6:52, Your are right, the Israelis were ignorant and ego-driven is what lead to it's failure. But any machinery is vulnerable to any ingenuity.
5:52, When you say the Thais were scared as hell and they were lucky they had Khmer rouge on their side. Did you think to yourself that they would rather have the Khmer rouge die first before them?
2:43, Do you have to suggest people going to the so-called F-16 bomb sites knowing that no one on here would ever have a chance to witness it? Do you know how big of a bomb blast radius of an F-16? It would knock the temple off the map.
10:43, Do you really know what weapons Thailand possess? Or any country? Whether it is old or not, think about how much ammunition they have and the amount of money Thailand has to purchase more weapons?
Every time I am on this blog, I see a lot of cry babies who always accuse other bloggers of bragging about Thailand's military capability as if we are not bragging enough about our soldiers and military capability. This is a discussion and it should not get heated because you feel like you're not winning supports. Everyone here supports our military but because we are not on the frontline, it is always easier to see things from a different view. In my view, the Cambodian People Party-controlled government needs to do it's best at all cost to avoid fighting. Lives are at stake here. Whoever fired first we don't know. That's why we need foreign observers. If Thailand won't agree to that, then the CPP government should allow news media or other countries into the frontlines.
Next, we should give out our condolence to the recent tragic event on the border killings. We all should hold the CPP government accountable. Why have they not spoken a word about it? It's just plain sad to see that a poor person is not only at risk of being shot by the heartless Thai soldiers but their dire situation at home lead them to salvage a living elsewhere.
9 comments:
Thailand does not have the capability to go a full-scale war with Cambodia, and Cambodia does not have capability to capture any part of Thailand either. These two countries have about the same military capability. If they're going to war, they would likely detroy each other economically, and no win-win to be claimed on either side. I think it is the other way around, that Thailand's military capability is over estimated and Cambodian military capability is under-estimated. I have looked at how both militaries perform at the border conflict for three years. Thailand dose not gain any ground, and Cambodia does not lost any ground either. Thailand can not beat a bunch of ex-Khmer Rouge at the border, there is no way that Thailand can go any deeper into Cambodia. I think deeper Thia troops would moving in, the ticker defend Thai would have faced.
8:40
Although you make sense.But In reality, Thailand does have a bigger military. Those are the facts. Now how they go about using it no one really know. Now how do Cambodia cope with a bigger military? I would say hit and run like guerilla warfare. When Thailand and Cambodia exchange artillery it was very similar to each other. Thailand may have sneaked some cluster bomb which it's only effect was left there unexploded for our citizens to walk on(sad). Understand that Thailand is trying to not show themselves as bullies in the eyes of international community. We of course see it as it is. It's like the U.N took awhile to declare the killings in Sudan a genocide because it have not met a certain number. So right now Thailand have not done enough in the eyes of the U.N to warrant any response from them. Silly? Of course. But that is the world we live in.
In the end, it is how the CPP controlled gov. handle the situation. Are they going to still play politic with it or find a solution. I do know for sure that the newly elected prime minister of Thailand will get a boosted popularity from Hun Sen. He and Thaskin are buddies and have mutual benefits for one another. So both parties will score points for each other and prOblem solved. And that my friends I guarantee IT!
8:40AM
“Thailand does not have the capability to go a full-scale war with Cambodia”
Says who? Thailand’s military budget would indicate that they have more military hardware and personnel when compared to Cambodia. Hence, your comparison “these two countries have about the same military capability” is somewhat distorted. Sure, every country will not reveal their arsenals to the public; when people argued that Cambodia possesses undisclosed hardware, the same can be said for Thailand.
As for the argument made by the other blogger that Thai army’s weapons are second hand that are over 30 years old; they are still superior weapons when compared to the Cambodian’s version. Sure there are reasons why Cambodia lags behind Thailand in defense building, and it is a good one! We just came out of 3 decades of war, hence it is better to spend the money on elevating peoples’ standard of living and rebuild the country rather than wasting much needed money on the army because we did not anticipate the Thai’s aggression until the subsequent events in 2008.
In my opinion, Thailand is capable of launching a short full scale war with Cambodia, but a prolonged war or asserting full control over Cambodia is another question.
The advantage Cambodia has over Thailand is that we are defending; with the experience, motivation to defend the motherland and with the support of the government and our people, I have no doubt that the Cambodian soldiers will be able to counter the Thais.
P.S. this is a discussion, so if you disagree with me counter them with logic and reasons; NO NEED for name calling, we are all Cambodian!
10:01
Your a Thai Lover! J/K!
Just wanted to be the first to react with emotions because I cannot respond with a reasonable logic answer.
Your view is in-line with mine. I understand that people would like to use physiological means to over estimate our military and under estimate Thailand`s capabilities. Let me explain it in a way that most people can understand. Everyone knows that Thailand have F16 fighters. Old or not they have one and we don`t.
Lets look at Libya. The government have Air Force which was pounding the opposition to the point of extinction. Until NATO stepped in to patrol the Skies is when the Opposition had a chance.
