Successful journey: A history of United States-Thai relations, 1932-1945.

Abstract

In the 1920s United States-Thai relations reached an excellent status because of the Wilsonian policy applied to Thailand by the Americans and because of the favorable political environment provided by the Thai monarchy for these relations. In the 1930s, in contrast, the United States and Thailand experienced growing political distance because of the 1932 Thai revolution, repeated disruptions in the kingdom's regime and nationalistic policies carried out by the new Thai regime, all of which trends lessened American confidence in the favorability of relations with the kingdom. In the Second World War, after Thailand was occupied by Japan, the Thai regime carried out collaboration with Japan which included a Thai-Japanese alliance and Thailand's declaration of war against the United States and Britain. At the same time, however, a Thai resistance movement opposing the present Thai regime and the Japanese arose and provided an excellent client for the United States in the latter's attempts to help liberate Thailand and promote an amenable Thai regime after the war. During the war, American cooperation with the Free Thais included the infiltration of American OSS officers into Thailand and the organization by the OSS of native resistance forces in preparations for an eventual uprising against the Japanese. After the Allies' victory over Japan, the United States supported the Free Thai regime in place by this time because of this regime's accommodation to the Allies and its general pro-Western orientation. When the British attempted to impose a harsh postwar settlement on Thailand, the United States defeated this attempt, and gained new prestige and influence in Thailand because of its successful support of the kingdom's full postwar sovereignty and independence. With the United States having an amenable Thai regime in place, and with the Americans prepared to assert their influence in Thailand far beyond the levels it had enjoyed before, the United States and Thailand stood ready to enjoy a far-reaching, cooperative, and beneficial relationship in the postwar era.