The 2025 Thai–Cambodian Border War:
Geopolitics, Transnational Scam Networks, and the Risk of Defying the United States
An analytical essay for scholars and policy practitioners in Thai and Southeast Asian Studies
Abstract
The resurgence of armed clashes along the Thai–Cambodian border in late 2025, including Thai F-16 airstrikes on Cambodian positions, marked a dramatic breakdown of a ceasefire arrangement brokered with strong pressure from the United States, Malaysia, and China. The escalation unfolded in parallel with an unprecedented crackdown on transnational scam networks in Thailand and Cambodia, centred around a figure publicly identified as Benjamin “Ben Smith” Mauerberger, whose alleged financial and social ties reach into political and business elites on both sides of the frontier. This essay dissects the episode into ten analytical dimensions: the colonial legacy of border making; the conditional ceasefire diplomacy of Donald Trump; the domestic political incentives of Bangkok and Phnom Penh; the role of Chinese weapon systems and security patronage; the entanglement of politics with scam economies; and the broader implications for U.S. strategy and regional order. While the narrative foregrounds Thailand and Cambodia, the central argument is structural: border wars in contemporary mainland Southeast Asia cannot be understood without tracing the interaction between postcolonial boundaries, patron–client politics, asymmetric great-power competition, and increasingly sophisticated transnational criminal networks.
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Colonial Cartographies and the Long Shadow of the Preah Vihear Dispute
The 2025 clashes did not emerge out of an empty landscape. They are the latest flare-up in a century-long dispute rooted in French–Siamese treaties of the early twentieth century, which mapped the frontier along the Dangrek mountain range but often failed to align the legal line with effective demarcation on the ground. Around the Preah Vihear temple complex and adjacent highlands, Thai and Cambodian maps diverge sharply, producing overlapping and competing claims to sovereignty.[1]
The 1962 judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarding the temple itself to Cambodia did not resolve the wider dispute. It confirmed Cambodian sovereignty over the sanctuary, but left large areas of surrounding territory in legal limbo. In the 2000s, Thai nationalist mobilisation against Cambodia’s effort to list Preah Vihear as a UNESCO World Heritage Site turned this cartographic ambiguity into a powerful domestic resource. The temple became, in John Ciorciari’s phrase, an “incendiary symbol” capable of igniting periodic crises whenever political actors found it useful to do so.[2]
From this vantage point, the 2025 border war is best seen not as an aberration but as the latest “large wave” in a long series of episodes in which unresolved colonial-era borders, combined with domestic politics, give rise to militarised confrontation.
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Ceasefire as Economic Leverage: Trump’s Conditional Diplomacy
In July 2025, as artillery duels and ground skirmishes along the frontier produced mounting casualties and displaced civilians, mediation efforts by Malaysia and China were unable, by themselves, to secure a durable ceasefire. A turning point came when U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly phoned the Thai leadership and linked Thai cooperation on a ceasefire directly to the resumption of trade and tariff negotiations with Washington.[3] In effect, the United States converted a security crisis into an instrument of economic leverage.
Subsequent U.S. statements suggested that Thailand’s adherence to ceasefire commitments would be treated as an informal condition for favourable tariff arrangements, while Cambodia’s behaviour would be factored into decisions regarding aid, sanctions, and cooperation with international financial institutions.[4] In this sense, the ceasefire was “securitised” in one direction and “commodified” in another.
Against this backdrop, the decision by both Bangkok and Phnom Penh to accept the risk of being seen as violating the ceasefire in late 2025 signalled a willingness to jeopardise economic benefits from the United States in pursuit of other, less transparent objectives.
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F-16s over the Frontier: Escalation and Chinese Rocket Systems
Thailand’s decision to deploy F-16s to strike Cambodian positions marked a qualitative escalation from the artillery and small-arms engagements that have characterised most previous clashes. According to Thai military sources, the airstrikes targeted sites believed to host heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, including the Chinese-made PHL-03 and legacy Soviet-designed BM-21 units, which Bangkok claimed could strike deep into Thai territory, including airports and hospitals.[5]
International media reported that the airstrikes followed the death of a Thai soldier in a blast blamed on renewed Cambodian shelling, and Thai officials framed the operation as a necessary response to Phnom Penh’s alleged violation of prior commitments to withdraw heavy weapons from contested zones.[6] Cambodia countered that the strikes killed several civilians and decried them as disproportionate.
Beyond the immediate tactical logic, the episode drew attention to the increasingly visible presence of Chinese weapons systems in mainland Southeast Asian conflicts. Thai pilots flying U.S.-origin jets were, in effect, striking at hardware supplied by China. The air war thus became a symbolic confrontation between defence ecosystems as much as between neighbouring states.
