Brian Berletic, December 15, 2025
Renewed fighting along the Thai–Cambodian border in December highlights how local disputes in Southeast Asia are increasingly shaped by broader great-power strategies aimed at constraining China’s rise.
Thai-Cambodian Conflict Threatens Asian Stability by Design (archived)
Category: Cambodia
This Is the Future of U.S. Foreign Aid Under Trump
US-Funded Riots Target Indonesia (or, NED is Alive and Well…)
US-Funded Riots Target Indonesia (or, NED is Alive and Well…)
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in May during the Singapore-based Shangri La Dialogue the US would focus more on the, “Indo-Pacific” region after years of distractions waging war and regime change elsewhere around the globe.
Since then, there has been a border war between Thailand and Cambodia precipitated by US-backed politicians on both sides of the border, and now violent “student protests” in Indonesia similar to US-sponsored riots in Hong Kong and Thailand in recent years.
Known Western government funded (including US NED-funded) media organizations, “rights groups,” and others (like Remotivi, Project Multatuli and Jakarta Legal Aid) in Indonesia are openly backing the protests and attacking the current government.
Sources: Project Multatuli admits on its site collaboration with Open Society and a variety of NED-adjacent funding tools used by the US for political interference worldwide: Collaborations
Remotivi and Project Multatuli are both mentioned as being disrupted by temporary NED funding freezes earlier this year: ‘Without us, no scrutiny’: Indonesia’s independent media count cost of US funding cuts
Their social media presence has spent the duration of the protests condemning the government and police and encouraging unrest. The same formula of violent protests forcing police responses, leading to injured or dead protesters, thus increasing the size and violence of the protests is in motion. The same US color revolution gimmicks – using colors, flags, pop culture symbols for protest branding are also being used. In Thailand it was the “Hunger Games” and “Harry Potter,” in Indonesia, the BBC boasts of “One Piece” pirate flags being flown.
Source: How a cartoon skull became a symbol of defiance in Indonesia
The goal at best is to install a client regime willing to transform Indonesia into a Ukraine-style battering ram against China, and at a minimum, destabilize the nation and reduce its utility in both China’s and all of Asia’s rise.
Brian Berletic: Twitter
Previously:
Tensions soar across Indonesia as protests against police erupt in multiple cities
Political West’s “Divide And Rule” Strategy of Destabilizing China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most ambitious infrastructure and economic integration project ever devised, linking over 140 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. Much unlike the political West, Beijing is trying to project power through economic means, a starkly different approach to that of the most aggressive power pole in human history.
Political West’s “Divide And Rule” Strategy of Destabilizing China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (archived)
Brian Berletic: U.S. Involvement in the Thailand-Cambodia Conflict
Thai-Cambodian Conflict: Who Benefits from Regional Chaos?
Thai-Cambodian Conflict Only Suits American Interests
Earlier on Thursday, there was an escalation of clashes between troops of Thailand and Cambodia on the border, which began with a shootout between ground forces in a disputed area.
The US sees the Thailand-Cambodia escalation “through the lens of divide and rule,” Brian Berletic, geopolitical analyst and former US Marine, told Sputnik.
Thai-Cambodian Сonflict Only ‘Suits’ America – Ex-US Marine
SOFREP: Thailand on the Brink: Protests Erupt, Coup Rumors Swirl After Leaked Call Scandal
The Antiwar Movement We Are Supposed to Forget
Visualize the movement against the Vietnam War. What do you see? Hippies with daisies in their long, unwashed hair yelling “Baby killers!” as they spit on clean-cut, bemedaled veterans just back from Vietnam? College students in tattered jeans (their pockets bulging with credit cards) staging a sit-in to avoid the draft? A mob of chanting demonstrators burning an American flag (maybe with a bra or two thrown in)? That’s what we’re supposed to see, and that’s what Americans today probably do see — if they visualize the antiwar movement at all.
F.B.I. Agents in Southeast Asia Paid for Sex While Police Stood By, Watchdog Says
F.B.I. agents stationed overseas had sex with prostitutes in Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand, even as some bureau employees attended training meant to combat human trafficking, a practice that often exploits vulnerable women, according to an investigation by the Justice Department’s watchdog.
F.B.I. Agents in Southeast Asia Paid for Sex While Police Stood By, Watchdog Says
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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