Thailand VS Cambodia: Proxy War Or Internal Power Struggle? | Dr. Digby Wren

## Historical fault lines: temples, empires and colonial cartography The recent eruption of artillery exchanges along the Thailand–Cambodia border is not a fresh quarrel conjured by modern politics; it is the audible continuation of centuries-old fault lines. The conversation makes clear that the fighting is concentrated in a mountainous, forested zone often called the Emerald Triangle — where northern Cambodia, northeastern Thailand and Laos meet — and revolves around seven temple sites built in the Khmer era. These Hindu temples are not simply archaeological curiosities: they are physical reminders that the pre‑colonial Khmer polity once extended well into what is now northeastern Thailand. Colonial boundary-making by France and Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries froze lines on the map that did not neatly follow local histories of settlement, worship, or administration. When those lines cut across sacred Khmer monuments, they created an enduring, low‑intensity dispute that has flared intermittently since the late twentieth century. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings of the 1960s settled ownership of some temple complexes but left surrounding buffer zones and precise demarcation contested. That legal partiality — temple defined, periphery undefined — is a structural cause of recurrent incidents. The terrain itself, remote and hard to police, encourages patrols, local militia, and national militaries to assert control in ways that are easily misread or deliberately provoked. Against that backdrop, what looks like a border clash on the surface is partially the legacy of empires and imperfect legal settlements beneath it. ## The immediate trigger: a leaked conversation and the collapse of confidence The proximate spark for the current political fallout in Thailand was a recorded phone conversation between the Thai prime minister and Cambodia’s leader that was released publicly. The recording is important less for its content — the criticism of Thai military conduct in the border area is not a revelation to informed observers — than for what its dissemination did to trust between political actors. The conversation revealed that intimate, supposedly private communications could be weaponized. According to the exchange, candidates for who released the tape range from deliberate destabilizers to rogue operatives; the status of the leak remains unclear. What matters is the political effect: a civilian Thai prime minister, already in a structurally weak position vis-à-vis the military, was publicly rebuked and then punished through domestic legal and political mechanisms. This breach of confidence also exposed a wider problem in bilateral channels. If conversations between heads of government can be made public, the incentives for candid diplomacy shrink. Leaders will either harden positions to avoid future domestic backlash or rely on informal, less trustworthy intermediaries. Either outcome makes rational de‑escalation harder to achieve and permits local commanders greater latitude to act without the governor or cabinet’s restraint. ## Thailand’s domestic triangle: monarchy, military and civilian government A central theme in the discussion is the peculiar power geometry of Thai politics: a permanent triangle linking the monarchy, the military, and civilian political forces. The civilian government sits at the weakest vertex. The Shinawatra political dynasty — now represented by the daughter who became prime minister — has repeatedly found itself squeezed by a royalist‑military nexus that will act decisively to curb civilian initiatives perceived as threatening. The prime minister’s public critique of the military commander in charge of the border sector was therefore not merely a policy gaffe; it collided with an institutional orthodox that defends military autonomy. The military figure at the center of the border operations is described as an archetypal nationalist career officer from the region — promoted during Thailand’s recent periods of junta rule and rewarded for bold, sometimes provocative actions. His trajectory illustrates another point made in the discussion: promotions and appointments have signaled, for years, an institutional tolerance or even endorsement of assertive posturing along the border. The release of the phone call amplified domestic anxieties about civilian control. It gave the military‑aligned conservative elements the pretext — whether organic or engineered — to act against a civilian leader, with consequences that now include a prime ministerial ouster and further military empowerment. ## Cambodian power dynamics: continuity, paternalism, and constrained ascendancy Cambodia’s politics present a different, though complementary, configuration. The Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) remains the dominant force, and its elder statesman continues to exercise influence even as his son assumes