page_title: Military history of Cambodia
section_title: Second Indochina War (1954–75)
hierarchical_section_title: Military history of Cambodia / Second Indochina War (1954–75)
caption_attribution_description: English: President Eisenhower and Prince Norodom Sihanouk.
context_page_description: The earliest traces of armed conflict in the territory that constitutes modern Cambodia date to the Iron Age settlement of Phum Snay in north-western Cambodia.
  Sources on Funan's military structure are rare. Funan represents the oldest known regional political entity, formed by the unification of local principalities. Whether these events must be categorized as conflict remains unclear More information is available for Funan's successor state - Chenla, which has been characterized as distinctly bellicose as it was established by the military subjugation of Funan. Chenla's early aristocrats heralded authority by public display of their noble genealogies carved onto stone stelae all over Indochina. Later, rulers increasingly embraced the concept of divine Hindu kingship.
  The Khmer Empire's territory and integrity was maintained through the Royal Army, personally commanded by the king. Records exist for regular conflict with the kingdom's neighbors, Champa in particular, as the empire effectively controlled Mainland South-east Asia by the 12th century. Nonetheless, the Khmer kingdom suffered a number of serious defeats, such as the Cham invasion and sack of Angkor in 1177.
context_section_description: In 1955, the United States and Cambodia signed an agreement providing for security assistance. In addition to a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) and military budget support, FARK received US supplies and equipment worth approximately US$83.7 million for eight years until the assistance program was discontinued at Sihanouk's request in 1963. France also retained a military training mission in Cambodia until 1971 from which FARK military traditions and doctrines were adopted.
  As the United States failed to guarantee a reliable military support program Sihanouk increasingly pursued a neutralist foreign policy during the 1960s and eventually declared that Cambodia would "abstain from military or ideological alliances" but would retain the right to self-defense.
  From 1958 on Northern and Southern Vietnamese combat troops began to violate Cambodian territory on a regular basis. Neither Washington nor Hanoi responded to Sihanouk's protests, which lead him to establish diplomatic relations with China. By the mid-1960s, large areas within Cambodia served as supply routes and strategic staging sites for North - and South Vietnamese communists and Viet Cong forces. FARK could do little more than monitor these developments and maintained a modus vivendi with the intruders as Sihanouk charged the United States of complicity with the Khmer Serei, which further strained Cambodian–American relations.
  Economic and military cooperation with the United States was formally terminated on 3 May 1965. Although French military assistance and training continued until 1972, Sihanouk began to accept military assistance from the Soviet Union. He also accused Thailand and South Vietnam of subversive cooperation with the USA whom he suspected to actively destabilize his government and promote the Khmer Serei.
  By the mid-1960s Cambodia's armed forces had failed to incorporate into a comprehensive program of one of the opposing sides of the cold war. Mixed military equipment of several suppliers with varying doctrines and structure worsened FARK's strategic position.
  Unable to effectively combat Vietnamese presence in Eastern Cambodia Sihanouk, in a gesture of appeasement secretly offered the deep-water port of Sihanoukville, situated at the Gulf of Thailand as a supply terminal for the NVA. FARK's role as a centrally lead operative force eroded further and increasingly functioned as a highly corrupt arbiter of uncontrolled weapon deals and as shipment agency.
  In 1967 FARK brutally suppressed the Samlaut Uprising of frustrated peasants in Battambang Province who, among other things, protested against government price dumping for rice, treatment by local military, land displacement and poor socio-economic conditions. Sihanouk attributed the insurrection to the Khmer Rouge and blamed the "Thai patriotic front" to have been the instigating force in the background. Sihanouk's incorrect political analysis and the inappropriate actions of FARK against civilians caused a serious alienation process between Cambodia's population and the official armed forces. Many people fled FARK's repressions and joined rebel groups of whom the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea became the most prolific. As long as Sihanouk remained in power these forces received very limited military assistance from Hanoi because this might have alienated Sihanouk's government and affected North Vietnamese and Viet Cong access to Cambodian territory and the Sihanoukville supply route.
  The 1969 U.S. bombing campaigns inside Cambodian territory caused the Vietnamese to penetrate deeper into the country where they came into more frequent hostile contact with FARK, who reportedly conducted joint operations with South Vietnamese forces against the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong. Sihanouk disapproved of these latest communist incursions, terminated access to Sihanoukville's port and stated that "to deal with the Viet Cong and Viet Minh", he is going "to give up the defensive spirit and adopt an offensive spirit." On 11 June 1969 he announced that "...at present there is war in Ratanakiri
caption: Eisenhower and Sihanouk 1959)
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