While the National Council of Peace and Order (NCPO) appears to make sense of all national issues through the lens of security alone, this paper will argue that the urge to manage and control the foreign migrant workforce should be understood in conjunction with broader issues of wages and employment in Thai political economy. By focusing on specific contexts – the conjuncture at which the NCPO came into the Thai political landscape—this paper will foreground the Thai junta’s broader motive to facilitate processes of economic development which have been disrupted by political and social upheaval. It will argue that we will better understand the role of the NCPO and its strategies, as a coordinator of state agencies and business interests.