The immediate unconditional ceasefire Thailand and Cambodia have enforced from midnight Monday has for now paused the armed conflict, which had resulted in the death of at least 30 people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands. But the tenuous peace, to be monitored by an ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) observatory team, could do little to resolve the underlying mutual distrust between the elites in Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Indeed, the long-standing border dispute surrounding ancient Hindu temples has served the Thai military and Cambodia’s one-party state to periodically ratchet up nationalist rhetoric to shore up their narrow power base.

The death of a Cambodian soldier during border skirmishes in May dramatically escalated hostilities in subsequent........

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