Thai-Cambodian Conflict Threatens Asian Stability by Design |
Renewed fighting along the Thai–Cambodian border in December highlights how local disputes in Southeast Asia are increasingly shaped by broader great-power strategies aimed at constraining China’s rise.
Despite any resulting ceasefire, the fundamental issues driving the conflict remain entirely unresolved, primarily because these issues stem from foreign interests using regional conflict to complicate both Asia’s rise in general and China’s rise specifically.
The Nature of the Fighting
Fighting erupted after Cambodian land mines and small arms fire left Thai troops injured and dead early December 8, leading to spiraling violence involving heavy artillery, warplanes, drones, and intense small arms fire at locations all along the Thai-Cambodian border.
Cambodia launched hundreds of BM-21 unguided multiple launch rocket system munitions into Thailand, prompting the Thai military to respond with air and drone strikes targeting both the launchers themselves as well as local ammunition depots used for staging rockets. Positional fighting resulted in disputed territory changing hands day-to-day, just as it had during the previous fighting in July.
Amid the fighting, footage and Thai military statements indicated Cambodia was also using Ukrainian-style FPV (first-person-view) drones — here were also intercepted communications featuring English-speaking drone operators.
This indicates that the US, either directly or through one of its many proxies, has aided Cambodia in a similar manner to its successful overthrow of the Syrian government late last year. It was admitted then that similar Ukraine-style FPV drones and Western operators aided militants in pushing back and eventually overrunning Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian forces.
Adding further to suspicions of a US role in the recent violence is Cambodia’s own vocal, repeated appeals for US involvement as a mediator, versus Thailand’s repeated refusal to accept directives delivered from Washington.
“Extending China”
The on-and-off border fighting disrupts peace and stability, threatening the rapid rise of not only China but the rest of Asia with it — including close Chinese partners like Thailand and, obviously, Cambodia itself.
The conflict represents part of a strategy already documented and being applied to Russia meant to encircle and contain it through economic pressure and the creation and expansion of multiple simultaneous conflicts along its periphery.
This strategy was laid out in detail in the 2019 RAND Corporation paper titled, “Extending Russia,” and included plans to provoke a deadly proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, to continue arming “Syrian rebels” who have since overthrown the Russian-backed government in Syria, for attempted regime change in Belarus, to exploit tensions in the South Caucasus, to reduce Russian influence in Central Asia, and to challenge Russia’s presence in Transnistria.
It should be mentioned that all of these options have either been implemented or are in the process of being implemented and that the US is pursuing an identical strategy in regards to China as well.
Earlier in December of this year, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute hosted current US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine. In the talk he specifically mentioned the ongoing US strategy to maintain global primacy and to confront a rising China.
During the talk he explicitly stated:
“…so when we look at the rise of the Chinese military, what our goal in the joint force is to create multiple, simultaneous dilemmas for ALL of the adversaries around the world, so that they are very cautious and concerned about doing something that would bring any sense of threat to the American people. “
While it could be argued that General Caine meant “dilemmas” created by US military capabilities amid a hypothetical conflict with China, throughout the talk he repeatedly linked the concept of creating “dilemmas” to all domains of US geopolitical power, including the ongoing AI (artificial intelligence) race —........