formal leadership. Hun Sen’s position as party chair and senate president means his fingerprints are still on high diplomacy and security choices, even if formal day‑to‑day control appears to be shifting toward the younger generation. From the conversation, it becomes clear that Cambodia’s approach to the border is shaped by this continuity: the party seeks to consolidate the gains of a steadily growing economy and expand regional integration. At the same time, Hun Manet, while nominally prime minister, is still in the process of consolidating authority and testing institutional levers. Sending or permitting hardline responses on the border can therefore serve multiple internal purposes: signaling to domestic constituencies that sovereignty and territorial integrity will not be negotiated away, while also demonstrating political resolve that buttresses a still‑emergent leadership. A further complication is the role of intra‑elite competition within Cambodia: ministries and family networks jostle for influence and advantage in policy areas such as infrastructure and cross‑border trade. Those internal pressures can unintentionally harden foreign policy stances, especially when high‑stakes projects (for example, canal plans or port development) attract outside opposition. ## The regional chessboard: who benefits from escalation? One of the most incisive strands of the conversation asks the practical question of beneficiaries. A simple narrative that reduces the clashes to a bilateral spat is inadequate. Instead, the conflict sits at the intersection of domestic power struggles and regional geopolitical competition. Inside Thailand, the military and royalist parties stand to gain from a crisis that discredits civilian leadership and reasserts security primacy. In Cambodia, the ruling party consolidates nationalist credentials and justifies greater central control. Beyond these internal dynamics, regional actors have stakes. Vietnam, for instance, has been uneasy about Cambodian moves to diversify economic and maritime ties — particularly plans for an inland canal linking the Mekong to the Gulf of Thailand. Such projects could reconfigure trade routes and reduce Vietnamese leverage over Cambodian infrastructure and commerce. If Vietnam perceives Cambodia drifting toward an independent position that weakens historic ties, that creates pressure that can be expressed indirectly through diplomatic maneuvers or support for certain Cambodian constituencies. Other external actors — major powers and investors — profit from instability in different ways: some benefit when weaker governments make concessions, others when they can justify security partnerships. The conversation suggests that while direct foreign states do not appear to be shooting artillery across borders, the regional ripples of local decisions are magnified by great‑power interests and infrastructure plans that rework access to ports, energy, and transit corridors. ## From proxy war to power struggle: a nuanced appraisal Labeling the fighting as eit

Thailand VS Cambodia: Proxy War Or Internal Power Struggle? The military tensions at the Thai-Cambodian border have exploded this week into all-out artillery warfare. Military personnel and civilians have died and the political fallout in Thailand has cost the prime minister her job. What is going on? To discuss this, I'm joined today by Dr. Digby J. Wren. Based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Dr. Wren has been connected to the region for decades. He runs a geopolitical risk advisory firm and is a former External Relations Advisor to the President of the Royal Academy of Cambodia. He is also the publisher of the very successful Substack Analysis, “the long Mekong”. Dr. Wren's Susbtack: https://longmekong.substack.com Our Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #M3 Hello everybody, this is Pascal Lottaz from Neutrality Studies, coming to you with a special episode on the ongoing and unfortunately still escalating conflict between Cambodia and Thailand. Here with me to clarify what's going on is Dr. Digby Wren. Based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Dr. Wren has been connected to the region for decades. He runs a geopolitical risk advisory firm and is the former external relations advisor to the president of the Royal Academy of Cambodia. He's also the publisher of the very successful Substack analysis, The Long Mekong, as you can see right behind him. Dr. Wren, welcome back. #M2 Welcome. Yeah, it's really nice to be back on the show, Pascal. I really enjoy your show. #M3 Yeah, thank you very much, Digby. We talked about half a year ago, or maybe a year ago, last time, and I'm really glad that you agreed to give us your take on what's happening. I also reached out to you because you are an Australian citizen, although you're living in Cambodia, so I do think you have somewhat of a third-party perspective on this entire region. Some neutral analysis is important right now. On Twitter, what we see