U.S. Operational Access in Thailand: How and Why it Has Varied Since the 1950s
Abstract
Despite the increasing range of U.S. military assets, ships need places to repair and refuel, planes need places to land, and ground forces need forward staging areas. Accordingly, the United States goes to great lengths to ensure that it develops access to partner nations that it can rely on in times of crisis. There is widespread understanding that access varies over time, even with close allies, but little literature about the causes of that variation. So, why does access vary? To answer this question, this thesis defines the scale of access by outlining five levels pertinent to U.S. military operations; hypothesizes that access is a function of prior agreements and threat perception; and tests those hypotheses in a case study of the U.S.-Thai alliance between 1954 and 2023. It finds that access has been mainly a function of threat perceptions - when U.S. and Thai perceptions converged during the 1950s and 1960s, access increased; when they diverged in later times, access declined. However, bilateral agreements from the earlier era sustained modest levels of access in later decades. These findings suggest U.S. engagement strategies should leverage prior agreements but will likely be constrained by current threat perceptions.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1224521
Entities
People
- Owen E. Bashaw
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School