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Cambodia under the Hun Family: Nationalist Consolidation in a Post-Transition Era
The 2025 clashes unfolded under the shadow of leadership transition in Cambodia, where Hun Sen had stepped aside in favour of his son, Hun Manet, while retaining extensive informal influence. The new administration faced the dual challenge of consolidating its domestic authority and responding to persistent criticism over human rights abuses, economic inequality, and the concentration of power.
In such a context, a border confrontation with Thailand offers several political benefits. It allows the government to rally public opinion around an external threat, to portray itself as the guardian of sovereignty, and to redirect attention away from socio-economic grievances. Civilian casualties, deeply tragic in human terms, may be repurposed as evidence of national victimhood in international forums, much as in earlier phases of the Preah Vihear dispute.
This is not to suggest that Phnom Penh “manufactured” the conflict single-handedly, but rather that the structural incentives of semi-authoritarian regimes make intermittent border tension politically useful — particularly when external patrons can be counted on to mitigate the most severe international consequences.
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Bangkok under Anutin: Sovereignty Rhetoric and the Question of Responsibility
On the Thai side, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul framed the F-16 strikes as a legitimate act of self-defence, insisting that Thailand could not tolerate repeated violations of its territory or threats to civilian populations near the border.[6] He also emphasised that Thailand would not allow outside powers to dictate its security choices, invoking sovereignty to justify decisions taken in defiance of international pressure.
Yet, once Thailand had explicitly tied its earlier acceptance of a ceasefire to negotiations over tariffs and market access with the United States, the decision to escalate militarily raised serious questions about the government’s sense of responsibility toward those economic commitments. To the extent that future U.S. responses involve tariffs or other forms of economic coercion, it will be ordinary Thai citizens — rather than political elites — who bear the cost.
An analytically neutral perspective must therefore ask not whether Thai leaders felt “provoked,” but whether they weighed the full spectrum of consequences: strategic, economic, and human.
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Scam Economies and the Ben Smith Network: Crime as Structural Context
Almost in parallel with the border escalation, Thai authorities announced the seizure of more than 300 million U.S. dollars in assets allegedly connected to large-scale transnational scam operations. Investigative reports identified Benjamin “Ben Smith” Mauerberger as a central figure in financial networks that moved funds through real-estate firms, private aviation companies, and a constellation of service businesses across Southeast Asia.[7][8][9]
While details remain under investigation, reports in Thai and foreign media described overlapping shareholding structures, shared addresses for multiple firms, and patterns of money transfers linking Thailand, Cambodia, and other regional hubs. Fieldwork by journalists and law-enforcement agencies depicted segments of the border region as an “economic frontier” where scam compounds, casinos, and informal logistics networks coexist with impoverished communities and weak state oversight.
The key analytical point is that such scam economies are not marginal. They rely on the active protection or willful blindness of state officials, and they generate rents that can be reinvested in politics. The Thai–Cambodian border thus becomes, simultaneously, a site of military confrontation and a corridor of criminalised capitalism.
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Where Politics Meets Crime: Allegations of Elite Ties across the Border
In early December 2025, the “Ben Smith” case erupted into parliamentary debate and public controversy. Images circulated of Smith in social settings with prominent political and business figures from both Thailand and Cambodia. Opposition politicians questioned whether Thai authorities had been slow to act because of high-level protection; others asked whether Cambodian facilitation of scam compounds reflected similar entanglements.[10][11][12]
Prime Minister Anutin acknowledged having met Ben Smith but described him merely as an acquaintance introduced by friends, denying any close relationship and pledging to support investigations wherever they might lead.[10][11] From an analytical distance, the immediate truth of such claims is less important than the structural question they raise: how could a network moving hundreds of millions of dollars operate in and around the Thai–Cambodian frontier without intersecting with political and bureaucratic elites?
The timing of the military escalation — coming as scrutiny of scam networks intensified — led some observers to speculate that the war, intentionally or not, helped to divert media and public attention. At present this remains a hypothesis, not a proven fact, but it is a hypothesis worth investigating through careful empirical research rather than dismissing as mere conspiracy thinking.
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China as Strategic Patron: Weapons, Naval Bases, and Infrastructure
In the background of the border war stands China, whose security and economic footprint in mainland Southeast Asia has grown dramatically over the past decade. In Cambodia, Chinese support has been crucial for the modernisation of the Ream Naval Base and the expansion of coastal defence capabilities, raising concerns in Washington and among some ASEAN states about a potential Chinese military foothold in the Gulf of Thailand.[13][14] Reports of Chinese-supplied PHL-03 rockets in Cambodian arsenals further illustrate the depth of this security partnership.[5]
Thailand, though formally allied with the United States, has also deepened its economic and infrastructural ties with China. High-speed rail projects linking China, Laos, and Thailand are emblematic of a broader entanglement under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which provides financing and connectivity but also increases Thai dependence on Chinese capital and markets.[15][16][17]
When viewed through the lens of asymmetric interdependence, both Thailand and Cambodia thus possess a form of diplomatic insurance: confidence that Beijing will shield them, to some extent, from the harshest Western responses. This may embolden local leaders to take risks — whether military or political — that would be unthinkable in a purely U.S.-dominated regional order.
