Name: Why Cambodia & Thailand Are Moving Towards War
Uploaded: 2026-01-16T17:20:40.000Z
Duration: 38 min 2 s
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Beginning on the 24th of July of 2025, the world's attention suddenly and briefly shifted towards Southeast Asia as the armies of Cambodia and Thailand clashed against each other in the most shocking eruption of violence the region has seen in decades.

Both sides deployed and fired heavy artillery, rockets and drones against each other.

For days, infantry battled against each other on the ground, Cambodian armor made attempted advances and most shockingly thrown.

The Royal Thai air force deployed US made F16 and Swedish made Gripen fighter jets to bomb multiple strategic targets across the border in Cambodia over several days, with claims by the Cambodian side that some of them utilized cluster munitions.

Historically marking the first time that Cambodian territory had been bombed since the American bombing campaign during the Vietnam War ended all the way back in 1973.

Martial law was momentarily declared by the Thai authorities on their side of the border, while both sides accused the other of committing war crimes by bombing or shelling hospitals, schools and cultural sites and other civilian targets in the middle of the fighting.

Thailand's acting Prime Minister warned that the conflict had the potential to spiral out of control as the US government issued a maximum level 4 do not travel advisory for all areas within 50km of the Thailand Cambodia border.

By the end of the five days of ferocious fighting between them, when a tenuous ceasefire was finally agreed upon, hundreds of soldiers were potentially left dead prepared the Royal Thai army claiming that around 100 invading Cambodian soldiers were killed during just a single engagement near the Phu Phi area here along the border on 25 July.

Though Cambodia itself so far only recognizes 18 of their soldiers who were killed during the entire conflict.

While Thailand recognizes 15 soldier deaths of their own, at least another 24 civilians across both sides of the border were killed during the five day conflict as well hundreds of other soldiers and civilians were injured or captured and around 300,000 people were forcibly displaced from their homes homes away from the border.

Now, the reason why all of this exploded so suddenly and caught the world's attention by such surprise is multifaceted, stemming from rival powerful families in both countries with complicated dynastic ambitions and deep seated nationalism, historical grievances and disputed borders that have festered in the background for decades.

And in order to get to the bottom of why this explosion of violence between these two states suddenly happened here and why it could still still blow up again in an even worse way in the future, it helps to begin with the hotly disputed border between them and how it came to be in the first place.

You see both Cambodia and Thailand claim historical rights to a series of highly culturally significant temples along their border today that were constructed centuries ago by the sprawling Khmer Empire which once dominated mainland Southeast Asia.

At the empire's height of the 13th century, it spanned across all of modern day Cambodia and large swathes of southern Vietnam, Laos and Thailand, and

constructed multiple spectacular temples and monuments all across its territory, like the well known Angkor Wat and the currently disputed temples of Phra Biar and Prasad Tha Mun Thaw.

However, the Khmer Empire began entering into a period of decline in the 14th century and by 1431 it had collapsed completely.

By the 18th century, Cambodia had been significantly weakened through territorial expansion by Vietnam and Thailand and forced into becoming a vassal of Thailand's.

And then in 1863, a much, much weaker Cambodia, facing pressure by both Thailand and Vietnam, was pressed into becoming a protector of the colonial French empire in order to gain protection which began the French colonial period in Cambodia that would last for the next 90 years into the 1950s.

Cambodia, however, which is basically a Khmer nation state where more than 95% of the population are ethnically Khmer, still today has always viewed itself as the historical successor to the ancient Khmer Empire and the rightful inheritor of many of the empire's most important creations, which is what they base their claim to many of the disputed temples along the border with Thailand on a day.

To make matters still more complicated, the historical tie in Vietnamese conquests of former Khmer territory over the centuries left millions of other Khmer today beyond the borders of modern day Cambodia, in the Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam and across the border in southeastern Thailand, which has at times led to nationalist and irredentist claims arising in Cambodia towards both of these regions and a sense of historical grievance towards both Vietnam and Thailand alike.

And for their part, Thailand was also once a powerful kingdom known as Siam that similarly managed to carve out a sprawling empire across Southeast asia by the 19th century.

