Thai military bloated with generals

The annual military reshuffle this year saw a total of 1,092 generals or equivalents being appointed to various positions in the three armed forces compared to last year’s figure of 861. 

          However, 1,092 are not the entire number of generals from major-general to full general available in the armed forces.  There are several more who are not shuffled.  Nevertheless, Thailand may take pride of being the country in the world which has the highest number of generals or equivalents.

          Mr Wanwichit Boonprong, a lecturer at Rangsit University, who conducted a research on military security attributed the high number of Thai generals to a miscalculated policy decision that there would still be a conventional war to be fought and, hence, the need to produce more military officers from the military academies.

          But with the change of security threat from a large scale armed conflict to armed insurgency and economic crisis, the admission policy at military academies has changed with less and less number of admissions from about 300 a year over three decades ago to just 100-150 annually.

          To accommodate those already in the services of the three armed forces, new positions were created.  In the army for an instance the number of the deputy army chief of staff  was increased from three to five; the rank of the director of operations department or intelligence department was upgraded to a lieutenant-general, the  rank of the deputy director was automatically upgraded as well from special colonel to major-general.  And the result is more generals.

          A close look at the latest reshuffle list involving 1,092 generals, there are altogether 460 new major-generals who were recently promoted from the rank of colonel for the army or equivalents for the navy and the air force.  The figure of the new generals accounts for 42 percent of the generals shuffled.

          Among these generals, there are 507 whose positions are resource persons or special resource persons and their job specifications are unclear.  These group accounts for 45 percent of the officers shuffled this year.  There are also 26 specialists and 26 advisors.

          For outsiders, they appear to have no clue about the difference between resource persons and special resource persons.  The army, for an instance, has 138 resource persons, including 74 who are classified as special resource persons.  As for the 26 advisors, they are classified into two groups, ordinary advisors and special advisors.

          One army general told the Isra news agency that these resource persons or specialists were appointed to help out generals in key positions and most of them have jobs to do and not just hanging around most of the time.  Whether this explanation is true or not depends on the individual’s judgement.

          Take the case of General Udomdej Seetabutr, currently the deputy army commander in chief.  He is also deputy defence minister, secretary-general of the National Council for Peace and Order and also chairman of the committee to resolve problems in the Far South.  So, you can see he appears to be overloaded with jobs and thus needs advisors, specialists or resource persons to help out.

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Caption : The panels of military officers in formal farewell and handover ceremony for outgoing army chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha at the Royal Thai Army Headquaters.

Thanks : Image from Nation Photo Centre