Thailand intervenes in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War

Could Thailand intervene during the Cambodian–Vietnamese War to save the Khmer Rouge

How effective would Thai troops be against Vietnamese forces
 
It would be more about keeping Vietnam at bay than it is about saving the Khmer Rouge. And OTL Vietnam and Thailand did have skirmishes with each other.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_border_raids_in_Thailand

As to the original question, I can’t imagine what would happen to ASEAN if Thailand intervened militarily. Even without one of its members intervening ASEAN was quite divided.

Other than Thailand, Singapore and Philippines were also wary of Vietnam.

On the other hand, Indonesia and Malaysia were more favorable to Vietnam. Not because they were pro-Hanoi but because they want a strong Vietnam as a buffer state to China.
 
It would be more about keeping Vietnam at bay than it is about saving the Khmer Rouge. And OTL Vietnam and Thailand did have skirmishes with each other.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_border_raids_in_Thailand

As to the original question, I can’t imagine what would happen to ASEAN if Thailand intervened militarily. Even without one of its members intervening ASEAN was quite divided.

Other than Thailand, Singapore and Philippines were also wary of Vietnam.

On the other hand, Indonesia and Malaysia were more favorable to Vietnam. Not because they were pro-Hanoi but because they want a strong Vietnam as a buffer state to China.

The skirmishes only happened as a result of Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia so we can't use that as any kind of reason why Thailand might wish to keep Vietnam at bay.

Plus the OP's question is centred around Thailand saving the Khmer Rouge as he states. Not just keeping Vietnam away from the border. So the question of why Thailand wants to save Pol Pot's nuts from the fire has to be addressed by the OP.

I really don't see any reasons why Thailand would want to intervene. Can't see them saving the Khmer Rouge and if they are going in to keep out Vietnam they need to have a core of Kampuchean non-communists they can rely on and organize into a local non-communist regime, but if they didn't do that in 1975 when the communists took control, why would they do that in 1978-1979?

And in doing so, all they are really doing is inviting themselves into an indefinite occupation to defend their puppet regime because once they leave Vietnam will either support their own allied communist Kampucheans in attempting to overthrow the Thai puppets or Vietnam may invade outright to overthrow the Thai puppets and install their own.
 
As for the OP, Thailand eventually loses. Vietname is the Finland of the latter 20th century, punching way above their weight. The Vietnamese in their mind were fighting for national existence, Thailand in southeast asia is viewed as a well-to-do country, so they would see the Thai involvement as an encroachment backed by the US and they will fight hard. THe THai will be laid back and wonder why they are doing this and will eventually be outlasted by the Vietnamese.
 
Even if they did, the Khmer Rouge was totally insane, and Thailand itself would be a target of Khmer Rouge irredentism. (Historical Khmer lands and communities in eastern Thailand.)
 
They shielded them OTL into the 90s. Plus, to stop Vietnamese expansionism and gain territorial concessions in the west.

They shielded them into the 90s after Vietnam expelled them.

As noted before, we can't use how Thailand acted towards Cambodia and Vietnam after the Vietnamese were already in control of Kampuchea to posit that they would act that way before Vietnam has gained control.

And why not? Well because after Vietnam invaded, Thailand sheltered the Khmer Rouge, but mostly as a part of a coalition of Cambodian parties (including non-communist republicans and royalists) called the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. This was from 1982. Thailand seemingly had little interest in supporting the Khmer Rouge, except as a part of a broader (and mostly non-communist) element of Kampucheans who would be opposed to the Vietnamese-backed regime.

And when Vietnam invaded Kampuchea in full scale force in 1979, Thailand offered immediate support to Son Sann to form a non-communist resistance force.

What was being posited by the OP is Thailand supporting the Khmer Rouge as an actual government in Cambodia. If they did so, how could they have gotten Son Sann and his Khmer People's National Liberation Front to be included in a coalition government with the Khmer Rouge? They can't force the Khmer Rouge to do so while the KR maintains actual power, unless after resisting the Vietnamese they then turn on the Khmer Rouge and start fighting the actual Kampuchean government and army....which calls into question again, just why they would have saved them in the first place?
 
As for the OP, Thailand eventually loses. Vietname is the Finland of the latter 20th century, punching way above their weight. The Vietnamese in their mind were fighting for national existence, Thailand in southeast asia is viewed as a well-to-do country, so they would see the Thai involvement as an encroachment backed by the US and they will fight hard. THe THai will be laid back and wonder why they are doing this and will eventually be outlasted by the Vietnamese.

I wouldn't bet on that neccessarily. They didn't get beat by the PRC due to a combination of the poor quality of the PLA and being on the offensive. They won against the Khmer Rouge because of the terrible state of the Cambodian military. I don't know how well they'd do going toe to toe against the Thais in a conventional fight.

Anybody got any sources on the quality and strength of Thai forces of the time?
 
They shielded them into the 90s after Vietnam expelled them.

As noted before, we can't use how Thailand acted towards Cambodia and Vietnam after the Vietnamese were already in control of Kampuchea to posit that they would act that way before Vietnam has gained control.

And why not? Well because after Vietnam invaded, Thailand sheltered the Khmer Rouge, but mostly as a part of a coalition of Cambodian parties (including non-communist republicans and royalists) called the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. This was from 1982. Thailand seemingly had little interest in supporting the Khmer Rouge, except as a part of a broader (and mostly non-communist) element of Kampucheans who would be opposed to the Vietnamese-backed regime.

And when Vietnam invaded Kampuchea in full scale force in 1979, Thailand offered immediate support to Son Sann to form a non-communist resistance force.