But then over a period of decades between 1863 and 1909, Siam suffered a series of major military defeats and territorial losses inflicted by the colonial French and British empires that cut the kingdom down to its current size.

Siam was never outright colonized by the Europeans during this era and managed to become the only state in Southeast Asia to maintain their independence.

But their major territorial losses that were inflicted by the Europeans were at first incorporated into their colonies and were then later inherited by their successor countries like Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and of course, Cambodia.

Since these losses, Thai nationalists have sometimes referred to these areas as the country's lost territories and have compared the period between 1863 and 1909 as their version of China's century of humiliation, where outside European colonial powers forced a series of unequal treaties upon them during a time of historical weakness.

Thus, Thailand eventually came to view their disputed territory with Cambodia today as a historical wrong that was inflicted upon them by colonialism, while Cambodia came to view the disputed territory differently as a historical wrong that was inflicted upon them by Thai expansionism.

Among these losses and unequal treaties were the Franco siamese treaties of 1904 and 1907, which were the ones that created the modern day border between Thailand and Cambodia and which first set the ticking time bomb into motion that just extended exploded with massive violence in our own times today.

These treaties defined the new border between French Cambodia and Siam is following the natural watershed of the local Dangrek Mountains, and

they further stipulated that the border would be formally demarcated by a commission consisting of both French and Thai officials alike.

However, French geographers began carrying out the border demarcation process without any assistance or input from the Thai side, and

they ultimately produced a series of maps by 1908 that were printed, published and submitted to both governments for approval.

The problem is that these maps created by the French geographers at the time, deviated away from the natural watershed significantly in some places, and

it placed several of the most important temples located nearby on the Cambodian side of the border instead, despite them being on the Thai side of the natural watershed line that they had agreed would form the border, including the important Praviar Temple.

Even more confoundingly, different maps created by the French showed different things.

Their 1904 map showed Pral VR as being located within Thailand, while their later 1907 map showed Pral VR as being Located within Cambodia.

Part of the problem is that the French geographers at the time used a rather imprecise mapping scale of 1 to 200,000, which basically gives a general layout of an area but isn't very precise.

For comparison, the US military and most mapping agencies today use a much more accurate 1,50,000 scale for their maps, which are bigger and a lot more detailed where even individual trees and houses can be seen.

Currently, Thailand demands that the border with Cambodia be fully demarcated using the more precise modern 1,50,000 scale, while Cambodia continues to demand using the older and less precise 1,200,000 scale that was used by the French geographers for the 1907 map.

For decades, ever since, Thai authorities have loudly complained about the quality of the French surveys from this time period and that the Pralviar temple in particular makes much more geographic sense to be located within Thailand, since its a on the correct side of the natural watershed that both the 1904 and 1907 treaties technically set the border to, and

B it's located up on a cliff that's really only accessible from the Thai side of the border anyway, compared to the much lower plains on the Cambodian side of the border.

Nonetheless, the multiple deviations in the French maps that included temples like Praviar on the Cambodian side were so minor that they weren't noticed by Thai authorities for decades until the 1930s when they finally got around to conducting their own surveys of the border and noticed the mistakes.

So no formal complaints about the border deviations were ever lodged by the Thai side for a very long time, which would later be used against them in international court while deciding the temple's ultimate status.

In the meantime, the poor French mapmaking in the region would become a bit of a moot point because in 1940 Thailand joined the Axis during the Second World War by allying itself to Imperial Japan in the name of reversing their previous territorial losses inflicted by the colonial European powers.

Shortly after metropolitan France and Europe fell under German and Italian occupation during the war, Thailand sensed a unique historical opportunity and launched an invasion of colonial French Indochina in October of 1940.

They managed to quickly seize control over a swath of territory in modern day Cambodia and Laos that they annexed in early 1941, including nearly all of the modern day border region with Cambodia that contained all of the weird border irregularities around the temples that were set by the fren decades earlier.

Thailand continued controlling all of these seized territories throughout the rest of the war until shortly after Japan's defeat.

After the end of the war, French colonial rule was initially re established over French Indochina and as a permanent member of the newly created United Nations Security Council, France threatened Thailand that they would veto their membership in the unless they returned all of the territory they had taken during the war.

