page_title: Military history of Cambodia
section_title: Cambodian–Vietnamese border tensions
hierarchical_section_title: Military history of Cambodia / Cambodian Civil War / Cambodian–Vietnamese border tensions
caption_attribution_description: Tiếng Việt: Hài cốt tại nhà mồ Ba Chúc, Tịnh Biên, An Giang. English: Skulls of females who have been massacred by the Khmer Rouge, Tịnh Biên county, An Giang Province.
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: Tensions between Cambodia and Vietnam have been going on for hundreds of years. They first peaked during the 19th century when only the establishment of the French Protectorate of Cambodia prevented the inevitable incorporation into a Vietnamese empire.  French colonial administrators established numerous administrative zones and borders such as the Brévié Line, with little regard to historic and ethnic considerations. Virtually all of these re-drawings resulted in territorial gains for Vietnam, who since independence after 1945 refuse to re-negotiate with Cambodia referring to the authority of the colonial calibrations.
  First clashes between the RAK and Vietnam's NVA date back to 1970, as Khmer Rouge units fired on North Vietnamese troops. Reports of engagements of growing intensity continued, particularly after 1973. The North Vietnamese initially chose to ignore the incidents because they regarded the sanctuaries in Cambodia as vital for their domestic war. After the communist victories of April and May 1975, Khmer Rouge border raids increased, that included massacres of villagers. Democratic Kampuchea attempts to capture several disputed insular territories in the Gulf of Thailand (e.g. Thổ Chu and Phú Quốc) ended, apart from high civilian losses, in failure.
  Deteriorating Cambodia–Vietnam relations reached a low on 31 December 1977 as Radio Phnom Penh reports a "ferocious and barbarous aggression launched by the 90,000 [troops of the] Vietnamese aggressor forces against Democratic Kampuchea", denounced the "so-called Socialist Republic of Vietnam" and announced a "temporary severance" of diplomatic relations. Escalating rhetoric border skirmishes erupted into pitched battles in the summer and the fall of 1978. Major engagements were reported from Svay Rieng Province, Kampong Cham Province and Ratanakiri Province.
  In November 1978 Vietnamese forces launched a sustained operation on Cambodian soil in the area of the town of Snuol and Memot in Kratié Province. This action cleared a liberated zone where anti-Khmer Rouge Cambodians could launch a broad-based political movement that opposed the inhumane Pol Pot regime. On 2 December 1978 the Kampuchean National United Front for National Salvation - KNUFNS was proclaimed in a rubber tree plantation amid rigid security provided by heavily armed Vietnamese units reinforced with anti-aircraft guns.
caption: Skulls of victims of the Ba Chúc massacre
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