Thailand develops its own counterinsurgency strategy with some success

Real Clear Defense:

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Away from Bangkok’s glitz, Thailand hides its success combating insurgency. Between 1965 and today, the Kingdom of Thailand defeated two insurgencies and continues to suppress another in the south. These insurgencies are serious. Support from China and Thailand’s neighbors enabled the first, a communist insurgency during the Cold War. It leapt from 126 annual deaths in 1967 to 1,590 in 1970. As the communist insurgency concluded in the early 1980s, Thai officials assert that 80,000 fighters and family members accepted government amnesty and reintegrated into Thai society. The government next faced the first Pattani insurgency from 1980 to 1998, ultimately reducing it to criminal mischief. But it would later be reignited, creating a third insurgency for the government to contend with, and conflict has raged since 2004. This latest insurgency, though, is different from the two the government managed to bring to an end. Improvised explosive devices strike civilian targets and insurgents fight against a government without the political will to resolve the conflict. A 2015 report from West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center described it as “the single most lethal conflict in Southeast Asia, with nearly 6,400 dead and 11,000 wounded” since 2004.

To combat this series of insurgent threats, the Royal Thai Army first mimicked British techniques from the Malayan Emergency, but found them wanting. With the escalation of French and later American operations in Vietnam, the Thai government then experimented with American search-and-destroy techniques. Not until the Thai government embraced a unique, national form of counterinsurgency—characterized by military supervision of democratizing reforms, amnesty, and development—did they succeed. Still, despite developing organic techniques, Thailand struggled like other countries to overcome internal division when insurgent challenges presented themselves. Institutional military resistance has also stymied efforts by counterinsurgent-minded officers to dust off their playbooks until local confrontations became national crises.

In The Thai Way of Counterinsurgency, Dr. Jeff Moore analyzes three Thai insurgencies to see what lessons they might hold for counterinsurgency. He finds that the Thai government uses “a decisive strategy of politics leading the military and staunch coordination to drive forward their [counterinsurgency] operations.” ....
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It probably helped that the state sponsors of communism were in their death throws when that insurgency failed.  Now they are dealing with radical Islamists who think they are on a mission from God.  They attack schools and government offices.  Since the place of terrorist attacks is well known the government should be able to defend the sites.