Thailand

ON APRIL 7, 1954, a month before the collapse of the French entrenched camp at Dien Bien Phu, President Eisenhower declared that “the loss of Indochina will cause the fall of Southeast Asia like a set of dominoes.” In justification of the actions the Administration then contemplated (and subsequently abandoned) in defense of the embattled and imperiled French Union garrison, this was imagery of a high order.

As an appreciation of the situation at that time, however, it had two main faults: it misrepresented the type of threat to which Southeast Asia was and still is principally exposed, the painstaking and termitelike activities of the Communist “liberation” movement in rural areas as a prelude to armed struggle; and it ignored the widespread and phlegmatic Southeast Asian feeling that Indochina had all but fallen, and that this, moreover, was an entirely predictable result in any area where a colonial power chose to attempt to hold on by force against the wishes of the people.

In the view of the elites whose attitudes substitute for public opinion in the region, the task that the United States arrogated to itself in succoring Vietnam after the Geneva accords of July 21, 1954, was less an attempt to shore up the pile of dominoes than an act of dubious reclamation. Few really believed the effort would succeed.

The development, however, of a much more definitive and dangerous struggle in Vietnam, the deliberate and serious pitting of the material might of the United States against the techniques of Communist revolutionary war as waged in this region, has made Vietnam a test case.

A giant against termites

By setting out to demonstrate the fallibility of the Communist techniques, the United States has given reality to what began as an expediently expressed theory based on an imprecise premise. Where once Southeast Asia seemed likely to accept the earlier “fall” of Vietnam without a tremble in the pile of dominoes, now there is genuine concern in exposed Thailand that its own fate may be closely linked with the success or failure of the American efforts against the Viet Cong.

The Viet Minh were something less than ten feet tall when they defeated the colonial French; but to take on the United States in major conflict is to battle with the giants. If the United States, having now committed its full prestige and all but its ultimate power, is unable to overcome the subversive and guerrilla skills of this concealed aggression, then the Southeast Asian spectators of the Vietnam fray, and the Thais in particular, must reasonably be expected to reassess their own positions.

Having fought such a war in Vietnam and having failed to win it, would the United States be prepared to fight all over again in Thailand? If it could not win in Vietnam, what arc the reasons to suggest that it could win in Thailand? And even if it could, are Lhere not better ways of solving the problem than by the risk of a long and bloody war? These are valid and vital questions. If they are not often asked, at least in public, they are much in the minds of both the Thai leaders and American officials in Bangkok.

American buildup in Thailand

Washington’s acceptance of bilateral as well as collective responsibilities under SEATO calmed many Thai fears in 1962. When it became obvious that the Pathet Lao and the Viet Minh had accepted the Geneva agreement in Laos only with the intention of using it as a cover to extend their writ and of safeguarding the illegal flow of men and materials along the Ho Chi Minh trail, Thai pilots, using Lao identification papers and flying Royal Lao aircraft, helped to block the flow of troops and material from North Vietnam to the Plain of Jars, where government and neutralist forces were in seriotis difficulties.

More recently, United States planes, with the knowledge and approval of the government in Bangkok, have been using airfields in northern and northeastern Thailand to bomb both North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.

Partly to answer Thai questions and to relieve renewed fears about American intentions if there is a negotiated or unwritten cessation of the Vietnam war and Peking lives up to its promise to start a new war of national liberation in Thailand, and partly to meet any offensive or defensive needs that might arise if the war continues, the United States has been steadily building up its forces and its capabilities in Thailand.

The town of Korat, at the gateway to northeastern Thailand, is the focal point of these developments. The Ninth U.S. Logistical Command has its headquarters here. As a “B” type of command, the headquarters is designed to operate at full capacity with between 35,000 and 65,000 support troops and a field force of 100,000 troops.

Although this is far in excess of the number of American forces now in Thailand, Korat is designed to meet any call for rapid and immediate expansion. Already there is enough battle-ready equipment on hand to put what is officially described as something less than a division into the field in less than three hours.

Communicat ions net work

From Ban Sattahip on the Gulf of Siam, American and Thai engineers are rushing the construction of a new bypass road to Korat. This will avoid the bottleneck in Bangkok, the country’s only port of significance, and will permit direct supply to the vulnerable northeastern hinterland.

The development of Ban Sattahip, which is about a hundred miles south-southeast of Bangkok, follows the pattern of Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. Elaborate over-thebeaches and deepwater port facilities are under construction here, together with a new major airfield, big enough to take the largest bombers and transport planes. A supplementary strip two miles long is under construction at Korat.

Airfields are also being improved at Ubon in the east and at Udon in the northeast. Across the northern and northeastern countryside small supply strips, large enough to accommodate the lumbering but effective Caribou, are under construction in large numbers. An American signals unit is installing a telecommunications net that will link Thailand with Vientiane, Bangkok, and Saigon. On a lower level, it is providing a network of intra-Thailand communications that will be proof against guerrilla interference.

Helicopter patrols work out of Udon and Ubon across the flat scrublands of the northeast. United States Special Forces are training police units for service in the area, and a joint Amcrican-Thai intelligence center has been established to coordinate information as it comes in from remote villages, many of which have no access roads and are entirely cut off during the monsoons.

