Thailand-Brunei Defense Relations in the Headlines With Military Chief Visit

The recent trip spotlighted the ongoing activity between the two sides in the defense realm.

By Prashanth Parameswaran

 

Last week, Thailand’s defense chief embarked on an introductory visit to Brunei. While the trip was just the latest in a series of ongoing interactions between the two fellow Southeast Asian states, it nonetheless put the spotlight on the state of the defense aspect of their broader bilateral relationship amid domestic and regional changes at play within the two countries as well as in the wider region.

 

As I have noted before in these pages, Thailand and Brunei share a bilateral relationship that extends to the security domain as well. Defense ties include not just interactions between the two countries directly, such as visits and exchanges, but also multilateral ones, including within the framework of ASEAN and ASEAN Plus mechanisms.

 

That has continued on into 2018 as well. In August, the commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF) paid his first visit to Thailand after assuming his post in February as part of some wider domestic changes in the Southeast Asian sultanate.

 

Full story: https://thediplomat.com/2018/11/thailand-brunei-defense-relations-in-the-headlines-with-military-chief-visit/

 

-- THE DIPLOMAT 2018-11-28

A military alliance with Brunai makes sense to avoid being invaded by hordes of the countries mutual enemy: the bloodthirsty Inuit.