What was being posited by the OP is Thailand supporting the Khmer Rouge as an actual government in Cambodia. If they did so, how could they have gotten Son Sann and his Khmer People's National Liberation Front to be included in a coalition government with the Khmer Rouge? They can't force the Khmer Rouge to do so while the KR maintains actual power, unless after resisting the Vietnamese they then turn on the Khmer Rouge and start fighting the actual Kampuchean government and army....which calls into question again, just why they would have saved them in the first place?
I think you eviscerated your point in your very post. As you point out, the thai right off the bat supported the khmer rouge. The OP merely asks could the thai get involved. Of course they could. And, being that they had no problem policy wise supporting the khmer rouge OTL, the question simply is what would be necessary to make the Thai support the khmer rouge exclusively. To fulfill that part of this TL, we would need the khmer rouge to be much stronger initially in their fight against vietnam so they look like they are worth supporting and more US pressure to assist thailand in even getting seriously involved. Granted, we would need PODs back into the 1960s to make this happen and perhaps even an early death for pol pot after he takes power (an TL where Hun Sen takes power after Pol Pot's death would be ironic, but not impossible given Hun Sen's instincts and the fact he was already so powerful in the late 70s).
 
I wouldn't bet on that neccessarily. They didn't get beat by the PRC due to a combination of the poor quality of the PLA and being on the offensive. They won against the Khmer Rouge because of the terrible state of the Cambodian military. I don't know how well they'd do going toe to toe against the Thais in a conventional fight.

Anybody got any sources on the quality and strength of Thai forces of the time?
The Vietnamese defeated and outlasted the US...if the US had the best military on Earth, even if Thailand had the second best i don't see how that helps them.
 
The Vietnamese defeated and outlasted the US...if the US had the best military on Earth, even if Thailand had the second best i don't see how that helps them.

Yes in a Guerrilla war on what was effectively home turf where guerrilas could dissapear into the ocean of native Vietnamese. And with shit tons of support from the Soviets and early on to a lesser extent the chinese. Here they'd be engaging in a a conventional offensive war in a area where the populace aren't Viets and depending on how the Thais go about the affair where the populace might be less friendly or neutral.

You mentioned Vietnam being the later 20th century Finland but even Finland for the most part fought defensively and where their offensives were very limited in scope.

Vietnam also at the time was still suffering the effects of more then two decades of warfare with limited industry and relativly wrecked infrastructure.

I guess the biggest question in this hypothetical would be how much is the USSR willing to support the Vietnamese and how much the US is willing to support the Thais.

China's position on the conflict is also very important. While the PLA is a shell as shown by the Sino Vietnamese war even the possibility of Vietnam having to fight a second front war could change the conflict in a major way.
 
IOTL Vietnam fought on Cambodian soil. Further, VIetnam would still be waging a defensive war as they would likely occupy most of Cambodia before the Thai can react. However, for the OP to work, the Khmer ROuge would have had to have a better fighting chance. Even still, Vietnam just has to outlast Thailand and I doubt Thailand can kick them out of Laos and Cambodia entirely.
 
would dearly love an alternate-ATL in which Thailand invades Cambodia to stop the genocide, even if a big secondary reason is to stop flow of refugees
 
I think you eviscerated your point in your very post. As you point out, the thai right off the bat supported the khmer rouge.

No. They did not.

They supported Son Sann when Vietnam invaded. They supported the Khmer Rouge after the Vietnamese victory was complete and the KR were no longer in control of the state apparatus. There is a major difference.


The OP merely asks could the thai get involved. Of course they could.

Sure. But then so could Australia. However Aus getting involved would be termed ASB because of how extremely unlikely it is.
 
Maintaining it as a buffer state between It and Vietnam.

A fair enough reason, but the means to do so don't mesh up with the ends. As others have pointed out the KR was heavily irredentist and actually had made claims against Thailand in 1975 and engaged in a border conflict with Thailand from 1975 to 1979 (with the most intense period of fighting being 1975-1977). That the KR were supporting Thai communists who wished to overthrow the various Thai governments did not help matters.

And strategically, it would be pointless for Thailand to get involved in an actual shooting war with Vietnam to maintain Kampuchea as a buffer state, when Laos was already firmly a Vietnamese ally and hosted Vietnamese troops (in fact, if I'm not mistaken some of Vietnam's troops in Laos participated in the invasion of Cambodia in 1979). So they would be risking a war that could then drag in Laos and the Vietnamese forces there all along that border, just to maintain a buffer between themselves and Vietnam along a much shorter stretch of border? And to keep in power a regime that had been making claims against their country, initiating border raids and supporting Thai communists?

As much as Thailand might have opposed the expansion of Vietnamese influence in Indochina, the chances of an outright large-scale Vietnamese invasion of Thailand (not border raids to take out Cambodian rebel camps) were always very, very slim. And even if it did happen, Thailand's military was likely quite capable of repelling it.

Here, you might find this of interest in terms of how Thailand approached relations with its communist neighbours in Indochina from 1973 onwards: https://gsp.yale.edu/thailands-response-cambodian-genocide
 
And strategically, it would be pointless for Thailand to get involved in an actual shooting war with Vietnam to maintain Kampuchea as a buffer state
Could they make an agreement with Vietnam dividing Cambodia into a pro-thai government under Son Sann and pro-Vietnamese one under Pen Sovan?
 
Could they make an agreement with Vietnam dividing Cambodia into a pro-thai government under Son Sann and pro-Vietnamese one under Pen Sovan?

But then why would the Vietnamese agree to this?

After all from the time the Vietnamese started offensive operations in late December 1978 it took them little over a month to conquer most of Cambodia (and only 2 weeks and change to conquer Phonm Penh).

And if Thailand could live with Vietnamese troops in Laos, they can certainly live with Vietnamese troops in Cambodia. Thailand simply wouldn't like it (Vietnamese troops in either country). And that's all.
 
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