Context For The Latest Episode Of The Cambodia-Thailand Conflict

Not so long ago, international wars were viewed as a thing of the past, after a long lull at the end of the 20th century (with the brief, but notable exception of the Gulf War in 1992, which was prompted by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait), leaving only insurgencies and cross-border fights with military forces not sponsored by recognized sovereign countries. 

But, the 21st century has proved that this lull was only temporary. We've seen the Russia-Ukraine War (in 2014 and 2022 to the present), there have been military clashes as recently as this year between India and Pakistan, Israel and the U.S. have attacked Iran (which has also struck Israel), the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have recently engage the Houthi regime that is the de facto ruler of Southern Yemen after it attacked merchant ships off its coast, and there have been low intensity naval clashes between China and the Philippines in the past couple of years. A six day war between Cambodia and Thailand this month has added to that roster.

The latest round in a 118 year old border dispute related to a historic Hindu temple built by the Khmer Empire during what were the Middle Ages in Europe, near the current border between Cambodia and Thailand, led to a six day military conflict between the two countries that left at least 38 people dead and displaced at least 310,000 people, until a cease fire took hold yesterday. The two nations have had military clashes for hundreds of years, even before the ambiguous 1907 map that is at the root of this particular border dispute took hold. 

Shots were heard early on Thursday morning near Prasat Ta Muen Thom, an ancient temple on the disputed border between the two countries. Senior commanders from the Thai and Cambodian militaries agreed to de-escalate one of the bloodiest border conflicts between their nations in decades on Tuesday.The deal seemed to end, at least for now, [six] days of fighting that killed at least 38 people. More than 180,000 people in Thailand have evacuated from areas along the border, while in Cambodia, more than 130,000 people have fled their homes.

Each nation accused the other of firing first.

The Thai Army said on July 24 that Cambodia had fired rockets into civilian areas in four Thai provinces, prompting Thailand to send F-16 fighter jets to strike targets in Cambodia.

Cambodian officials said that Thai soldiers had opened fire on Cambodian troops first, at a temple claimed by both nations, called Prasat Ta Moan Thom by the Cambodians and Prasat Ta Muen Thom by the Thais. They said Cambodian forces returned fire some 15 minutes later.

The ownership of Prasat Ta Muen Thom / Prasat Ta Moan Thom is disputed by the two countries. Cambodia’s de facto leader, Hun Sen, claimed in a social media post that a Thai military commander had “started this war” by ordering the closure of the temple on Wednesday, and opening fire on Cambodian troops the next day. Thailand has accused Cambodia of starting the conflict.

The temple is in disputed territory, and people there speak Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, as well as Thai — highlighting the cultural overlap. The area is known for ruins from the Khmer Empire, which lasted from the ninth to the 15th century.

Arguments about where the border should be, and who owns the temples in the region, have led to decades of disputes. In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded Cambodia sovereignty over the Preah Vihear Temple (known as Phra Viharn in Thailand), another temple about 95 miles away. In 2013, the court, the top judicial body of the United Nations, tried to clarify the 1962 decision. It said that Cambodia had sovereignty over the immediate area around that temple, but it left unresolved who controlled a larger disputed area. The border disputes can be traced to a 1907 map created during French colonial rule in Cambodia. The two countries interpret the map differently. Military fighting has broken out intermittently since 2008, but the last time that a major clash turned deadly was in 2011.

The two countries have had occasional military clashes and nationalist rivalries for hundreds of years.

The quoted material above (and below) is all from today's New York Times, but I have reordered the quoted material to be more readable, in this particularly poorly structured and edited article (which also includes duplicated sentences), and as a result, have not specifically noted where I omitted parts of the story. 

The cease fire was negotiated by Malaysian diplomats, with input from the U.S. and China.

The U.S. does not have particularly strong ties to either party in the conflict and wasn't directly involved in it, even though it claims to have participated in the peace negotiations, so news coverage of the conflict was relatively modest. But, the U.S. has historically favored Thailand, a constitutional monarchy which was one of the few countries never to fall to colonial powers, since it generally speaking sided with the West in the Cold War, over Cambodia, with its history of one of the most violent communist revolutions in history, which China has tended to favor.

An equally interesting aspect of the latest conflict is that Thailand's prime minister was suspended from office by a Thai court for controversial statements made not long before the shooting broke out, which is a political tactic that would be unavailable in most countries (but might be desirable if the grounds for it were suitably defined), in which the status of the prime minister would be primarily an issue for the parliament. Also, relatively few countries recognize the intermediate sanction of suspending a head of government without actually removing the head of government from office.

The border tensions have already contributed to a political crisis in Thailand: On July 1, a Thai court suspended the prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, because of comments she made about the dispute.

In June, Ms. Paetongtarn spoke by phone to Hun Sen, who is . . . Mr. Hun Manet’s father [Hun Manet has been the prime minister of Cambodia since 2023], to discuss the escalating border tensions. Mr. Hun Sen has had close ties to [Ms. Paetongtarn's] father, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister of Thailand and the leader of a powerful political dynasty, as well as one of the country’s richest men.

Mr. Hun Sen posted a recording of their call, in which Ms. Paetongtarn seemed to disparage Thailand’s powerful military and take a deferential tone. She called Mr. Hun Sen “uncle” and told him that she would “arrange” anything he wanted.

In response, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Bangkok to express their outrage. Although Ms. Paetongtarn apologized, she has faced pressure to resign.