Can the same scenario happen with Cambodia? Maybe. We see Hun Sen parading more machinery he had acquired which is great news. But what about the ammunition's? Can our budget support the military and its corrupt pockets? NO! Like I said in my 9:18 post. The truth is that neither would want to go full scale war because of the implications each one will endure.
12:03PM,
I agree with you in terms of military hardwares between the 2 country. you cannot argue with the facts. You also alluded to the fact that neither country would want a full scale war over a small patch of land or maybe PV. That is not a good justification to declare war on another country.
Cambodia on the other has the rights to defend its claim due to obvious reasons. I don't have to go into it. We all know.
I disagree with you on the air superior issue. You brought up the point about Libya which I'm not disputing. The biggest differences between the 2 scenerios are the fact that they are different terrains. Using jets and helicopter in the urban setting is completely in the advantage of the jets. Cambodian border on the other hand, are thickly and densely wooded forest and using jungle for cover are easily accessible. At the same token, there are plenty of SAM batteries along the border. You cannot ignor that fact either.
In order for the air superiority to be effective, it has to be precise on locating Cambodian positions. Other wise, it's like looking for a needle in a hay stack except that hay stack has batteries of SAM ready to plug you out of the sky.
The Libyan armed forces are fighting the untrained rebel ragtag army with no firepower. Of course it's very easy for the government forces to defeat them. Now if the rebel have proper training and with enough firepower, I think it would have been
different story. Do you think so?
If Cambodia have plenty of SAM missiles, I don't think any pilot would want to fly over the Cambodian jungle. It just to risky to get shot down and falls in to our hands. Im pretty the Thai pilots are scare to death when they on the mission.
5:21pm, you make a good point about the rebel. Cambodian army is no joke. They are trained with some of the best like Indonesia, United States, China, and Vietnam. They are very disciplined. In terms of eguipments, we might be lack in certain areas but make up in strengh in others.
The reasons the Thais chose not to use that much air force is something that cannot be certain. We can only speculate. One obvious reason is that the Thai didn't want to be seen as the aggressors. The pressure from ASEAN and the world community outweighed the risk. The other is the one that you alluded to, the Thai pilots were cautious not necessary scared as you stated. The well trained soldiers are not afraid to fight on command.
12:03PM, let look at Libya again. How many Migs did the rebels shot down with the SAM? Enough to keep the sky clear from Khadafi's jetfighters, right? I'm sure you've probably saw video of a Mig-23 falling from the sky posted in Khmerization sometime ago. That goes to prove that jetfighter swooping around dropping bombs doesn't necessarily mean that it will not be facing threats. What about ammunition? What make you so sure that Cambodia can't afford a military budget to defend an incoming invasion from Thailand. Cambodia spends only few percentage of her $100 billions annual GDP to on defense.
Let not be dangerously fooling yourself. Just because some of us defending Cambodia military, which is a defender of our nation, doesn't mean we are supporting Hun Sen and his CPP government. If you're attack Hun Sen through attacking Cambodian military, and if you're Cambodian, then other have every reason and right to call you anything. It has nothing to do with emotional reaction without reasonable logic. If they called you a "Thai lover", you should be thankful that they didn't call you "traitor". You appear fiercely and constantly attacking Cambodia and protecting Thailand without knowing the reason why. You're constantly typing up unreanable illogical responses just for the sake of responding. I find this very unsual of you, considering you're a Cambodian. Do you realize, you're just an assistant of exspendable tool for Thailand propanda against Cambodia? You're doing a great favor for them and a dishonrable service for your parents' country, assuming you're American-born Cambodian. This could make you a traitorious enemy. And I'm not too fond of Cambodia's enemy.
I'm sure every military have it advantages and disadvantages. Don't think all every disadvantages are falling on Cambodia as you love to point out. And I don't think all the advantages goes to Thailand either just because they have, what appear to your eyesight, better weapons. Better weapons had to be proven first, in order to automatic pre-proclaim of victorious defeat over Cambodia if and when Thailand decided invade Cambodia.
3:06 AM
Let’s start by making sure you have understood the comments you are attacking and who made them!
Again and again people have been called “traitors”, “Thai lovers”, or “enemy’s spy” simply because they’ve raised the RCAF’s weakness and/or mentioned the strength of the Thai military. Whether you believe it or not, these are facts.
Some of you are so full of pride that anyone dear stating the facts, became the enemy/traitor/spy etc.
Let me share this analogy with you again:
If I tell you that the brick wall is hard, you should not use you head to knock it down. Does this mean that I praise the brick wall? Does it make me a traitor of human kind because I degrade human being?
The answer is NO, all I did was stating the fact, what you decide to do is totally up to you. Any competent human being would know that they should find some tools to help them break that brick wall.
To win a war, you must know the strength and weaknesses of yourself and your enemy! Only than, can the under-dog wins. Take the Vietnam war as an example, compared to the US, Vietnam was smaller, less equipped army; but they understood how to overcome their weaknesses such as using their local knowledge of the terrain and employed guerilla warfare.
No one here has ever said that we should surrender; we merely expressing our disagreement to the approach of over estimating our ability and think that we can take on Thailand head to head on a full scale war. Cambodia should prepares for all the scenarios and fight a different tactic based on our strengths not on our pride; better yet is to avoid the war all together!
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