Yet explicitly recognizing the movement as an insurgency is not without its risks. In practical terms, there simply isn’t a word in the Thai language that properly captures the nuances of insurgency, and trying to do so would anyway be a sensitive issue in a country where divisions between the government supporting Yellow Shirts and anti-government Red Shirts are so inflamed.
But regardless of the label that is chosen, the authorities should be focusing on COIN. And the Thai authorities actually have their own manual from which to draw from—the Royal Thai Army’s COIN manual was instrumental during the struggle against the communist threat that ended in the early 1990s. Of course, that manual is about four decades old and looks outdated at a time when talk of terrorism is the rage and the label of terrorist is wheeled out by authorities hoping to evoke a certain public sentiment. But the problem is that in using this label, the authorities fail to allow themselves the flexibility to distinguish between terrorist actions and terrorist intent.
Defining what they are dealing with and getting that definition correct, while at the same time remaining flexible, is the Thai government and military’s immediate and most important task before they embark on a plan for resolving the conflict.
The current strife in Afghanistan, and talk about how the Afghan war is being lost, such as that today in The Economist, could be taken as evidence that there’s no place for COIN in the Thai government’s strategy for tackling the Red Shirt challenge. But the problems in Afghanistan stem from broken US civil-military relations in Washington and Kabul, not from fundamental flaws in the COIN doctrine. In addition, the fact that the US operation by its very nature involves a foreign ‘intruder’ trying to convince locals to come onside demonstrates the problem in ruling out a role for COIN in Thailand.
If Thai civilian and military leaders are able to work in relative harmony, an adapted COIN strategy aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the Thai people would eventually ease the current tensions and pave the way for a lasting reconciliation. This will of course first require correctly defining what the Red Shirt movement is, but COIN still offers the best chance for stability. Indeed, if successful, the lessons from tackling the Red Shirt issue could even be drawn upon and applied to the decades-old—and far deadlier—Islamist separatist insurgency raging in the south of the country.
Fuadi Pitsuwan is an adjunct research scholar at Georgetown University's Asian Studies Department and an associate at The Cohen Group, a Washington-based strategic advisory firm headed by former Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. The views expressed are his own and not connected to his affiliations.
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Jon Brittle
Perhaps the author, a Thai Muslim, raised in Bangkok among the elite going to private school in at Ramrudee International School, and then being able to be educated in Georgetown, can explain the Thai Southern Insurgency to us and forget about the redshirts. I am interested to get is opinions on this and weather COIN has or would be effective in dealing with it. ETC.
Akarindra
Yes, probably majority of Thais are red and in favour of Thaksin, just like majority of Argentinians who used to support Peron through his popularism policies in giving away money to people in rural area. Legally, righteously, and shamelessly utilised the national budget to gain support from citizens. So he can be reelected again and again until he had screwed all of Argentina’s natural resources by privatising most of crucial public sectors and sold to foreign MNE’s. And before most of Argentinians realised what had happened, it was already too late because none of their own natural resources like water and electricity remain theirs. I don’t care if Thailand would remain democratic or not because since we robbed the power from the monarch, we still haven’t got a clue how to manage the power and in the end we, Thai people, have never had any real control of the country apart from attending election once in every four years or shorter. And there aren’t many choices to choose too. Because most of Thai politicians are crooks. Those who tried to stay clean will have great difficulty to stay in politics and will be considered as black sheeps. As days gone by, Thai politic becomes closer to Thai soap movies, the bads become real bad and there is no shame in hiding it anymore. Lies and denying any ill actions become common practices for Thai politicians from all parties. I do not wish for democracy anymore but I pray for an absolute clean leader who would introduce good governance mo matter where and which class he or she comes from and whatever governing system it is going to be. Communist, democracy, absolute monarchy or even authoritarian provided the leader truly love and care for his people. And Thaksin or any existing political leaders are still far from being that person. And this is why we are still in need of dealing with insurgencies that are fruits of our deformed and twisted democracy created by our twisted politicians.