It is not only the foreign media that does not find the arguments of supporters of Thailand’s establishment to be credible: many foreign investment strategists have come to the same conclusion. Standard Chartered’s country risk team wrote in a quarterly analysis of global risks in April that:
It is not clear that the gravity of the position is fully understood within the Thai establishment, where hitherto the issue was seen to be Thaksin. It is now a matter of the lack of democratic credentials of the current government.
Yet among well-educated Thais in the middle and upper classes, who regard themselves as the guardians of democracy in Thailand, there appears to be little ability or willingness to think critically about the situation. This is particularly apparent in their failure to confront the dangers of the military’s increasingly pernicious role in Thai politics.
However bad Thaksin may have been for Thai democracy, it is very difficult to argue that the military has not been profoundly worse. In modern Thai history the military has proven itself adept at political meddling and blatant corruption, but far less skilled at doing what it is supposed to do – defending the country. Incredibly, it even lost a brief war against neighbouring Laos in 1987/88.
In 1992, Thailand’s middle classes in Bangkok bravely took a stand against military rule. Many were killed, but they achieved what seemed to be a decisive watershed in Thailand’s development – military intervention in politics was no longer deemed acceptable. And yet 14 years later, Bangkok’s establishment applauded the coup that overthrew Thaksin. And since then, it has been mute as the military took a driving seat in politics and as its entrenched corruption became painfully apparent.
The military’s ham-fisted efforts to rob the Thai people would be comical if they were not so damaging. The Thai air force paid far more than other countries such as Romania for Gripen jets from Sweden. A 350 million baht airship was ordered to monitor insurgents in southern Thailand despite plentiful evidence that it would be useless – it cannot fly high enough to avoid being brought down by a rifle shot and it is full of leaks. The military has asked for nearly 5 billion baht to buy 121 more armoured personnel carriers from Ukraine, even though it has yet to take delivery of 96 similar vehicles ordered in 2007 for 3.9 billion baht – the supplier was unable to provide engines for them.