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Thailand Royal Thai Army
The oldest and largest of the military services, the Royal
Thai Army traditionally served as the mainstay of the kingdom's
defense system. The commander in chief and his large staff of
military specialists, headquartered in Bangkok, directed the army
in carrying out its mission. For tactical and administrative
purposes, the army operated through four regional army commands.
The First Army, headquartered in Bangkok, was responsible for the
country's western and central provinces and the capital city
(see
fig. 17). The northeastern quadrant was the territorial home of
the Second Army, and its regional headquarters were in Nakhon
Ratchasima. The region of the Third Army, with headquarters in
Phitsanulok, consisted of the northern and northwestern parts of
the kingdom. The Fourth Army's region was southern Thailand; its
headquarters were in Nakhon Si Thammarat.
Tactically, the army was organized into seven infantry
divisions (including five tank battalions), one armored division,
one cavalry division (with an armor capability), eight
independent infantry battalions, two special forces divisions
trained and geared for small unit special and airborne
operations, one field artillery division, and one air defense
artillery division. Three airmobile companies provided the ground
force units with battlefield support.
Although the army's primary mission was to defend the country
against aggression by foreign ground forces, for many years
invasion was considered an unlikely possibility by Thai civilian
and military leaders, in part because of the defense umbrella
provided by the United States. Moreover, many Thai leaders
believed that such a threat probably could be circumvented
politically without need for a military response. Furthermore,
some assurance was derived from the fact that Cambodia and Laos,
which were not regarded as serious potential threats, were
between Thailand and Vietnam, the region's most belligerent
power. Consequently, from the 1960s through the mid-1970s field
action by army units concentrated mostly on dispelling
insurgency. Devoting its training programs, equipment inventory,
and operational capabilities to counterinsurgency, the army thus
shelved its primary mission and for more than a decade
concentrated on providing internal security.
Because there was such a melange of security forces combating
the insurgency, the army's units were dispersed throughout the
country--often in a manner that negated their value as frontline
defenders in the event of invasion. For many years the single
armored division was committed to counterinsurgency action in the
North and operated as infantry; most other tank battalions were
on permanent duty in Bangkok, partly for internal political
reasons. These scattered units could not have regrouped rapidly
and effectively enough to support an infantry struggling to repel
invaders. Similarly, artillery units were dispersed in small
detachments designed to engage in limited action. The bulk of the
infantry divisions were garrisoned in the interior at regional
army command headquarters.
Concentrating large numbers of troops in the interior rather
than deploying them to border defense positions helped reduce
financial costs because government regulations required that
combat troops in field operations receive per diem payments of
the equivalent of about US$1.00 in addition to regular salaries.
(The police and civil servants also received this compensation
when they were on government field operations or travel status.)
The shortage of per diem money plagued defense and internal
security operations, even during the years of United States
military aid.
The army's top-heavy organizational structure and its role in
political affairs also diluted its effectiveness as a
conventional combat force. Because the country could not afford
to maintain a large trained military, the army was organized to
depend for the majority of its troops below the NCO ranks on
conscripts serving their two-year service obligations. Most of
these conscripts did not reenlist after their required
commitments, and therefore a large percentage of their active
service was spent in training. There were able officers at all
levels of command, but the staffs at higher headquarters were
inflated with high-ranking officers using their positions as
opportunities for promotion and political advancement,
particularly if they were assigned in Bangkok.
Key units of the First Army, stationed permanently in the
capital, frequently provided the military backup for the coup
d'etat attempts of senior army officers. At other times they were
used by military leaders in power to forestall the coup
aspirations of rival factions. The First Army also furnished
detachments that served as the king's bodyguard and other units
that took part in ceremonial activities in Bangkok.
Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 eliminated
this complacent approach to national defense. Thailand scrambled
to redeploy its combat forces and to provide its frontline units
with the equipment and munitions needed to combat the Vietnamese
threat along the Cambodian border. The Thai army's lack of
readiness to provide border defense soon became apparent. Prime
Minister Kriangsak flew to Washington in February 1979 to seek
assistance in updating the army's military equipment inventory,
which was ill-suited to modern defensive operations, particularly
against the better equipped and more experienced Vietnamese.
Despite the sympathetic response of the United States, the task
of revamping the Royal Thai Army to meet potential threat was
formidable, as the service's weapons inventory revealed.
To upgrade its state of combat readiness the army sought to
increase its holdings of tanks and armored personnel carriers,
improve its antitank capabilities, add heavier and longer range
guns and howitzers to its artillery inventory, and enhance its
ability to provide adequate battlefield defense against attacking
enemy aircraft. These modernization efforts were hampered by
economic retrenchment throughout the 1980s (see
table 17,
Appendix).
Other changes contemplated for the early 1990s included plans
to upgrade the four infantry divisions stationed along the
Cambodian border to mechanized or light infantry configurations.
New training guidelines were designed to pare training time and
establish a pool of trained reservists to draw upon as needed.
General Chaovalit Yongchaiyut, in 1987 army commander in chief,
called for reducing the number of "idle" generals by decreasing
the number of general officers on active duty from more than 200
to about 80. Army troop strength was held at about 190,000 by
lowering the conscription rate as the force moved toward becoming
a totally volunteer army. Thai military planners proposed to
upgrade the training and size of the army reserve force, studying
systems used in Singapore and Israel.
Data as of September 1987
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