[6] Royal Thai Armed Forces Day is celebrated on 18 January to commemorate the victory of King Naresuan the Great in battle against the Viceroy of Burma in 1593.

Their duties include defending the Thai monarchy against all threats,[8] maintaining public order, and assisting in national disaster relief and drug control.

As of 2020[update], the Royal Thai Armed Forces (RTARF) comprised approximately 360,850 active duty and 200,000 reserve personnel,[14] which is nearly one percent of Thailand's population of 70 million.

Observations by some analysts suggest that the goals of Thai generals include aligning with politically favorable parties, securing advantageous postings, and personal enrichment, which reportedly involves sharing gains with subordinates to maintain loyalty.

[23] It mandates military service for all Thai citizens, although in practice, it primarily applies to males over 21 years of age who have not completed reserve training.

The annual conscription process, typically held in early April, begins with eligible individuals reporting to their selection center at 07:00 on the designated day.

They receive official documentation summarizing the draft selection of the year, along with an enlistment order detailing the specifics of their basic training, including the time and location.

It is reported by some sources that a significant number of conscripts, over half according to these claims, are utilized as servants[26] to senior officers or clerks in military cooperative shops.

[27][28] However, it is important to note that the placement of conscripts, irrespective of their volunteer status and educational background, is typically determined by the operational needs of their respective service branches.

Their duties can vary, encompassing military operations, manning security checkpoints, force generation, and performing manual labor or clerical tasks as required by their unit.

Effective from November 19, 2019, to September 30, 2022, the plan suggests that external geopolitical threats are not significant in the forthcoming years, focusing instead on domestic issues, notably concerns about declining faith in the monarchy and political divisions.

As Thailand has never been colonized by a European power, the Royal Thai Armed Forces boasts one of the longest and uninterrupted military traditions in Asia.

Conscription was based on the "ahmudan" system, which required local chiefs to supply, in times of war, a predetermined quota of men from their jurisdiction on the basis of population.

The French colonialists invaded Siam from the northeast and sent two warships to fight their way past the river forts and train their guns on the Grand Palace in Bangkok (the Paknam Incident).

He sent a volunteer corps, the Siamese Expeditionary Force, composed of 1,233 modern-equipped and trained men commanded by Field Marshal Prince Chakrabongse Bhuvanath.

[50] Nineteen Siamese soldiers died during the conflict, and their ashes are interred in the World War I monument at the north end of Bangkok's Pramane Grounds.

The Franco-Thai War began in October 1940, when the country under the rule of Field Marshal Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram followed up border clashes by invading a French Indo-China, under the Vichy regime (after the Nazi occupation of Paris) to regain lost land and settle territorial disputes.

An active and foreign-assisted underground resistance movement, the Free Thai, was largely successful and helped Thailand to be viewed positively in the eyes of the victorious Allies after the war and be treated as an occupied nation rather than a defeated enemy.

[52][53] During the United Nations-mandated conflict in the Korean peninsula, Thailand provided the reinforced 1st Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment, Some 65,000[clarification needed] Thais served in Korea during the war.

The kingdom also provided four naval vessels, the HTMS Bangprakong, Bangpako, Tachin, and Prasae, and an air transport unit to the UN command structure.

[57] In October 1967 a regiment-size Thai unit, the Queen's Cobras, were sent to Camp Bearcat at Bien Hoa, to fight alongside the Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and South Vietnamese.

After the Thammasat University massacre of leftist student demonstrators in 1976 and the repressive policies of right-wing Prime Minister Tanin Kraivixien, sympathies for the movement increased.

Caused by then-Army commander Chavalit Yongchaiyudh against the wishes of the government, the war ended with a stalemate and return to status quo ante bellum.

[13] The ongoing southern insurgency had begun in response to Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram's 1944 National Cultural Act, which replaced the use of Malaya in the region's schools with the Thai language and also abolished the local Islamic courts in the three ethnic Malay and Muslim majority border provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat.

[68] By the end of 2012 the conflict had claimed 3,380 lives, including 2,316 civilians, 372 soldiers, 278 police, 250 suspected insurgents, 157 education officials, and seven Buddhist monks.

[70] On 29 March 2016, in a move that the Bangkok Post said will "...will inflict serious and long-term damage...", the NCPO, under a Section 44 order (NCPO Order 13/2559) signed by junta chief Prayut Chan-o-cha, granted to commissioned officers of the Royal Thai Armed Forces broad police powers to suppress and arrest anyone they suspect of criminal activity without a warrant and detain them secretly at almost any location without charge for up to seven days.

[71] The government has stated that the purpose of this order is to enable military officers to render their assistance in an effort to "...suppress organized crimes such as extortion, human trafficking, child and labor abuses, gambling, prostitution, illegal tour guide services, price collusion, and firearms.

This amounts to 344 police officers for every for every 100,000 persons in Thailand, more than twice the ratio in Myanmar and the Philippines, one and a half times that of Japan and Indonesia and roughly the same proportion as the United States.

[81] To build institutional solidarity and esprit de corps, each Thai service component has developed its own distinctive uniforms, ranking system, and insignia.

However, because of a perennial surplus of senior officers—in 1987 there were some 600 generals and admirals in a total force of about 273,000—Thai staff positions are often held by officers of higher rank than would be the case in the US or other Western military establishments.