Political parties shirk military reform, but push for alternative to conscription

In the run-up to the February 2026 election, Thailand’s political parties are competing loudly over the idea of replacing conscription with voluntary military service, even as the military has strongly resisted any advocacy of structural reform.

During the armed conflict with Cambodia last year, amid a rise in nationalist fervour, many political parties seemed to calculate that proposing voluntary defense service would be a useful campaign tool to gain more votes.

At a policy launch event on December 24, Bhumjaithai Party leader and caretaker Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul clearly outlined a program to recruit 100,000 volunteer soldiers for a four-year service period, offering them 12,000 baht as monthly remuneration.

The initiative was aimed at building a security force made up of willing, resilient and professional personnel, he said. Participants would receive military training, vocational training and opportunities for further education or promotion through examinations to the ranks of non-commissioned officers and higher positions in the future, Anutin said.

All Thai males aged 21 are required to report for a military draft lottery each year. Drawing a red card mandates two years of service.

The Democrat Party has proposed a policy to recruit volunteer soldiers who would serve a four-year term and receive welfare benefits matching those earned by career military personnel.

Volunteer soldiers would be allowed to upgrade their educational qualifications during their service. The armed forces were also expected to expand opportunities for them to pursue education alongside military duties, starting from the associate degree level and above.

Upon completing their term as volunteer soldiers, participants would be eligible to sit for examinations to enter the civil service or become state employees across various agencies, according to Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The armed forces would also request a special allocation of positions for discharged volunteer soldiers, such as non-commissioned officers in the military or police, administrative officers, disaster prevention officers and natural resource officials among others, Abhisit proposed.

Meanwhile, the Pheu Thai Party is more opaque about its policy, simply stating that it has a policy of transition from conscription to voluntary military service. The number of conscripts would be adjusted in line with prevailing security conditions, and the remaining budgetary resources would be reallocated to improve personnel welfare.

The People’s Party has incorporated the volunteer scheme into its master plan for structural reform of the armed forces. Citing that pursuant to the Ministry of Defence Notification on the Recruitment of Individuals for Temporary Military Service (Volunteer Soldiers) BE 2565 (2022), this initiative recruits enlisted personnel to serve as a substitute for the traditional military draft system.

Unaccomplished mission

Conscription has long been one of the most contested political and social issues. Critics argue that compulsory service under the 1954 Military Service Act is outdated, inequitable and prone to abuse, whereas supporters of the idea believe it remains essential for national defence and discipline.

The idea of ending conscription was placed on the military reform agenda for the first time during the 2019 election by the Future Forward Party, which was dissolved later by a court ruling. Its incarnation, Move Forward Party—which was also dissolved by a court order—and now the People’s Party, have both failed several attempts over the past years to make it happen due to resistance from the military and conservative political parties.

Without changing any structure or laws, the armed forces introduced several schemes to recruit troops voluntarily, such as “online private” (phontahan online) and volunteer soldier (tahan a-sa). Volunteers serving in defense would receive more intensive and privileged training to extend their education in military schools before becoming professional soldiers.

The number of volunteers in the defense services has seen a big jump over the past five years, from 33,217 in 2021 to 46,623 in 2025, an average annual increase of 40-50 per cent of the total demand, according to the Army.

The military, however, still needed to maintain the compulsory draft system as the volunteers failed to fill all positions that required the private rank. The People’s Party, which has proposed a systematic volunteer scheme, argued that many non-combat units such as command posts, development and logistics sectors did not require privates to be attached to the unit.

The armed forces could eliminate at least 13,000 positions in non-combat units to reduce the number of conscripted soldiers, according to a People’s Party official who designed the party’s military reform policy.

After accounting for the Ministry of Defence’s stated personnel requirements at an annual average of 84,000 privates, subtracting those who enlist voluntarily (45,871) and those who voluntarily extend their service (13,601), and factoring in the reduction in approved force levels, the system still leaves 24,729 conscription slots to be filled through the compulsory draft, he explained.

“This figure underscores that despite policy rhetoric about voluntarism, compulsory conscription remains structurally embedded rather than meaningfully diminished,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The People’s Party has proposed an adjustment of some regulations and wants to offer more incentives to motivate volunteers to join the defense services until conscription is gradually replaced, he said.

Do we even need the military?

The ongoing armed conflict with Cambodia not only damaged the socio-economic situation and relations with the neighboring country but also obstructed the military reform agenda.

In a dig at the People’s Party, Lt-General Teeranan Nandhakwang, chief of the Army Intelligence Department, launched a narrative to counter the discourse of “what is the military even for?’ coined by late historian Nidhi Eoseewong in 2016, who also questioned the role of the military in politics.

Teeranan sees such a political discourse, subscribed to by the People’s Party and progressive youthful movements, as aimed at discrediting the entire Thai armed forces.

“Why do we even need the military?” is a discourse that has been deployed to explicitly demean soldiers and the armed forces as a whole, Teeranan alleged in a Facebook post on January 3.

“When challenged, its proponents often claim that they are not referring to soldiers performing frontline duties along the borders, but rather to those involved in politics,” he said. “Yet in practice, the circulation of this discourse inevitably impacts the entire military institution, not only the political actors within it.”

In his response, Rangsiman Rome of the People’s Party said Teeranan was fully aware that making targeted posts relying on false accusations to discredit the People’s Party was highly inappropriate.

“An intellectual military officer should clearly understand how much the People’s Party values the defence industry and the role of a professional military,” he said.

However, it must be stated clearly that the armed forces exist to defend the country—not to be exploited as a political instrument for personal gain, he said.

“Those who carried out coups have enriched themselves, built wealthy networks and live comfortably, while the country has sunk deeper into corruption and graft. Such a condition is neither something we should accept nor allow to be repeated any longer,” Rangsiman said.

The People’s Party, which has consistently advanced a military reform agenda and openly criticised the role of the armed forces, is now facing mounting pressure from nationalists. As a result, this aspect of its platform has been visibly toned down compared to the previous election campaign.

Candidates from the party told Thai PBS Worldthat they had been confronted—both by constituents and on social media—with questions such as “Why do you devalue the military?” or “Do you even understand what the military is for?”

Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, the leader of the People’s Party and its leading prime ministerial candidate, explained to reporters recently that since the days of the Future Forward Party through to the People’s Party, the party has never positioned itself as opposed to the military.

Instead, the party has supported a modern armed force operating under the principle of civilian supremacy, rejecting coups, and has never opposed arms procurement, he said.