So in 1946, after controlling the territories for the past five years, Thailand relented and returned all of the siege territories back to colonial French Indochina, China in modern day Cambodia and Laos, which then reset the borders back to the ones that were set by the 1904 and 1907 treaties, including all of the irregularities around the temples.

Within a few years, French Indochina began collapsing and Cambodia finally gained its independence from France in 1953, inheriting all of the treaties and borders that the French had negotiated with Thailand on their behalf over the past 90 years.

Within months of Cambodia's independence, the Thai army, being well aware of the border irregularities and Cambodia's potential claims to all of them, moved in and occupied the Pralviar Temple that had ambiguous ownership, claiming it to be fully within Thai territory in keeping with the border following the natural watershed line.

Cambodia, however, formally protested against this in 1959 and asserted their own ownership over the temple based on the 1907 French map and as a part of their own historical Khmer heritage.

Unable to come to an agreement bilaterally, Thailand and Cambodia both agree to submit their dispute of the Pral VR temple's ownership to the International Court of Justice or the icj, and

they also both agree to abide by the court's ultimate decision.

A few Years later, in 1962, the ICJ released its final judgment on the matter and awarded the ownership of the Proviar Temple to Cambodia.

The court based its decision on the 1907 French map being the final map that superseded the older 1904 map that previously showed the temple as being within Thailand.

The court also ruled against Thailand due to the fact that after the 1907 map was published clearly showing the Pralvar Temple within Cambodia, Thailand never formally protested against it for decades, which the court argued was a sign of Thailand's tacit acceptance of the situation during the Arguing in court in the early 1960s, Cambodia's lawyers brought up an instance where a Thai prince who visited the Pravar Temple in the early 1930s apparently never complained about the hoisting of the French flag of the site during his visit, which Cambodia successfully used to argue the prince's tacit consent for French and and therefore Cambodian control over the temple.

Wary of this experience, Thai foreign policy experts have consistently warned against Thai prime ministers and royalty visiting the disputed temple complex ever since, for fear of giving Cambodia even more diplomatic ammunition to work with.

Probably assuming that the court was going to side with them in their arguments, Thailand refused to recognize the ICJ's decision in 1962 despite having agreed to recognize it previously, and

To complicate the matter Even further, the ICJ's 1962 statement on the case didn't clarify which state actually owned the much larger disputed area of land immediately to the north around the temple.

It basically just said that the temple itself belonged to Cambodia, but

made no further comments on any of this area that the two sites also disputed around the temple, adding even further to the ambiguity of ownership around the area and providing Thailand with a tool they've used ever since.

To continue claiming the land around the temple in order to deny Cambodia any direct geographic access to it.

Thailand ultimately reluctantly agreed to withdraw their soldiers away from the temple, but

has never accepted Cambodia's ownership over it.

Nonetheless, the dispute soon became dormant for decades because much bigger problems erupted when Cambodia collapsed into a state of full scale civil war just a few years later in 1967, which heralded the beginning of Cambodia's greatest civilizational crisis seen in centuries.

Cambodia remained consumed by a devastating civil war and a US military intervention and bombing campaign that killed hundreds of thousands of people for the next eight years until 1975.

And even then, the faction that ultimately emerged victorious from the civil war were the Khmer Rouge, who set about transforming Cambodia into arguably the most radical and hardcore totalitarian state that the entire 20th century witnessed.

Within only about three years in power, the radical Khmer Rouge regime killed as many as 2 million of their own people in Cambodia Cambodia through mass executions, forced labor and starvation, which eliminated around 25% of Cambodia's entire population.

The Khmer Rouge also harbored extreme nationalist ambitions of re establishing the territory that they believed Cambodia had lost since the ancient Khmer Empire days.

From both Vietnam and Thailand, the Khmer Rouge began launching raids across their borders into both countries that massacred thousands of Thai and Vietnamese civilians.

And by late 1978 Vietnam had had enough of it and launched a full scale invasion of Cambodia to topple the Khmer Rouge from power.

It only took them about a month to do that by January of 1979 and Vietnam would go on to militarily occupy Cambodia for the next decade until 1989.

