A strategy for survival of Thailand :

Abstract

The military governments favored policy changes that were in basic conformity with previous patterns. They generally favored continued alignment with the United States.

This is a study of the impact of recent developments in the policies of the large powers, especially those of the United States, on Thailand's foreign policy. It focuses on the late 1960's up to the year 1976.

The above points can be developed further by examining the patterns in Thai foreign policy under two basic types of its government, the military and civilian. Both types have exhibited "pragmatism" and "bending with the wind, " but each has favored very different ways to respond to the external factors and changes facing the Thai nation.

Thai civilian leaders, in or out of power during this same time period, called for more fundamental if not drastic policy changes. They favored a policy of near genuine non-alignment coupled with effective regionalism (ASEAN) as a replacement for the American security tie; friendly but non-security relationships with the United States; a policy of non-provocation or detente toward the regional communist states, based on greater awareness of the security concerns of Vietnam and China; and, progressive domestic policies emphasizing movement toward economic and social justice to be achieved within the framework of an emergent democratic-open political system.

Regarding the prescriptive point made above, this study concluded that Thai civilian leaders made a correct reading of the systemic or historical wind of change that Thai leaders must "bend" to, in order to protect the national interest.

Three general observations about Thai foreign policy can be made on the basis of the review in this study of the contemporary period: (1) that Thai policy has been a product of the interaction between the decision-making (the idiosyncratic factor) and systemic variables, but that the factor or perception has been most important in accounting for actual policy; (2) that the perception of systemic (and internal) factors has not been a national or cultural "Thai" perception or response, but instead that of a particular elite or stratum of Thai society (this point calls into question the argument of area scholars which stresses the "pragmatic" or "bending in the wind" character of the Thai people); (3) regarding prescription, that Thai leaders must base foreign (and domestic) policy on a correct reading of the realities of the contemporary world. They must reinterpret or redefine the "wind" that must be bent to: it is a wind of change and of social justice as much as one of military power and balance of power politics.