The Royal Lao Armed Forces (; ), best known by its French acronym FAR, were the official military of the Kingdom of Laos, a state that existed from 1949 to 1975 in what is now the Lao People's Democratic Republic. First created under the French protectorate of Laos on July 1, 1949, the FAR was responsible for the defense of the Kingdom since its independence in October 1953 from France, until its dissolution on December 2, 1975. It operated notably during the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos and the Laotian Civil War from 1960 to 1975.
History
The foundations of the Royal Lao Armed Forces were laid on May 11, 1947, when King Sisavang Vong granted a constitution declaring Laos an independent nation (and a Kingdom from 1949) within the colonial framework of French Indochina. This act signalled the creation of a Laotian government capable of building its own administration over the next few years, including the establishment of a national defense force. The new Laotian military was officially created on July 1, 1949, from a collection of pre-existing regular colonial Laotian troops, former Lao Issara guerrillas and locally raised irregular auxiliaries. However, the formation process was soon hampered by the developments of the ongoing First Indochina War in neighbouring Vietnam, and it was only in 1952 that the National Laotian Army ( or ANL) – the predecessor of the Royal Lao ArmySavada, Laos: a country study (1995), p. 30. – really began to take shape.
By July 1959, it was known as the Laotian Armed Forces ( – FAL), and in September 1961, was renamed Royal Armed Forces ( – FAR).Conboy and Greer, War in Laos 1954–1975 (1994), pp. 5–7; 13.
Command structure Throughout its existence, the Laotian Armed Forces were plagued by an ineffective leadership, particularly at senior levels, which often led to chain-of-command problems. The earlier colonial ANL units in the French Protectorate of Laos consisted mostly of uneducated Laotian peasant recruits led by French officers and senior NCOs; those few Laotians promoted from the ranks rose no further than the command of a company. After the Kingdom of Laos gained its independence in October 1953, the few Laotian officers with military experience were quickly promoted to much higher command positions than they were accustomed to. One key problem was the rigid social stratification between the Officers, Non-commissioned Officers (NCOs), and the rank-and-file. The ANL officer corps was dominated by French-educated Buddhist Lowland Lao aristocratic officers, who were highly prejudiced against the country's ethnic minorities, and cultivated an arrogant and distant relationship with their NCOs and enlisted men, seldom leading them in the field. Leadership responsibility thus fell upon undereducated and poorly-trained sergeants, who actually led the troops in the battlefield during combat operations.
To further aggrieve matters, the Laotian Armed Forces command structure became highly politicized in the early 1960s, where the support of key political figures was of paramount importance in promotion to and retention of command positions; the eight main extended aristocratic families or regional 'clans' who dominated Laotian society felt it advantageous to have family members or friends in key posts of the military establishment.Anthony and Sexton, The War in Northern Laos (1993), pp. 11–13.Stuart-Fox, Historical Dictionary of Laos (2008), pp. 62–63. This meant that the Laotian military upper echelons of command were not immune to political interference, in the form of patronage, cronyism and nepotism, since many officers were also commissioned into senior command posts directly from civilian life, owning their positions to family or political connections rather than any military training or ability. These politically appointed officers showed more interest in involving themselves in political manouvres (the 1959, 1960, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1973 Laotian coups) or engaging in profitable illicit activities (bribery, kickbacks, racketeering, gambling, prostitution, liquor-smuggling, gold-smuggling, and the Opium trade),McCoy, Read & Adams, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia (1972), pp. 324–327; 333.Sananikone, The Royal Lao Army and U.S. Army advice and support (1981), p. 106.Stuart-Fox, Historical Dictionary of Laos (2008), pp. 121–122; 215; 241. rather than learning their trade.
Following the 1960 coup d'état, the massive increase in U.S. military aid to Laos provided new incentives for corruption within the military, with RLA officers on very modest salaries began constructing huge mansions with profits derived from the misuse of American aid, which included the embezzlement and diversion of funds, the theft and sale on the Black market of supplies and equipment, and the listing of non-existent troops on payrolls so that corrupt officers could pocket their wages.Fall, Anatomy of a Crisis: The Laotian Crisis of 1960–1961 (1969), pp. 163–166.Anthony and Sexton, The War in Northern Laos (1993), pp. 15; 19–20; 28–29.Stuart-Fox, Historical Dictionary of Laos (2008), pp. 70–71. As a result, the FAR officer corps was riven by corruption and inefficiency, exacerbated by political divisions and even personal rivalries at all echelons of command. Both professional and personal jealousy was not unknown amongst Laotian senior Commanders, which resulted in constant skirmishing between professionally-trained career soldiers and inept political appointees, sometimes with fatal consequences. In a work environment marred by mutual suspicion and intense competition, most Laotian Colonels and Generals made little effort to coordinate their activities, which rendered the Command, control and coordination of military operations problematic, and hampered the military performance of the FAR branches.
