| Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen delivers a speech during his visit to Oddar Meanchey province, near the Cambodia-Thailand border, June 26, 2025 (Agence Kampuchea Press photo via AP). |
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Thailand-Cambodia: Forces from the two countries clashed in several areas along their shared border today, following nearly two months of escalating tensions. The immediate trigger for today’s clashes, which have already killed at least 11 civilians, was a landmine explosion yesterday that wounded five Thai soldiers and prompted Bangkok to expel Cambodia’s ambassador, recall its own envoy to Phnom Penh and close its border with Cambodia. Thailand also said it launched airstrikes on Cambodian military targets, although Phnom Penh said the bombs hit a civilian road. (AP & Reuters) |
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Our Take: Tensions over Thailand and Cambodia’s disputed border—a legacy of France’s colonization of the latter—date back more than a half century. But until two months ago the issue had been largely dormant since 2011, when the two countries declared a ceasefire following a week of fighting that killed 15 people. That all changed in late May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in a skirmish between the two countries’ border forces, resulting in an immediate escalation of tensions and diplomatic fallout. |
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Much still remains murky about the initial skirmish, as well as the landmine explosion yesterday and clashes today, with each side calling the other the instigator in nearly every instance. And yet, to some extent, today’s escalation was almost inevitable, as the tensions had served a domestic political function in both countries, albeit for different reasons. |
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After an initial conciliatory response to the May skirmish by both sides, the spat was suddenly exacerbated into a full-blown crisis in late June, seemingly intentionally, by Hun Sen, Cambodia’s longtime former leader who remains heavily influential. As Michael Hart wrote in a recent in-depth article for WPR, defending Cambodia against external threats has long been central to the Hun regime’s narrative of political legitimacy. And in the midst of a dynastic succession to his son, Hun Sen has sought to contrast the stability of the Hun family’s leadership with the chaos of the political crisis that has unfolded in Thailand amid the bilateral tensions. |
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Meanwhile, Thailand’s royalist-military establishment, which maintains primary political power despite a transition to civilian leadership in 2019, has faced increased pressure in recent years from reformist parties and the pro-democracy movement that backs them. Escalating the conflict with Cambodia not only reestablishes the military establishment’s primacy in Thai politics, but also serves as a pretext to recalibrate the establishment’s power-sharing agreement with the powerful Shinawatra family, which has dominated electoral politics in Thailand for the past two decades. |
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As a result, the ingredients for escalation were already in place before yesterday, and even more worryingly, it’s not clear if any outside powers will provide the pressure needed for Thailand and Cambodia to find an off-ramp. The Southeast Asian regional bloc ASEAN has generally been ineffective at conflict mediation and crisis management, as evidenced by its handling of the crisis in Myanmar and various clashes in the South China Sea. Thailand is a treaty ally of the United States, but it seems unlikely the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump will make this issue a priority right now. That essentially leaves just China, a close partner of Cambodia that could see a diplomatic opening in the clashes, although it remains far from clear that Beijing will step in. |
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Ultimately, then, the biggest constraint on Thailand and Cambodia may simply be the limits of both sides’ military capabilities, and the fact that both are still facing the economic upheaval unleashed by Trump’s tariffs. Still, that did not stop the clashes from breaking out in the first place, and it does not mean that any further escalation won’t be deadly, particularly to civilians. More broadly, this is just the latest in a series of interstate conflicts that are now erupting with greater frequency. With less global resolve and multilateral capacity to contain them, that trend is only set to worsen. |