Transcript of the above video: 

I wanted to do a quick update. We did a video update yesterday talking about the rising tensions along the Thai-Cambodian border. Most notably there has been kinetic activity, pretty substantial kinetic activity along that corridor and I thought we would go ahead and do an update. 

So I first thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: PM promises 'necessary military response' to Cambodian attacks. Quoting directly: "Thailand will launch "all necessary military operations" in response to Cambodia’s latest attacks, which began on Sunday, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said after a top-level security meeting on Monday. Mr. Anutin made the promise in the presence of the chiefs of the armed forces and the defense minister on Monday afternoon, after a meeting of the National Security Council at Government House. He said Thailand have to exercise its rights to self-defense after Cambodia launched attacks on Thailand on Sunday that continued to Monday." 

A couple of things out there. I've noticed sort of in the ether of like Twitter and some of the other parts in the internet, I get it. There are two narratives going on here. This is a conflict, and one side sees things one way, the other side sees things another way. But I have seen a fair amount of what I can only describe as possible disinformation or maybe even propaganda out there and there is this constant "oh us Cambodians, Thais are the aggressors etc., etc." Look, I'm not going to comment definitively on what happened anywhere because I wasn't there. But one thing I think it's worth pointing out in light of the events of the past 10 days or so, that mine that went off immediately following sort of this most recent ceasefire, the ASEAN inspection team to the best of my knowledge, then came in there and they actually confirmed that that was actually planted after the signing of this peace resolution, what did they call it? It was like a resolution. They didn't call it a Treaty, but it was basically sort of a peace announcement, sort of a manifesto of the belief in peace amongst the parties, however you want to look at it. And look, that occurred right after, and then even the inspection team that came in that was charged with neutrally and objectively ascertaining what happened there, to the best of my knowledge basically said, "yeah, no this looks like it has been planted since the ceasefire came online," which that calls the whole thing into question from that point forward. So I do get that there is a back and forth right now regarding the narrative of what has happened in the past couple of days, but in light of everything I think it's important to point out what's happened; it’s easy to forget details in the moment of permanent things that have just happened, actually fairly recently happened. 

That said, I wanted to make this video sort of as topical as I can for the moment, because I understand people are very sort of nervous about the situation and concerned, as they should be. That being said, I found this over on Khao Sod's Twitter feed, Khao Sod English, that's @KhaoSodEnglish over at x.com, quoting directly: “BREAKING: The Armed Forces on Tuesday said that Thailand has run out of patience with Cambodia and is fully prepared for combat. They affirmed that if it is confirmed that Cambodia forces use heavy weapons, Thailand is ready to launch pre-emptive strikes. They asked the public to have confidence that they will take all necessary actions to the fullest extent." So this came out December 9, 2025 at 12:48pm. Bangkok time. I'm talking to you right before 3:00pm Bangkok time so that's about as topical as you can get. 

The reason for the thumbnail and the mention of The Guns of August in the title, for those who are unaware, there is a book called The Guns of August. It's actually referenced in a movie called 13 Days which is talking about the Cuban missile crisis under Kennedy. There's a movie called 13 days with Kevin Costner and in that, Kennedy - I actually read the book for this, going back, Washburn University, I think it was for Dr. Robert Beatty's class, if he's out there listening, shout out to you Sir - but I remember reading that book and they do mention the Guns of August in that book as well. Apparently, President Kennedy had read that book and it's a book about the lead up to the first World War and how folks, basically their assumptions about how things would play sort of had a major impact on the fact that war ended up becoming inevitable. 

Now my hope is that the tensions on this will de-escalate. We have seen kinetic activity along the border, rather significant kinetic activity recently. But that said, I do know that at the end of the day nobody really wants to see a cycle of violence continue out here in this region, so hopefully cooler heads will prevail. That being said, we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.