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History attests to Cambodia's martial origins. In antiquity Cambodia, having conquered Laos, parts of Thailand, and the Malay Peninsula, held power over a vast area of Southeast Asia. Khmer martial prowess waned in the early 15th century, however, and Cambodia subsequently endured periods of colonisation, occupation, and vassalage by its more militarily powerful neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam. This long period of decline reached its nadir in the early 19th century, when Cambodia nearly ceased to exist as a sovereign state as the result of encroachments by its neighbours. In 1863 the Cambodian king acquiesced in the establishment of a French protectorate over his nation, to preserve it from extinction. The protectorate's authority was extended often by force of arms, and ultimately Cambodia became a de facto colony that eventually gave birth to a modern state with its own armed forces and military doctrine. Since World War II, Cambodia has enjoyed few strife-free periods. Its people have suffered colonisation, prolonged civil war, and occupation by a foreign power almost continuously. During this time, it has been ruled by three authoritarian governments of differing ideological orientations and varying degrees of repression. American military aid to Cambodia began indirectly in 1950 in the form of a security assistance program for the French forces in Indochina, that enabled them to expand a recently created indigenous army. In 1955 the United States agreed to continue this aid to the independent kingdom of Cambodia. The program, which included military training and a resident Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), lasted until terminated by the Cambodian government. Security assistance was again extended to the Khmer Republic from 1970 until that government fell in 1975 to the Khmer Rouge. After 1975 the United States extended humanitarian assistance through United Nations (UN) agencies to Cambodian refugees on the Thai border and gave non lethal aid, only, to the two non communist components of the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea. In 1987 Cambodia was the reluctant host to a substantial Vietnamese military presence, reinforced by its Cambodian surrogate army. History thus appeared to be repeating itself, and foreign observers and Cambodian nationalists feared that the country eventually might become part of a Hanoi-dominated Indochinese federation. The UN recognised the tripartite CGDK as the legitimate government of Cambodia. The insurgent forces of the coalition were capable only of conducting guerrilla raids and sabotage missions within Cambodian territory, against the Vietnamese occupation forces and the Kampuchean (or Khmer) People's Revolutionary Armed Forces of the Phnom Penh government, the People's Republic of Kampuchea. A number of foreign observers assessed the military situation as a stalemate and doubted that Hanoi would, or could, fulfil its public commitment to withdraw its forces by 1990 from a Cambodia that was becoming a "strategic appendage" of the "indivisible strategic unit of Indochina" claimed by Vietnamese military doctrine. ==Khmer Empire== Bas-relief in galleries of the Angkor complex in Siem Reap depict Cambodia's land and naval conquests during the Angkorian Period, which spanned from A.D. 802 to 1431. During this time, the Khmer Empire, by force of arms, extended its dominions to encompass much of Southeast Asia. The warrior kings, who actually led troops in battle, did not customarily maintain standing armies but raised troops as necessity required. Historian David P. Chandler has described the relationship between the monarch and the military: ''Though the king, who led his country into battle, sometimes engaged his chief enemy in single combat, Khmer military strength rested on the junior officers, the captains of militia. These men commanded the loyalty of peasant groups in their particular locality. If the king conquered a region, a new captain of militia would be enrolled and put under an oath of allegiance. The captains were simply headmen of the outlying regions, but their connection with the king enhanced their status. In time of war they were expected to conscript the peasants in their district and to lead them to Angkor to join the Khmer army. If the captains disobeyed the king they were put to death. The vast majority of the Khmer population were of the farmer-builder-soldier class.'' Little is known conclusively about warfare in early Cambodia, but much can be assumed from the environment or deduced from epigraphic and sculptural evidence. The army was made up of peasant levies, and because the society relied on rice cultivation, Khmer military campaigns were probably confined to the dry season when peasant-soldiers could be spared from the rice fields. Battles were fought on hard-baked plains from which the paddy (or rice) had been harvested. Tactics were uncomplicated. The Khmer engaged their foes in pitched frontal assaults, while trying to keep the sun at their backs. War elephants were widely employed, for both tactical and logistical purposes. Late in the Khmer Empire, the ballista (a kind of catapult, often shaped like a giant crossbow) took its place in regional warfare. It probably was introduced to the Cambodians by Cham mercenaries, who had copied it earlier from Chinese models. The Khmer Empire's principal adversaries were the Siamese, the Vietnamese, and the Cham from the powerful kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam. Warfare, seemingly, was endemic, and military campaigns occurred continuously. The Chams—attacked by land in 1177 and again by water in 1178—sacked Angkor twice. In 1181 a young nobleman who was shortly to become Jayavarman VII, emerged as one of the greatest of the Khmer kings, raised an army and defeated the Chams in a naval battle. After his death, ca. 1218, Kampuja entered a decline, resulting in eventual disintegration. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Military history of Cambodia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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