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The ongoing conflict between the two member states is a direct challenge to the Southeast Asian bloc’s founding purpose.
The burnt-out structure of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Thailand’s Sisaket province that was struck by Cambodian rocket fire during fighting along the two nations’ shared border, Jul. 24, 2025.
Many analysts and scholars have argued that Myanmar, with a civil war now into its sixth year, is the biggest threat to the cohesion and effectiveness of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). While important to the discussion on ASEAN’s relevance, centrality, and credibility, this analysis entirely overlooks ASEAN vulnerabilities and overemphasizes the importance of Myanmar.
The following article will advance the argument that the Cambodian-Thai border conflict is, in fact, the greatest current threat to ASEAN. The logic behind this argument is twofold and fundamental to understanding the Southeast Asian bloc. At its founding, ASEAN’s raison d’etre was to put an end to intramural conflict and to allow its members to develop according to their own national context and timelines. Last year’s Cambodia-Thailand border wars, which erupted due to a mix of contested colonial borders, transnational crime, and nationalism, pose direct threats to the bloc’s purposes.
