Cobra Gold over four decades: hedging, alliances and a United States–Thailand multilateral military exercise

Abstract

This article investigates two research questions: firstly, whether small state hedging can be compatible with alliances, and secondly, what Thailand’s troubled alliance with the United States portends for regional order. To derive answers, this article exploits the heuristic value of the Asia Pacific region’s oldest and largest military exercise, the United States-Thailand sponsored multilateral Exercise Cobra Cold. Military exercises are under researched, but they offer a means to assess the strength of an alliance, given they require trust and a significant investment of resources. The article traces changes in Cobra Gold’s scale and format over 40 years, against Thai thinking about international order, foreign policy and alliances. The article concludes that Thailand’s resurgent authoritarianism and burgeoning relations with China have increased fragility in the alliance, but that this outcome was not an inevitable outcome of Thailand’s preferences for hedging, and nor is it a precursor of a Chinese-led order.