ABSTRACT
National security concerns were the focus of Thai foreign policy from the 1950s through most of the 1980s. These concerns primarily pertained to the Cold War, the advance of communism in Indochina, the rural-based insurgency waged by the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) with external support, and the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Cambodia. However, by the 1990s, both the Cold War and the CPT insurgency had ended, and Vietnamese troops had withdrawn from Cambodia. Moreover, the 1980s witnessed a generally high rate of economic growth in Thailand (a development that has continued into the 1990s) as well as the emergence of business interests as significant political actors. Accordingly, reappraisal of Thailand’s foreign policy, which began in 1988, resulted in a transformation of this policy so that it has become largely economics-driven rather than security-oriented. Nonetheless, Thailand still does have security concerns, though they are different from the aforementioned. Furthermore, some of these concerns have the potential to become more serious in the future, and therefore warrant attention.
