page_title: Royal Cambodian Armed Forces
section_title: Strength and demobilisation
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Cambodian Armed Forces / Strength and demobilisation
caption_attribution_description: English: Cambodian De-miner team in Sudan.
context_page_description: The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, is Cambodia's national military force. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief is King Norodom Sihamoni. Since 2018, General Vong Piseng has been the Commander-in-Chief of the RCAF as head of the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Gendarmerie. The armed forces operate under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Defence. Under the country's constitution, the RCAF is charged with protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Cambodia.
  It was created in 1993 by a merger of the Cambodian People's Armed Forces and the two non-communist resistance armies. Two resistance forces, the Khmer Rouge and the royalist National United Army opposed the government. The forerunner of the Cambodian Armed Forces is Division 125, established in 1978 by Hun Sen with support from the Vietnamese People's Army.
  The Royal Cambodian Army is the largest RCAF branch, with troops stationed in each of the country's 25 provinces. The Royal Cambodian Navy, the second-largest branch and operates along the Mekong and Bassac Rivers and in the Tonlé Sap lake.
context_section_description: In 2001, co-Minister of Defence Sisowath Sirirath said that total Cambodian military strength stood at about 120,000 men. Since the end of fighting and the surrender of the last Khmer Rouge remnants, the Cambodian military has undergone substantial changes as it shifts to a peacetime force.
  Since 1999, the government has been working to demobilise large numbers of soldiers with support from the World Bank. Demobilisation efforts began in February 2000, and the first 10,000 soldiers were demobilised in a pilot project later that year. In 2001, the first phase of demobilisation got underway; twenty thousand soldiers returned to civilian life in large ceremonies around the country. Although a second phase of demobilisation was planned for 2003 in which an additional 30,000 servicemen would leave the armed forces, the process has been stalled by allegations of corruption and procurement irregularities.
caption: Cambodian de-mining force in Sudan
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-S950", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:06:12 01:02:57", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "270", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-S950", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2009:06:12 01:02:57", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "12932", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7389", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/640", "EXIF FNumber": "51/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:06:12 01:02:57", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:06:12 01:02:57", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "55/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3648", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2736", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "12712", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}