is, "Oh, pro-Cambodia," "Oh, pro-Thailand," which is absolutely dumb. But can you give us a rundown of what's actually occurring right now as we speak, on this Saturday, July 26th, in Japan and Phnom Penh? #M2 -- 1 of 19 -- Yeah. So, well, the key thing, I suppose, back to your point just now about events, right? Everybody's either pro-Cambodia or pro-Thailand or pro-something. But yeah, it's a series of events. It's not as if this is just new. This has been going on for quite a long time, these sorts of border skirmishes—well, at least since the 1990s, and even before, really. But this current series is originally about a whole lot of—so, seven sites on their shared border. That shared border is up in what they call the Emerald Triangle—so, northwest Cambodia, northeast Thailand, up where there's the juncture with Laos as well. So that's kind of the area. We're talking about mountainous forests—not easy to navigate. So it's been going on up there. Now, these places are these temples, right, that mark these sites. And these temples are Hindu temples—they're really old, ancient Khmer temples. What people don't realize is that the Khmer Empire used to be a lot larger, stretching all the way down to what is now South Vietnam, which was originally part of the Khmer Empire, and parts of what is now Thailand, up in the northeast and northwest, were also part of the Khmer Empire. So that's why you have these constructions, these temple constructions, on the mountains and things like that. So that's sort of the historical context. But the real problem came, of course, with colonialism. It was the French and the British who split and set all the borders. This is not a new problem. You know, this is happening everywhere—in Africa, in the Himalayas, everywhere. All these British and French borders, you know, Sykes-Picot and all that stuff. So they've done the same thing here. Thailand wasn't really colonized, but it was sort of cut down from its largest empire stretch, which was in the 19th century. And so it's never been happy about losing what it had taken from the Cambodians during its expansion in the 17th and 18th centuries. They lost all of that—the French and the British cut that back, carved Cambodia out in the middle. So now, in the present, if you're a Cambodian, you think of yourself as being squeezed between the crocodile of Vietnam—which is that long, thin crocodile all the way down the coastline on the South China Sea—and the tiger of Thailand. So those are the two big ones. And so this was supposed to be all very good and constructive within the ASEAN format, within the RCEP formats, and, you know, internal trade with ASEAN. And so Cambodia was going to benefit enormously because it's directly between the tiger of Thailand—also an industrial tiger—and Vietnam, also an industrial crocodile. So that was going to be great for Cambodia. It's going to be a node, a hub for light manufacturing, components, and all that sort of thing. #M3 Yeah, it's a little bit like Switzerland benefiting from being right between Germany, France, and Italy and being the connecting hub, right? And that can be great for a landlocked country. #M2 -- 2 of 19 -- Exactly. And geographically, Cambodia is really in the center of Asia. The port of Sihanoukville, for example, is actually the closest point for transport across the Gulf of Thailand to Bangkok, Thailand, as well as to Malaysia and Vietnam. So Cambodia, you know, I think the last time I was on your show, we talked about how Cambodia really is geographically super well placed, just like Switzerland. And that's why neutrality is important, right? But that seems to have flown out the window. I suppose the first question we should ask is, how did this recording between the— I have a lot of trouble pronouncing these Thai names. #M3 Yeah, it's Shinawatra, right? And we need to give the background for this one. So there was a phone call, right, about three weeks ago between the female prime minister, Ms. Shinawatra of Thailand, and the prime minister of Cambodia, Mr. Hun Manet. Hun Manet. And funnily enough, they're both the children of the patriarchs of their countries—Mr. Shinawatra on the Thai side and Mr. Hun Sen on the Cambodian side, right? #M2 Well, that's right. And they've known each other basically since they were teenagers. It's not as if the two prime ministers are strangers. These families have been quite close for about 30 years. So the Hun family in Cambodia, which has held power in real terms, I suppose, for at least 20, 30, 38 years. And the Shinawatra clan in Thailand, who've had three prime ministerships. #M3 But on and off, actually, because they were even kicked out of the country sometimes, since they're quite hotly hated by one part of the Thai political establishment. #M2 Yeah. So we need to think about the structure of Thailand's politics and the structure of Cambodia's politics. There's basically a triangulation in both countries. And the triangulation in Thailand is the king, the army, and the civilian