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The Cost of Defiance: Why Challenging U.S. Tariff Threats Is Unlikely to Pay Off
From a strictly economic perspective, neither Thailand nor Cambodia stands to gain from provoking U.S. displeasure. The United States remains a key export market and a source of investment, technology, and international legitimacy for both countries. Should Washington choose to respond to ceasefire violations with punitive tariffs or other economic measures, the impact on ordinary citizens in terms of employment, prices, and growth could be severe.[3][4]
Cambodia, while more heavily dependent on China, still relies on Western markets and multilateral institutions. A reputation for disregarding international commitments — whether on ceasefires or on the regulation of scam operations — could expose Phnom Penh to sanctions, reduced aid, or stricter conditions on loans and trade preferences.
It is therefore difficult to argue that defying U.S. expectations over the border conflict is “rational” from the standpoint of long-term national welfare. It may, however, be rational from the viewpoint of political elites who prioritise short-term regime stability, clientelist networks, and the protection of illicit revenue streams over broader societal interests.
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Structural Lessons for Southeast Asia and for U.S. Policy
For Thai and Cambodian Societies
The 2025 border war underscores how quickly ambiguous boundaries can be weaponised when democratic oversight is weak and institutions of accountability are fragile. In such settings, frontier zones are more than sites of military confrontation; they are arenas where the interests of political patrons, business conglomerates, and criminal networks intersect.
Citizens in both countries face a hard question: when governments resort to force, are they defending the lives and dignity of their populations, or the privileges of those who benefit from opaque cross-border economies? The answer will vary from episode to episode, but the question itself should remain central.
For the United States and the Wider International Community
For U.S. policymakers, the Thai–Cambodian case offers a cautionary tale about the limits of tying ceasefire agreements narrowly to trade negotiations and tariff incentives. Such linkages can be effective in the short term, but they do not in themselves transform the underlying political economies that make conflict attractive to local elites.
A more sustainable approach would combine calibrated economic leverage with deeper engagement on issues such as institutional reform, anti-corruption, and the governance of transnational crime. This does not mean imposing external blueprints, but rather supporting local actors who seek to strengthen the rule of law and reduce the permeability between state structures and criminal enterprises.
More broadly, the 2025 border war illustrates a world in which the line separating state, capital, and criminality has grown increasingly blurred. Great powers compete not only for bases and trade routes, but also for influence over shadow economies that reach from online scam compounds to metropolitan financial centres. Any serious strategy for regional stability must therefore look beyond troop deployments and tariff schedules, and reckon with the dense, often hidden networks that bind borderlands, capitals, and global markets together.
Selected References
- Ratcliffe, R. “Why are Thailand and Cambodia engaged in a border conflict?” The Guardian, 24 July 2025.
- Ciorciari, J. D. “Thailand and Cambodia: The Battle for Preah Vihear.” Stanford University, 2009.
- “Trump’s call broke deadlock in Thailand–Cambodia border crisis.” Reuters, 31 July 2025.
- “US pressures Thailand to recommit to Cambodia ceasefire with threat of tariffs.” The Guardian, 15 November 2025.
- “China-made rocket among triggers for Thai airstrikes into Cambodia.” Reuters, 8 December 2025.
- “Thailand launches airstrikes along disputed border with Cambodia as tensions flare.” The Guardian, 8 December 2025.
- “Thailand the new eye of Southeast Asia’s scam centre storm.” Asia Times, December 2025.
- “Thailand Seizes $300M in Assets as Scam Crackdown Deepens.” The Diplomat, December 2025.
- “Thailand Seizes Over $300M from Transnational Scam Ring.” Khaosod English, 3 December 2025.
- “PM admits having merely met Ben Smith as ‘acquaintance’.” Thai Newsroom, 4 December 2025.
- “Anutin admits knowing but not being close to ‘Ben Smith’.” Nation Thailand, December 2025.
- “Thai PM, Finance Minister Address Photos With Alleged Scam Figure Ben Smith.” Khaosod English, 4 December 2025.
- Lowy Institute. “Partnership of Convenience? Ream Naval Base and the Cambodia–China Convergence.” Report, 2024.
- CSIS AMTI. “A Tale of Two Reams: Questions Remain at Cambodia’s Growing Naval Base.” Report, 2025.
- “Thailand adds last piece in China rail link as bilateral ties get back on track.” South China Morning Post, 6 February 2025.
- “China and Thailand to be linked via high-speed rail.” Newsweek, 29 January 2025.
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “How Has China’s Belt and Road Initiative Impacted Southeast Asian Countries?” Analytical brief, 2023.
- “Thailand and Cambodia reaffirm ceasefire after China-brokered talks.” AP News, 30 July 2025.
