ABSTRACT
Vietnam's first attempt to create a Khmer military force dates to the late 1940s. The People's Republic of Kampuchea sees its military roots in that early Issarak period. On June 6, 1980, Heng Samrin, chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the People of Kampuchea, signed a directive naming June 19, 1951, as the date of the founding of the Issarak army to fight the French. The earliest noncommunist resistance groups sprang up in the wake of the Vietnamese invasion and destruction of Khmer Rouge control. In the wake of the September 1979 creation of a new Khmer Rouge political front, their armed forces dropped the name "Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea." The main-force units are being groomed for combat against the larger resistance forces near the border with Thailand. A military balance in Cambodia still centers on the contest between the Soviet-equipped People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and the Chinese-equipped National Army of Democratic Kampuchea — the Khmer Rouge and PAVN.
