Khmer History

In the wake of the coup, Lon Nol did not immediately launch Cambodia into war. He appealed to the international community and to the United Nations in an attempt to gain support for the new government and condemned violations of Cambodia's neutrality "by foreign forces, whatever camp they come from." His hope for continued neutralism availed him no more than it had Sihanouk.

As combat operations quickly revealed, the two sides were badly mismatched. Government troops, were now renamed the Forces Armees Nationales Khemeres or FANK (Khmer National Armed Forces) and thousands of young urban Cambodians flocked to join it in the months following the removal of Sihanouk. With the surge of recruits, however, FANK expanded well beyond its capacity to absorb the new men. Later, given the press of tactical operations and the need to replace combat casualties, there was insufficient time to impart needed skills to individuals or to units, and lack of training remained the bane of FANK's existence until its collapse.

During the period 1970–1975, FANK forces officially grew from 100,000 to approximately 250,000 men, but probably only numbered around 180,000 due to payroll padding by their officers and due to desertions. U.S. military aid (ammunition, supplies, and equipment) was funneled to FANK through the Military Equipment Delivery Team, Cambodia (MEDTC). 

Authorized a total of 113 officers and men, the team arrived in Phnom Penh in 1974, under the overall command of CINCPAC Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. The attitude of the Nixon administration could be summed up by the advice given by Henry Kissinger to the first head of the liaison team, Colonel Jonathan Ladd: "Don't think of victory; just keep it alive." Nevertheless, McCain constantly petitioned the Pentagon for more arms, equipment, and staff for what he proprietarily viewed as "my war".

There were other problems. The officer corps of FANK was generally corrupt and greedy. The inclusion of "ghost" soldiers allowed massive payroll padding; ration allowances were kept by the officers while their men starved; and the sale of arms and ammunition on the black market (or to the enemy) was commonplace. Worse, the tactical ineptitude among FANK officers was as common as their greed. Lon Nol frequently bypassed the general staff and directed operations down to battalion-level while also forbidding any real coordination between the army, navy, and air force.

The common soldiers fought bravely at first, but they were saddled with low pay (with which they had to purchase their own food and medical care), ammunition shortages, and mixed equipment. Due to the pay system, there were no allotments for their families, who were, therefore, forced to follow their husbands/sons into the battle zones. These problems (exacerbated by continuously declining morale) only increased over time.

At the beginning of 1970, the Cambodian army inventory included 241,630 rifles, 7,079 machine guns, 2,726 mortars, 20,481 grenade launchers, 304 recoilless rifles, 289 howitzers, 202 APCs, and 4,316 trucks. The Khmer navy had 171 vessels; the Khmer air force had 211 aircraft, including 64 North American T-28s, 14 Douglas AC-47 gunships and 44 helicopters. American embassy military personnel – who were only supposed to coordinate the arms aid program – sometimes found themselves involved in prohibited advisory and combat tasks.

Initially arrayed against an armed force of such limited capability was arguably the best light infantry army in the world at the time – the People's Army of Vietnam. When their forces were supplanted, it was by the tough, rigidly indoctrinated peasant army of the Khmer Rouge with its core of seasoned leaders, who now received the full support of Hanoi. Khmer Rouge forces, which had been reorganized at an Indochinese summit held in Conghua, China in April 1973, would grow from 12–15,000 in 1973 to 35–40,000 by 1975, when the so-called "Khmerization" of the conflict took place and combat operations against the Republic were handed over completely to the insurgents.

The development of these forces took place in three stages. 1970 to 1973 was a period of organization and recruitment, during which Khmer Rouge units served as auxiliaries to PAVN. From 1970 to mid-1973, the insurgents formed units of battalion and regimental size. It was during this period that the Khmer Rouge began to break away from Sihanouk and his supporters and the collectivization of agriculture was begun in the liberated areas. Division-sized units were being fielded by 1977–1978, when the party was on its own and began the radical transformation of the country.

With the fall of Sihanouk, Hanoi became alarmed at the prospect of a pro-Western regime that might allow the Americans to establish a military presence on their western flank. To prevent that from happening, they began transferring their military installations away from the border regions to locations deeper within Cambodian territory. A new command center was established at the city of Kratié and the timing of the move was propitious. President Nixon was of the opinion that:

On 29 April 1970, South Vietnamese and U.S. units (also alarmed by the prospect of Cambodia being overrun by the communists) unleashed a limited, multi-pronged Cambodian Campaign that Washington hoped would solve three other problems: First, it would provide a shield for the American withdrawal (by destroying the PAVN logistical system and killing enemy troops); second, it would provide a test for the policy of Vietnamization; third, it would serve as a signal to Hanoi that Nixon meant business. Despite Nixon's appreciation of Lon Nol's position, the Cambodian leader was not even informed in advance of the decision to invade his country. He learned about it only after it had begun from the head of the U.S. mission, who had himself learned about it from a radio broadcast.

Extensive logistical installations and large amounts of supplies were found and destroyed, but as reporting from the American command in Saigon disclosed, still larger amounts of material had already been moved deeper into the countryside. According to Republican General Sak Sutsakhan, the withdrawal of U.S. forces, after only a 30-day campaign, created "a void so great on the allied side that neither the Cambodian nor the South Vietnamese armies were ever able to fill it."

On the day the incursion was launched, the North Vietnamese reacted by launching an offensive (Campaign X) of its own against FANK forces in order to protect and expand their Base Areas and logistical system. By June, three months after the removal of Sihanouk, they had swept government forces from the entire northeastern third of the country. After defeating those forces, the North Vietnamese turned the newly won territories over to the local insurgents. The Khmer Rouge also established liberated areas in the south and the southwestern parts of the country, where they operated independently of the North Vietnamese.  

During the night of 21 January 1971, a force of 100 PAVN/NLF commandos attacked Pochentong airfield, the main base of the Republican Air Force. In this one action, the raiders destroyed almost the entire inventory of government aircraft, including all of its fighter planes. This may have been a blessing in disguise, however, since the air force was composed of old (even obsolete) Soviet aircraft. The Americans soon replaced the airplanes with more advanced models. The attack did, however, stall a proposed FANK offensive. Two weeks later, Lon Nol suffered a stroke and was evacuated to Hawaii for treatment. It had been a mild stroke, however, and the general recovered quickly, returning to Cambodia after only two months.

t was not until 20 August that FANK launched Operation Chenla II, its first offensive of the year. 

The objective of the campaign was to clear Route 6 of enemy forces and thereby reopen communications with Kompong Thom, the Republic's second largest city, which had been isolated from the capital for more than a year. The operation was initially successful, and the city was relieved. The PAVN and Khmer Rouge counterattacked in November and December, annihilating government forces in the process. There was never an accurate count of the losses, but the estimate was "on the order of ten battalions of personnel and equipment lost plus the equipment of an additional ten battalions." The strategic result of the failure of Chenla II was that the offensive initiative passed completely into the hands of PAVN and the Khmer Rouge.