The Khmer Rouge, meanwhile, though cast out from power, did not surrender.

Instead they fled to the jungles along the Cambodia Thailand border and waged a violent insurgency against the Vietnamese and new Cambodian government that lasted for the next decade.

Bizarrely, because of Cold War politics and Vietnam's alliance with the Soviet Union, China, the United States and Thailand all began supporting the Khmer Rouge insurgency against the Vietnamese at this point.

And so the Khmer Rouge continued holding on a Cambodia seat of the United nations for years after they were toppled from power, all the way up until 1993, well after the Cold War had even ended.

The Vietnamese army eventually withdrew from Cambodia in 1989 and regular fighting between the Khmer Rouge insurgents and the government along the frontier with Thailand only ended after the conclusion of a peace Agreement in 1991.

After tens of thousands of additional combat related deaths all throughout the 1980s, thousands of the Khmer Rouge's remaining insurgents only surrendered and laid down their arms in 1994.

After the Cambodian government promised them criminal amnesty if they did so, and

the Khmer Rouge itself wouldn't formally dissolve completely until 1999, finally putting an end to decades of unbelievable instability and chaos that had reigned in Cambodia since the 1960s.

And in the aftermath of the long dormant issue of the still unresolved border with Thailand and the ownership over the temples around it slowly began creeping back to the forefront of political discussion in both countries again.

Things first came to a heated head between the two countries over this issue in 2008 when Cambodia decided to apply for the disputed Praviar Temple to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which Thailand feared was a Cambodian strategy to solidify their claim to the temple and to the disputed land around it that they still claim too.

Cambodia's application led to violent protests breaking out in Thailand that demanded their government act against it.

And shortly afterwards, the Thai and Cambodian armies began clashing against one another in skirmishes around Praviar and other less important disputed temples along the border.

Over the next three and a half years until 2011, these sporadic clashes along the border resulted in the deaths of 19 Cambodian soldiers and three Cambodian civilians, along with 16 Thai soldiers and two Thai civilians, adding up to 40 people in total who lost their lives.

Throughout this period, multiple war crimes were also likely committed by both sides.

Cambodia was accused of firing Russian made Grad rockets indiscriminately into civilian villages on the Thai side of the border, while Thailand was accused of deploying cluster munitions against Cambodia on their side of the border that have left thousands of Cambodian villagers at risk of injury or death due to all of the unexploded ordinance left behind near their home.

By April of 2011, Cambodia filed a request to the ICJ for an updated interpretation of its previous 1962 judgment on the Praviar dispute.

A few months later, in July, the ICJ rejected Thailand's counter request to have the case dismissed and demanded an immediate ceasefire.

The ICJ further ordered the creation of a Provisional Demilitarized Zone around the Temple of Praviar and the surrounding cliffs and demanded that both Cambodia and Thailand fully withdraw their troops away from it, while they also ordered that Thailand cease obstructing Cambodia's access to the temple as well.

Both sides respected these demands and in the spirit of cooperation, Cambodia withdrew their application to name the Pralviar Temple as a UNESCO World heritage site too.

Two years later, in 2013, the ICJ announced its updated judgment related to the territorial dispute around the temple, confirming their previous 1962 judgment that awarded the temple's ownership to Cambodia, and

this time also clarifying that the disputed land around the temple also belonged to Cambodia as well.

And once again, Thailand rejected the ICJ's jurisdiction on resolving the border dispute and demanded that any final decision relating to it had to be negotiated directly between themselves and Cambodia bilaterally with nobody else's involvement, which Cambodia has continually refused to do since they had the backing of the icj.

The dispute then re entered back into a period of dormancy that faded into the background of the world's attention.

But it continued festering there, still ultimately unresolved until of course, it exploded again in spectacular fashion over the summer of 20.

But there were other unique factors at play that led to the recent larger outbreak of violence over the dispute in 2025 that were absent back between 2008 and 2011 that largely have to do with the competing rival familial dynasties that have dominated politics in Cambodia and Thailand for decades now.

The Shinawatra family in Thailand and the Hun family in Cambodia In Cambodia, a man named Hun Sen has dominated the country's politics for decades.