This situation was further complicated by a decentralised command structure, in which the FAR General Staff ( – EMG) in Vientiane served primarily an administrative function, exerting little control over the regional commands and local commanders were free to adjust their tactics to the local situation. Laos had a long-standing "warlord" tradition of local power-brokers, and consequently, real power was in the hands of the regional commanders (usually Colonels or Brigadier generals) who manned the military districts (or "Military Regions" – MR) in the provinces, which operated like autonomous fiefdoms. With the formation of the Mobile Groups (French: Groupements mobiles – GMs) at each Laotian Military Region in the early 1960s, the MR Commanders' influence was challenged by the growing power of the GM Commanders (Majors or Lieutenant colonels), who acted as junior "warlords".Conboy and McCouaig, The War in Laos 1960–75 (1989), p. 12.Conboy and Morrison, Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos (1995), p. 14.Fall, Anatomy of a Crisis: The Laotian Crisis of 1960–1961 (1969), p. 17.Anthony and Sexton, The War in Northern Laos (1993), p. 5. In practice, the Military Region's commanders used the GMs as their private armies to further their own interests, rarely dispatching them outside the Mekong River valley.Conboy and Greer, War in Laos 1954–1975 (1994), p. 14. A high-echelon command position within a Military Region was dependent upon the influence of a local aristocratic family who economically and politically dominated the MR. If a colonel or general was not a scion of one of these families, then he had to get their support in some other manner.Anthony and Sexton, The War in Northern Laos (1993), p. 70, note 47.
Regional commands
Laos was divided since 1955 into five Military Regions () roughly corresponding to the areas of the country's 13 provinces.Conboy and McCouaig, The War in Laos 1960–75 (1989), p. 4. The Military Regions were the basis of the warlordism culture that affected the ANL and the FAR High Command, with most of the MR Commanders running their zones like private fiefdoms.Conboy and Greer, War in Laos 1954–1975 (1994), p. 14.
Branches By September 1961 the Royal Lao Armed Forces consisted of three conventional ground, air and naval branches of service. Their primarily roles were: guarantee the sovereignty of the King, ensure internal stability and security by maintaining the social and political order, and defend the Kingdom of Laos against external aggression. Subordinated to the Ministry of Defense of the Royal Lao Government at the national capital Vientiane, the FAR branches were organized as follows:
Royal Lao Army ( – ARL) Royal Lao Air Force ( – AVRL) Royal Lao Navy ( – MRL)
Elite formations
Royal Lao Army Airborne Military Region 5 Commandos Commando Raider Teams SPECOM Special Guerrilla Units (SGU) Directorate of National Coordination
Training institutions Prior to its independence in October 1953, Laos lacked almost completely a professional military school system – Officer, Non-commissioned officer (NCO) and Staff schools, plus Technical and Branch training schools – for its Armed Forces, and relied heavily on foreign assistance to train its personnel. Beginning in the early 1950s, Laotian Officers and selected enlisted men were sent overseas to attend specialized courses and advanced schools, and this practice would continue throughout the 1960s and early 1970s. However, a small indigenous training infrastructure (initially run exclusively by the French) gradually began to take shape during the last years of the First Indochina War, and as the Laotian Civil War progressed, it was expanded with the help of the American aid programs, with most of the training being carried out by U.S. advisors.
Lao Military Academy and Staff College The first Laotian military schools were established by the Command of the French Forces in the Far East ( – TFEO) in 1952, with the creation at Pakse and Vientiane of two non-commissioned officer (NCO) training schools (), later merged into a single institution, the Reserve Cadres Training Centre or RCTC ( – CFCR), soon followed by a Reserve Officers Training School or ROTS ( – EOR).Sananikone, The Royal Lao Army and U.S. Army advice and support (1981), p. 17.Conboy, The Erawan War – Volume 3: The Royal Lao Armed Forces 1961-1974 (2022b), p. 3. First set up at Pakse, the latter institution was later transferred to Dong Hene in Savannakhet province, which eventually became the Lao Military Academy or LMA.Sananikone, The Royal Lao Army and U.S. Army advice and support (1981), p. 19.Conboy, The Erawan War – Volume 3: The Royal Lao Armed Forces 1961-1974 (2022b), p. 3. The officers' courses ministered at the Dong Hene Academy lasted a year and provided technical instruction to mobilized Lao civil servants and selected personnel drawn from the ranks of the ANL or from the Land Forces of Laos ( – FTL), and by July 1954, 80 active-duty lieutenants and 115 second lieutenants had been graduated.Bodin, Les laotiens dans la guerre d'Indochine, 1945-1954 (2008), pp. 15–16.
Transferred to Pakse after the merger with his parent instituition from Vientiane, the RCTC non-commissioned officer school was able to graduate 525 sergeants by 1953; an additional Training Centre for non-commissioned officers was opened at the French-run Camp Chinaimo, a major military facility located on the southern outskirts of Vientiane.Bodin, Les laotiens dans la guerre d'Indochine, 1945-1954 (2008), pp. 15–16.
A Staff and Command school, the Military Institution of Higher Learning or MIHL ( – IHEM), which was later transferred to Long Tieng in Xaisomboun province,Sananikone, The Royal Lao Army and U.S. Army advice and support (1981), p. 18. and an Accountancy School () were also established at the time in Vientiane.