The evolution of military influence in contemporary Thailand represents a classic case of praetorianism. What is currently called Thailand has witnessed the evolution of multiple principalities into one kingdom through brute force under the supervision of managers of violence—the military. Though royalty has led this kingdom, the armed forces built it, consolidating it through coercion and making it a praetorian kingdom. The pyramid of the armed forces hierarchy revolves in entourages connected by kith and kin among military families as well as aristocracy, but ultimately achieving legitimacy via linkages to the royal family. It has been and remains a “khakistocracy”, where military-buttressed royalty has been located—at least ceremonially, if not in actuality—at the macrocentre. Across time, military cohesion has functioned, at a macro level, through the martial role of guarding the monarchy, making the armed forces a “monarchized military”. Yet, within the ranks and experiences of officers, the “glue” that has taken priority at the micro level in tying them together has not been the overarching ideology of “monarchization” but, rather, the camaraderie and brotherhood of the corps based upon the same military class, identical unit, or shared combat experience. At the lowest levels, such brotherhood has been based around the personal charisma of military “warlords”. Informal hierarchies based upon fraternal codes or norms of trust have superseded a formal hierarchy of rules-based legitimacy. Ultimately, a political and bureaucratic culture permeates the armed forces to which officers have connected themselves through asymmetrical shared experiences. They see themselves as the guardians of the monarchy, intervene in politics to protect the palace as they see fit, and believe they deserve special privileges as coercive servants of the royalty. They are therefore a monarchized military that has sustained an arch-royalist praetorian status quo. Since 1980, the Thai armed forces have crucially undergirded a palace-led parallel state.

This study has argued that Thailand's military (as led by military strongmen) has been able to persevere as a leading societal actor primarily because it has managed to achieve and hold on to a monopoly of violence across the kingdom outside of any oversight by elected civilian actors, ousting those governments it deemed to impede its interests, and has retained its power over the years as a senior or junior associate of the monarchy in a partnership of power.