Pheu Thai Party’s Expectations for Army Development under the Leadership of a Civilian Minister of Defense

Abstract

This academic article aimed to study Pheu Thai Party’s expectations of the development of the army under the leadership of a civilian defense minister. The SWOT principle was used to analyze the factors affecting the expectations. The results showed that the strength (S) was that Mr. Sutin Khlangsaeng was not in the military culture with seniors and juniors in the patronage system, which was different from the previous defense ministers who were mostly military personnel. Mr. Sutin’s 8 policies were considered to be consistent with the military’s plans and/or actions. The weakness (W) was that Mr. Sutin has never been a military officer or minister before and did not know the military’s customs and culture very well, so he relied on important political persons in the coup group as his team. The opportunity (O) was considered a positive political aspect of Pheu Thai Party that strengthened the relationship to push some policies proposed by the military to be effective. The obstacle (T) was the fragility of the stability and effectiveness of the government due to the constitution 2017 being established by the coup group that was trying to maintain power. This affected the image of Pheu Thai Party that was seen as a neoconservative party because there were people from the coup group in the government. In conclusion, this article found that the Pheu Thai Party's hope for the development of the army under the leadership of a compromise civilian defense minister that was a political scenario for balancing the civilian government and the military as a result of the constitution 2017 that the military junta created to lead to future political expectations.