World

Thailand vs. Cambodia: The Border War Fueled by Scams, Politics, and Old Maps

BY Benjamin Reed

From a beach town built on smoothies and Muay Thai camps, I am watching two neighbors drag a century of bad maps, criminal economies, and political ego back to the edge of a shooting war.

In Oddar Meanchey Province, civilians flee clashes between Thai and Cambodian forces. Image Credit: Agence Kampuchea Press handout pic via Reuters

From Phuket’s beaches to the frontline in Preah Vihear, a look at why the conflict reignited and how Thailand’s modern army outclasses Cambodia’s forces.

I woke up in Phuket to the usual morning noise—motorbikes rolling down the soi, someone hosing down a storefront, the low thrum of a city that never fully sleeps. Routine, predictable, almost dull. Then my phone lit up with alerts: Thai airstrikes, Cambodian casualties, artillery duels, evacuations across multiple provinces.

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Another border war.

It felt surreal, reading about live fire and fighter jets while sitting on an island better known for fitness camps and beach clubs. I came here to put distance between myself and Eastern European battlefields. Instead, I’m watching Southeast Asia slide into its own version of a familiar mess.

The truth is, none of this is sudden. The Thai–Cambodian border has been a pressure point for more than a century. The origins stretch back to 1907 when French colonial mapmakers handed Preah Vihear temple to Cambodia. Thailand never fully conceded that loss; Cambodia never forgot the victory. The International Court of Justice affirmed Cambodia’s ownership in 1962, but rulings don’t erase sentiment. They just bury it until the next crisis.

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But what accelerated this current conflict isn’t a thousand-year-old temple. It’s something depressingly modern: scam call-center economies.

 

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For years, the Cambodian side of the border became a haven for criminal syndicates running cyber-fraud factories, trafficking migrants, and forcing kidnapped workers to run online scams. These compounds operated with disturbing freedom—walled, guarded, and protected by layers of local and foreign influence. Thais knew it. Cambodians knew it. No one meaningfully cracked down.

Eventually, the politics shifted in Bangkok. The scale of the scams—billions siphoned globally—became a national embarrassment. Public anger built. And the Thai military saw an opportunity to reassert itself in national security affairs.

By mid-2025, the National Security Council granted the army sweeping authority along the border. Crossings closed. Trade collapsed. Cambodia accused Thailand of choking local livelihoods; Thailand accused Cambodia of harboring criminals. Diplomatic patience evaporated. Then the shooting began. The first major flare-up in July wasn’t a skirmish—it was a real military confrontation. Cambodia opened with rockets and mortars; Thailand answered with heavy artillery and, most tellingly, F-16 airstrikes. For Cambodia, a country without a single fighter jet or capable air defense system, that was a brutal reminder of the military imbalance that defines this conflict. Thailand is a mid-tier regional power with around 360,000 active personnel, modern artillery, functioning mechanized units, and an air force that can dominate regional skies. Cambodia’s forces are brave but under-equipped, relying on T-55 tanks, Soviet-era APCs, and towed artillery systems whose best years were during the Cold War. This isn’t a symmetrical confrontation. Cambodia can fire rockets; Thailand can erase positions. Cambodia can inflict local pain; Thailand can escalate strategically. Both sides know exactly where they stand. Ceasefires—like the one Washington and Kuala Lumpur brokered—don’t last long because the incentives don’t align. All it takes is a landmine blast in Sisaket or Cambodian claims of Thai troops firing into a village for everything to unravel. Once accusations start, the domestic politics on both sides make restraint look like weakness. And so, every few weeks, the border lights up again. Artillery one day, airstrikes the next. Civilians displaced, statements issued, blame traded. ASEAN pretends to mediate; neither side really listens. From Phuket, the contrast is stark. Here, people sip iced coffees, train at gyms, and plan weekend beach trips. A few hundred kilometers north, two long-standing rivals are exchanging fire rooted in colonial maps, modern criminality, and political ego. This isn’t Ukraine. The geography is different, the stakes smaller. But the underlying pattern is familiar: resentment layered onto grievance, distorted by crime, accelerated by miscalculation, and held together by governments that cannot afford to look soft. I didn’t come to Thailand looking for another conflict. Yet here I am, watching one unfold on the notifications bar across the top of my screen. War doesn’t need to follow you to be present. It exists everywhere borders are contested, where criminal economies thrive, and where old wounds sit close enough to the surface that one spark is enough. You wake up expecting ordinary life. And then you remember how thin the line between calm and chaos really is. — ** Editor’s Note: Thinking about subscribing to SOFREP? You can support Veteran Journalism & do it now for only $1 for your first year. Pull the trigger on this amazing offer HERE. – GDM
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