CIA by allowing it to house secret prisons and torture centres for abductees around the world, which since 2001 the Washington administration has deployed under the pretext of the fight against terrorism.

Ties with Cambodia do not appear to be as deep and intimately dark as those with Thailand, but in recent years, especially during the Biden-Harris administration, the Pentagon, through Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, has worked hard to align Cambodia's interests with Washington's. The Americans have been concerned about growing bilateral relations with the Chinese, especially with regard to naval movements in the Gulf of Thailand. The Americans watched with great concern as bilateral relations with the Chinese grew, especially with regard to naval movements in the Gulf of Thailand. While they could negotiate a more direct anti-Chinese policy with the Thais, it was not foreseeable that anything similar could be done with Cambodia.

Against this backdrop, one had to ask: what is Cambodia's value on the map? Simply because it is the country closest to China's borders and that is an invaluable geostrategic factor if you are seeking to establish an advantage over your opponent.

Now then. If we see that the Pentagon has historically had extensive and very reliable relations with the Thai military (deepened during the Vietnam War), while on the other side is Cambodia, which in 1970 was invaded by the Americans and triggered a civil war that further weakened the country and led to the Vietnamese invasion in 1978. In short, there is no similar relationship between Washington and Nom Pen as there is with Bankok. but both have long-standing unresolved border issues, especially over the 11th century temple, which UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site.

While we will never know who attacked whom, or whether there was a third hand that deliberately started the fire, it is certain that it has opened a passageway for the Americans to have a greater presence in the region.