Another coup in Thailand leave many shrugging their shoulders saying we have seen this before in Thailand's history, the next one will take us up to 20 coups. This is the norm there, so why should we even care?

First, the U.S. is attempting to increase its influence in the region to preserve its strategic economic and security interests and this event will challenge that effort while simultaneously creating an opportunity for China to increase its influence. Second, Thailand could be perceived as the enlightened democratic domino in Indochina that could help assert gentle pressure on Burma, Laos, and Cambodia to transform their repressive and corrupt regimes. While Malaysia remains a valued partner and has been moderate politically, their drift towards implementing Sharia Law will degrade the human rights for all those who are not Muslim in Malaysia, which indicates Indochina is drifting in a direction counter to our interests. Third, however slim the chance at the moment, the potential for civil war in Thailand exists which would not only be a humanitarian disaster, it would significantly threaten our interests in the region.

We need to think strategically and act in a way that manages the three concerns listed above along with many more to best protect our interests over time. Knee-jerk decisions based on our bureaucratic process to disengage will almost certainly disadvantage us in the long run. Sadly our bureaucratic system limits our strategic flexibility. Our foreign policy is both enabled (soft power) and severely restricted by our national values. The laws our Congress has enacted based on our values forces our diplomats and military to respond with little thought by imposing limitations on our military engagement with Thailand, and could result in coercive diplomacy as we push the military to rapidly reinstate what we believe lawful government to be. This creates an asymmetry between us with China and other competitors who are still willing to deal with the devil himself to pursue their interests. Over time this erodes China's influence with populace in the nation's their engaging, so it is in their interest to see a non-democratic government they can influence with investment.

China's approach could create an opportunity for us to leverage our soft power, but if the solution we push for is based our perception of legitimacy, which may not have much do with legitimacy in the eyes of all Thais we'll have lost an opportunity to assert leadership in the region that is respected. In 2006many Thais welcomed the military coup due to the serious rift in Thai society the government created through excessive corruption. Obviously that rift still exists, and the so called democratic government that followed only exasperated the problems creating a situation where the military either felt compelled to intervene to protect their national interests, or because they saw it as opportunity to seize power. Either way the government the military replaced had failed, and we had a hand in pushing for democracy before they were ready.

Today I suspect many Thais will both embrace and oppose the coup, just as many would oppose either of the two major political parties assuming political power again. Legitimacy for all is a pipe dream at this point, and this is why some analysts have gone as far as predicting a civil war within Thailand if the social-political rift isn't resolved soon. This is hard for those of us who been going there for decades, but the political divides are deep and the people are mobilized so it would be a mistake to assume it isn't in the realm of the possible. It also isn't unprecedented, since Thailand did have to deal with a communist insurgency at one point.

No one can predict how this will unfold over time, but important things to watch are: the Thai military’s plan to transition back to civilian rule (time span and methodology); the U.S. and China’s response to the situation; how the bordering nations respond over time (will they feel less pressure to reform); and most importantly how will the Thais resolve their political differences?