The political ascendancy of Prayut Chan-o-cha and Prawit Wongsuwan, Thailand’s most dominant military-political figures of the 21st century, cannot be understood without examining the Eastern Tigers (Burapha Payak), the faction that shaped their careers.
The Eastern Tigers emerged as a cohesive force during Thailand’s not so shadowy war against peasant, working class and communist organising- what The West refers to as The Cold War. The eastern border, particularly the provinces adjacent to Cambodia, was a key battleground. The Thai military, organised by the US as part of its broader containment strategy, established the Communist Suppression Operations Command (CSOC), later renamed the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), to coordinate counterinsurgency efforts. The 2nd Infantry Division played a central role, most involved were the 21st Infantry Regiment, Queen Sirikit’s Guard (The Eastern Tigers).
The military’s doctrine fused anti-communism with royalist nationalism, framing the monarchy as the ultimate bulwark against Marxist revolution. The Eastern Tigers absorbed this worldview, seeing themselves not just as soldiers but as defenders of the Thai state’s traditional hierarchies. The borderlands became a laboratory for tactics that would later define their political rule: psychological operations, village surveillance, and the blurring of military and civilian governance.
Both Prawit and Prayut were products of the Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy, Prawit from Class 17, Prayut from Class 23, and their formative years were spent along the Cambodian frontier during Thailand’s covert operations against Vietnamese and Cambodian socialist forces in the 1980s. This contested region became a space where economic opportunism and political ambition converged.
The Eastern Tigers’ rise was inseparable from the illicit economies that flourished during the Cambodian conflict. As junior officers, Prayut and Prawit were embedded in networks that traded gems and timber with Khmer Rouge factions, circumventing international sanctions. This trade was a structured enterprise that enriched key military figures and their associates. The border became a testing ground for a model of governance where security operations and economic extraction were indistinguishable. By the 1990s, the CPT had collapsed, and the Cold War was ending, but the Eastern Tigers’ anti-communist framework did not disappear, it evolved. The old enemy, communism, was gradually replaced by new perceived threats like pro-democracy movements and Thaksin Shinawatra’s populism. The Tigers meanwhile, had consolidated influence within Thailand’s military hierarchy, with Prawit acting as a mentor to younger officers like Prayut and Anupong Paochinda, both of whom would later serve as army chiefs.
2014 Coup Architecture
The Eastern Tigers’ experiences along the Cambodian frontier shaped their political worldview, one in which territorial integrity and military control took precedence over democratic processes. When well organised reactionary protests destabilised Thailand in 2013-2014, the faction’s response was rooted in the logic of borderland security. Prawit, then the elder strategist of the group, is widely believed to have orchestrated the coup while Prayut, serving as army chief, executed it. On 22 May 2014, Prayut dissolved the government, suspended the constitution, and established the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). Prawit assumed the role of deputy junta chairman and later deputy prime minister, positioning himself as the regime’s political operator.
The regime imposed ideological control through measures such as Prayut’s “Twelve Core Values of Thai People,” a set of royalist-nationalist principles. The Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), an apparatus refined in eastern Thailand, expanded its reach nationwide, monitoring dissent and enforcing censorship in ways reminiscent of border surveillance operations. Economically, Prawit maintained ties with business elites whose interests overlapped with military priorities, replicating the informal alliances that had sustained the Eastern Tigers during the Cambodian conflict.
The Cambodian Border
The Eastern Tigers’ relationship with Cambodia remained fraught long after the 1980s. Between 2008 and 2011, border clashes near the Preah Vihear Temple provided Prawit, then defence minister, with an opportunity to frame the dispute as a matter of national sovereignty. This rhetoric obscured underlying economic interests, as other contested areas of border are believed to hold untapped energy reserves. Later, as deputy prime minister, Prawit oversaw infrastructure projects that threatened Cambodia’s Mondulkiri Protected Forest, a critical habitat for endangered species. A proposed border crossing and road network, opposed by conservation groups, risked fragmenting one of Southeast Asia’s last intact ecosystems, undermining efforts to reintroduce *actual* tigers that had been extinct in Cambodia since 2007.
Simultaneously, Thailand’s reliance on Cambodian migrant labour exposed the contradictions of the Eastern Tigers’ border policies. When war erupted in July 2025, Cambodian workers in Thailand faced violent reprisals from ultra-nationalist Thai groups, despite official assurances of protection.
The Eastern Tigers’ system thrived on hierarchical loyalty and the effective suspension of accountability. Prawit’s 2018 corruption scandal, in which he was photographed wearing 25 luxury watches worth an estimated 40 million baht, exemplified this dynamic. His explanation, that the watches were borrowed, was accepted by Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission, despite public outcry.
Prayut formally leaving the Prime Minister’s office in 2023 after an election defeat did not signify the end of Eastern Tigers influence. As a privy councillor, he retains access to royal circles, while Prawit continued to wield power through the Palang Pracharath Party, ensuring military dominance over civilian politics. Their legacy persists in three key areas: the continued militarisation of the Thai-Cambodian border, the resilience of military-business patronage networks, and the enduring ideological emphasis on “Nation-Religion-King” as the foundation of political legitimacy.
For Prawit, Prayut and The Tigers, Thailand’s eastern borderlands served as a petri dish for a distinct form of reactionary governance. The Eastern Tigers’ trajectory, from wartime profiteering working with the Khmer Rouge to commanding Thailand’s political and economic institutions, reveals a consistent pattern in which borders become spaces where flows of capital, intelligence, realpolitik and suppression is refined and expanded. Their rule transplanted the tactics of borderland control, surveillance, resource monopolisation, and impunity into the heart of the Thai state.