ABSTRACT
Like many other Southeast Asian states, Thailand has traditionally pursued a complex security policy which has had both an internal and external orientation and encompassed a number of issues (military, political, social and economic). In the 1970s, after the communist victories in Indo-China, the prevailing communist insurgency combined with a high degree of political instability led to Thai security policy (broadly defined) being primarily internally oriented. The Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea (Cambodia) in 1978, and the subsequent occupation during the 1980s, represented a very pressing threat to Thai security and led to a reorientation away from an internal towards an external focus: an adjustment which was also influenced by the gradual decline in the threat posed by the Communist Party of Thailand and an increase in the degree of political stability under the prime ministership of General Prem. The external orientation of Thai security policy emphasized, in common with traditional Thai conceptions of external threats, political-military issues. 1
