Defending the Nation - the Logic of War

Thursday, April 28, 2011
Op-Ed by Davan Long

As the new round of fighting along the Cambodian-Thai border enters its seventh straight day, an increasing number of casualties has been reported by both sides, and tens of thousands of civilians have been evacuated from their villages. Thai military accuses the Cambodia side of being the instigator of the recent clashes. We may not know exactly which side pulled the trigger first, but we do know that Cambodia has repeatedly called for the deployment of third party observers at the border to establish and monitor a durable ceasefire, while Thai military flatly rejects such calls.

Thai military's flagrant objection to the presence of international observers or mediators casts serious doubt about its intention to resolve the conflict peacefully and diplomatically, while at the same time sparks questions about ASEAN's role, relevance and ability to broker peace in the region.

Despite our genuine commitment to non-violent solution, it is increasingly clear that the current situation with Thailand is likely to get worse, much worse, before it gets better. Furthermore, there is strong indication that the ongoing standoff is headed for a long haul, which will cause not only a prolonged hardship to our local population, but also significant strain on our national budget.

Our present military strategy is neither sustainable nor dissuasive. Given the disparity between our national GDP and that of Thailand, we have to find a better and more effective way to deal with this conflict. We can not solely rely on procuring and deploying armored personal carriers, battle tanks and conventional rocket launchers. If we do that, we would never be able to keep up with Thailand, and it would not be long before our country goes broke. This is a fact well known to the Thai military and that is why it is to their advantage to prolong the conflict to deplete our economy and military logistics. Beside our battle tanks, rocket launchers are no more than sitting ducks for Thai fighter jets such as F16, F18 and the Gripen.

We definitely need to develop a new strategy and build up a new defense capability. But before we do that it is absolutely vital that we have a precise understanding of the threat we're facing and more importantly the logic or mindset behind that threat. With that in mind, allow me to share a personal story.

I was around ten years old when the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh in 1975. My family and I were displaced to a remote village near the Eastern border. When we got to the Memot district of Kampong Cham Province, the KR took my father away and sent the rest of us to a stone-age village completely cut off from the civilization. In the village, there were two or three kids who constantly bullied the other kids. One of them lived near my hut and he had already beaten up several kids in the block. I knew it was only a matter of time before he picked a fight with me. So I prepared myself mentality, and I kept telling myself that no matter what, I had to fight hard to make him regret for picking a fight with me, or to make him think twice before he wanted to fight with me again.

One day, on my way to work, I was crossing a shallow river when I saw him crossing from the opposite direction. I tried to avoid him but he intercepted me and started pushing me around while other kids were watching and howling with joys. At that moment, I had no choice but to push him back. We had a dogfight, or a fishfight since it took place in the river. From that day on, he never harassed me again. The other two bullying kids in the village also heard about the fight, and they too stopped messing up with me.

The story sounds very childish, doesn’t it? Ironically, this very same ten-years-old-boy mentality and behaviour apply to the majority of wars in human history. War is not about defending an ideology or a territory. It's about one side believing it can bully the other side, without paying a heavy price. If an aggressor perceives or realizes that there is a devastating consequence for his aggression, there is a great chance that he will back off and avoid the confrontation. Such is the logic of war.

At the moment, the attitude of Thai military toward our country is less than honorable, or not much different from that of a bullying boy to be more precise. There are several reasons for that. First, they look at our economy, assess our military arsenals quality and quantity wise, and conclude that there is no immediate harm for them to continue their campaign of provocations and intimidations; and that is exactly what they are doing - intermittent provocations and intimidations until it erupts into a full-scale war.

Secondly, Thai generals are positive that should a full-scale violent erupt, they can rely on their firepower to overrun our positions and push their offensives inside our territory. Furthermore, they anticipate that our counter-offensives would be very much restricted to the border areas, while their armed forces have the capability to attack our positions and infrastructures basically anywhere inside the country.

Thai military's view and posture vis-a-vis the Preah Vihear issue are exceedingly hazardous, and we need to make a counter-move to correct that immediately if we want to avoid a full-scale war. There are several affordable options - one of which is to enhance our strategic capability through the acquisitions of a variety of medium-range ground-based missiles. Such weapons would completely change the balance of power, and allow us to bring the battles right to their barracks and headquarters in Bangkok in the event of a full-scale armed conflict.

Hostility between neighbours is one of the worst things that can happen as it leaves profound and bitter sentiments for generations to come. Regrettably, our love-hate relationship with Thailand has once again taken a bad turn with no end in sight. The present conflict, of which the Thai Army categorically reject third party observers or mediators, leaves us no choice but to acquire some fearful weapons to defend ourselves. We strongly hope that such weapons will deter the hostility, and eventually encourage our two countries to normalize the relationship and have a long lasting peace.

May God bring peace to the two countries.