The Communist threat

All of these plans take into consideration the three possible threats to Thailand that exist now, or may develop as a result of cither the continuation or the cessation of the Vietnam war. These are direct assault by Communist China through northern Laos or northeastern Burma; a Viet Minh, or combined Viet Minh and Pa the t Lao, attack across the Mekong River from Laos; or an attempt to create an active war of national liberation in the northeast and in the southern provinces close to the Malayan border.

The first is possible but improbable; the second is also possible but unlikely while the Viet Minh are preoccupied with the war in South Vietnam; the third is not only possible but probable.

The clandestine Voice of Thailand celebrated the first anniversary of the creation of the Thailand United Patriotic Front, which was set up under Peking’s sponsorship in January, 1965, with a broadcast calling for armed struggle and a people’s war. “The present, immediate, and urgent task,” it added, “is to give all means of support wholeheartedly to the armed struggle by our compatriots in the northeastern and other regions of the country.”

To those not familiar with northeastern Thailand, it might seem that in the face of such overt declaration of Communist intention, the realistic appreciation of what the consequences of inadequate preparation are likely to be, coupled with a fairly detailed knowledge of the danger areas, would be sufficient to set in motion the machinery to nip in the bud any attempt to create a war of national liberation.

Yet though the military buildup is impressive and it is possible to pinpoint the provinces, and even the districts, where trouble appears to threaten most acutely, the problem is neither purely military nor capable of short-term solution. And though economic measures, ranging from the building of dams for irrigation and power to the more personalized on-the-spot efforts by mobile development teams, are all under way, they are, of necessity, slow-moving. In some areas, the Communists already have the sort of hold on isolated village communities that facilitated the Viet Cong move from subversion to armed insurgency in Vietnam in 1959. Late last year a group of armed Communists attacked a government mobile development unit, and other units have been obliged to work under armed guard, though their objectives to bring water, roads, and medical care to neglected villages are peaceful. Attacks on police units by armed groups have also become more numerous, as has the killing of village officials, teachers, police, and suspected informers, with the specific intention of intimidating the people.

The situation is different, perhaps less dangerous, but certainly not a cause for complacency in the far south, where the Malayan Communist Party, driven out of Malaya fourteen years ago, has established its headquarters near the town of Betong. With an estimated 500 to 700 men under arms, it has spread its writ far and wide in the four southern provinces, where the villagers are mostly Chinese and the rural workers Malays.

The critical northeast

The northeast rather than the south remains the most critical area, however. Its fifteen provinces, with a population of more than ten million, are in many ways a separate country. The people are divided from Bangkok and the rich ricegrowing central plain by backwardness, by neglect, by poverty, by a mountain range, and by even more important differences in race and tongue: the northeasterners’ kinsmen live across the Mekong River in Laos, and the river itself is a bridge rather than a barrier.

Some of these problems are being overcome. The Friendship Highway, which runs from Bangkok through Korat and Udon and the Mekong River, and a much improved train service through the same area have broken down the communications barrier. There is now a two-way flow of goods and people from the northeast to Bangkok that has helped to create some sense of unity with the center and to spread the benefits of Thailand’s increasing prosperity to some of the areas of worst neglect.

Under the corrupt but highly effective leadership of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat, who died in 1963, Thailand established a solid base for economic development. Sarit worked tirelessly to promote new agricultural crops and new industries, and he led the drive to improve conditions in the northeast.

Fifty-four-year-old Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn, who succeeded Sarit, has always regarded himself as more of a soldier than a politician. He also has a reputation for personal honesty that is almost a national wonder.

For a brief period during the Sarit era, he served, reluctantly and with little success, as Prime Minister, lie did not fit easily into the mixed team of leftists, militarists, and opportunists who made up the government of that time. Sarit’s personal assumption of the prime ministership, the general housecleaning he then conducted, and the economic program that marked his rule have all helped to make Thanom’s task easier in his second term as leader of the govern merit.

Air-conditioned Bangkok

Bangkok today exudes prosperity. After years of tropical hibernation, the stepped-up flow of outgoing and incoming cargo through its now bustling port has caused it to emerge dynamically from its torpor. It is air-conditioned and busy and filled with tourists and the noises of pile drivers and mechanical drills, those twentieth-century symbols of progress. Not even Hong Kong is changing faster.

Much of the countryside, including the trunk lines to the northeast, reflects this progress. New roads have telescoped distances and brought consumer goods to remote towns and villages. The Thais have more money to spend than they have ever had before. Per capita bank deposits have risen from $7.50 before Sarit took over in 1958 to $20 today. Inflation, which has plagued and choked some of Thailand’s neighbors, is no problem here: the currency is sound.

Inevitably at this stage of development secondary industries tend to be closely associated with agriculture, but the government, recognizing the need for an independent economic base, welcomes both foreign investment capital and know-how. The results are enormously gratifying. Export earnings increased from $430 million in 1960 to $619 million in 1964.

In 1958 rice accounted for almost half of the country’s export earnings. Today, though rice production has continued to increase and rice exports in 1964 ($219,600,000) almost doubled the 1960 figure, rice now accounts for only slightly more than a third of total export earnings. Maize, jute, and kenaf arc new crops which have provided diversity and have helped to swell the foreign reserves.

Time is what Thailand needs, time to spread the affluence, to develop the administrative apparatus, to build more roads and schools and hospitals. And time is what it may not have. Given another ten or fifteen years at the present rate of economic growth and rural development in the northeast, Bangkok could afford to laugh at the thought of falling dominoes. No one is laughing today.