3 - The Making of the Development Military

Summary

In Chapter 1, I raised the question of how natural resources management became one of the military junta's top priorities. The military forcibly evicted thousands of families from forest reserve areas immediately after the coup d’état of 22 May 2014. The eviction was soon followed by a master plan to reclaim forest land nationwide. This chapter seeks to explain the military's development role and development projects from the counterinsurgency period to the present day, showing how the concept of development for security shifted and expanded, and the implications of these changes.

In Chapter 2, I explained how the term “development for security” or kan phatthana phuea khwam mankhong/yuttha-phatthana was coined to justify the military role in socio-economic and political programmes, and how legal legitimation was secured for this role. This chapter will focus on the political factors and key players in the advancement and expansion of the military's development role into new areas in the post-counterinsurgency period. King Bhumibol and his royal development projects were a leading force against communism. Over two thousand royal development projects and the king's visits to the poor in remote areas undoubtedly won the hearts and mind of people nationwide. The active participation of the monarchy in this area, together with the promotion of the public image of a devoted king, was a core strategy in the Thai state's struggle to triumph over communism. As the monarchy and the military worked closely together, it is necessary to address the role of monarchy in the making of thahan nak phatthana, the development military.

While thousands of development projects advanced the image of kasat nak phatthana, (the development monarch) for King Bhumibol, the military adopted the term thahan nak phatthana, the development military, in a bid to secure the same public appeal. The higher the moral authority of King Bhumibol, the more the military relied on royal legitimacy to expand its role in the socio-economic sphere. This institutional relationship allowed the whole armed forces, not just individual military leaders, to expand their role into the socio-political area.

The military's policy of development for security has been dynamic from the counterinsurgency period to the present.