government. The civilian government is the weakest of the three. And of course, no government can exist anywhere without the military. So the royalist and conservative factions in Thailand side with the military, always. And so whenever there's a civilian government they're not happy with, or that's too friendly to the Americans, or too friendly to the Chinese, or, I don't know, not friendly enough to somebody, they tend to get pushed out and the military takes over again. And of course, the military is also not going to like civilian governments that try to adjust legislation to create greater control over the military. And that's what the Shinawatras have just done, because of the three prime ministers that the Shinawatras have had. So that's the father, Thaksin, who's a -- 3 of 19 -- billionaire and very friendly with Hun Sen, and his sister, Yingluck, who was also kicked out by the military—so that's two. And now the daughter. And now she's been pushed aside through the Supreme Court, which is filled with conservative royalists. #M3 Yeah. And the reason she was pushed out, or suspended for the moment, is because she had this talk with Hun Manet. In that phone call, she actually criticized the army—her own army—for their actions. And it seems that Hun Manet has now leaked that phone call to the press. That created huge upheaval in Thailand. It was like, "Oh, how dare she criticize us? I mean, our prime minister criticized our army." #M2 Right. So in Cambodia, the structure is slightly different. You've got the party, the CPP—that's the party of Hun Sen, the political party. By far, they're dominant. And then you have the army, right? So they're together. But the king is virtually powerless in Cambodia. Right, virtually powerless. So the triangulation is slightly different. But yes, they had this conversation because of a small skirmish that happened, as I said to you before, very close to the Lao-Thai border—the Cambodian border. And there was a series of little events, you know, like a general hosting a group of families. Then all these Thai families went across the border into Cambodia. And, you know, they promote this idea that this used to be Thailand. Well, I suppose it was part of the Thai empire for a little while. Yeah. #M3 And let me just add one thing, because I think it's important to know that the ICJ awarded the temple that is at the center of attention to Cambodia, but not the surrounding area, right? The surrounding area is supposed to be demilitarized. So on both sides, there's still a question: where is the actual border? #M2 That's right. Yeah, that was done in 1962, and so they got a ruling on the actual temples—not just one, but a few of them. But yeah, you're right, the area around that—I'm not quite sure how big it is now, I've forgotten. I think it's about six, it might be 42 square kilometers, I'm not really sure. Anyway, so there was no ruling on that, so that's still in dispute, and that's been going on forever, right? But the thing was that up until, let's just say, the last year, relations between the three Gulf of Thailand countries—so Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia—they were working really closely together. Hun Sen, Thaksin Shinawatra, and Anwar Ibrahim had sort of formed a small group, a small triangulation. -- 4 of 19 -- And they were working towards solving a lot of the problems related to the Gulf of Thailand gas and oil rights, and they were making progress on that. They were also making progress on Myanmar and the implementation of the ASEAN five-point consensus, and that seemed to be working. Then there was another development: the announcement that Cambodia was going to build a canal from the Mekong straight down into the Gulf of Thailand, which the Vietnamese were very unhappy about. Now, one has to remember that the Vietnamese have a big say in the Cambodian economy, and that canal was not viewed favorably in Vietnam. Just follow me here, because this will get to the point. And the point here is that Vietnam has not been happy about this relationship—that Cambodia is going to be sort of cut loose, if you like, from Vietnam. And so this will come back to us at the end when we talk about who benefits from the conflict between Cambodia and Thailand. Anyway, this phone call happened between Hun Sen and the prime minister, the current daughter, right? Thirty- six-year-old Shinawatra. And in that, yes, she criticized the military commander of the second military area, which is the area involved here, and this guy's name is Busin. He is a creature of the former military dictatorships, or juntas, that were in power and that kicked out the other Shinawatras—in 2008 and 2014, I think. So she's criticized them. But you have to remember that the head of the army was also appointed by the former military government back in 2016, or something like that. So that conservative royalist military faction is strong, and because the coalition government in Thailand has two parties that are royalist mi