With the French defeat in Europe in June 1940, the whole situation in Indo-China was transformed. The makers of foreign policy in Bangkok sought to revise Franc-Thai relations. They declared themselves dissatisfied with what they had gained from the Franco-Thai Non-Aggression Pact. The agreement, together with its confidential correspondence, promised too little for growing Thai irredentist aspirations.
The Thais used the presence of Japanese troops in the North of Indo-China as an opportunity to review their irredentist policy. In effect, the Thais had designs on all of Cambodia and Laos including those parts which the French had acquired between 1867 and 1907. Their interest in absorbing Cambodia and Laos was motivated by a fear of a revival of conflict with Vietnam and a desire to deny control of Laos and Cambodia to either Vietnam or Japan. This view reflected the long-standing Thai strategic interest in Indo-china, sustained by prior dealings with Vietnam and later France.
Thai determination to prosecute its irredentist policy provoked a crisis over the Indo-China-Thailand border and a short-lived war in which the Thais regained territories in Laos and Cambodia, which had lost to France in 1904 and 1907. It marked the first time in Thai foreign policy since the colonial era that Thai leaders had employed both diplomacy and force as means to achieve foreign policy objectives.
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