Thai Army Stalled in War of Attrition as Cambodia Holds Ground

Twenty-three days later, twenty-three days after the launch of the assault on Cambodian territory along a border stretching more than 800 kilometers, the Thai army has become bogged down in a war of attrition.

It is a true “trench war,” reminiscent of the battles of Verdun during the First World War: troops leave their trenches, launch assaults, seize a position, only to be quickly pushed back; units break apart and retreat in haste to their trenches. In other words, the Thai aggressor is unable to hold its gains, while Cambodia defends its territory without ever yielding.

Yet the war continues to claim lives.

Soldiers on both sides, children of the Thai nation and sons of the Cambodian people, continue to make the ultimate sacrifice. On one side, soldiers are sent to die in order to seize a few symbolic scraps of land; on the other, they fight to defend ancestral soil, territorial integrity, sovereignty, justice, honor, and dignity.

So, to mask defeat on land, the Thai army makes noise with their F-16s and bombs Cambodia from the sky. Just like the artillery at Verdun once did, not to win the war, but to manufacture fear among Khmer civilians, and to make Thai people believe that victory is theirs.

Reality, day after day, continues to stain the image of the Kingdom of Thailand, the honor of its military leadership, and the official narrative promoted by its government.

Why? Because young soldiers, in the prime of their lives, are dying in the forests of Cambodia, in a senseless war fought in the name of a fabricated patriotism, cynically exploited to serve the political ambitions of a small clique of ultranationalists.

Thailand must immediately put an end to its war of aggression against Cambodia.