យើងត្រូវការបណ្ឌិតនិយាយការពិតបែបនេះដើម្បីកែសង្គមជាតិ

 

Neighbouring states like Vietnam and Thailand know just what Cambodia's weaknesses and disadvantages are and time their strikes at the right moments to drive home their advantages with complete confidence and certainty. 

In recent years alone Cambodian leadership has been given ample opportunities to reform and modernise its military, namely in 2008 and 2011 over the same 'dispute' that flared up again of late. Even the relatively recognised disparities in military strengths on statistics possessed by the two nations do not reflect the real or actual gap in the two nations' armed forces because statistics and figures on paper never reveal the actual number of soldiers officially assigned to every unit or battalion owing to widespread and endemic corruption in the military itself. Hence, the phenomenon of "ghost soldiers". 

On the other hand, having a robust and adequate military strength does not necessarily imply that a state, especially, smaller ones such as Cambodia, prefers going to war to solve international disputes over peaceful means like dialogue and diplomacy. It is simply a means of deterrence in the last resort; an insurance posture that makes your enemy think twice and hard before committing to violence over peaceful resolutions or means. This failure to reform the military institution and heed repeated warnings given by Thailand's aggressions is precisely why the Thais feel embolden to attack Cambodia whilst disregarding international laws and border treaties the two countries have signed. 

Moreover, it is somewhat dangerously naive to assume that all states abide by international laws or treaties and this reality is reflected by the elites in both countries in terms of their behaviours internally where power, wealth and personal interests often dictate their respective ambitions and agendas. 

In the east, anyone who traverses the border areas would be able to see civil and police structures right by the international boundary line; these are homes, farm settlements, border police stations, district and community centres etc. built to cement claims over territories after having forcibly evicted tens of thousands of Khmer families and villagers off their ancestral lands. In the west, the Thais have viewed all this with keen interest and want their pieces of Cambodian land too. 

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