Thailand and Cambodia are each accusing the other of reigniting a border row over the weekend, with at least 20 people killed in the latest round of fighting and hundreds of thousands once again fleeing their homes.

The decades-long dispute again turned violent in July. Bangkok and Phnom Penh each insist they are only returning fire to defend themselves.

But as the bitter dispute drags on and tips into yet another round of deadly fire, analysts say Thailand and Cambodia's leaders are reaping political dividends at home, pushing prospects for peace into the distance.

"Domestic drivers of this border clash are paramount, meaning that they are setting the tone and the direction," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor and senior fellow with the Institute of Security and International Studies at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University.

Cambodia's welcome distraction

In Cambodia, the Hun family has dominated the country for the past four decades, crushing any genuine political opposition and wiping out most independent media. In 2023, Hun Manet succeeded his father, Hun Sen, as prime minister after an election widely seen as rigged.

Thitinan said that has left their "dynastic dictatorship" with little political legitimacy, making a fight over disputed territory a useful tool for rallying support.

It also helps distract Cambodians, he added, from the international blame and sanctions the country is facing over the globe-spanning scam industry it hosts, along with the vast money laundering and human trafficking networks that grease it.

Allegations of complicity have touched some of the Hun family's closest associates and the Hun family itself.

"Cambodia has an incentive to divert attention away from all this, and what a better way than to have a border clash with Thailand to stoke nationalism in Cambodia to paint Cambodia as a victim being bullied by big neighbor Thailand," said Thitinan.

Thailand's military builds popularity

In Thailand, the nationalist fervor whipped up by the border clashes has helped the Thai military rebuild its own waning popularity, and aided conservative elites in "drumming down" support for the rival Shinawatra family, said Paul Chambers, a visiting fellow with the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, based in Singapore.

The Shinawatra family's string of populist political parties, first established in the mid-2000s, has been seen as a threat to the conservatives' influence over the country.

In August, a Thai court removed Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of family patriarch and former premier Thaksin, from office for mishandling a leaked phone call with Hun Sen in June aimed at easing border tensions. The forced exit brought Paetongtarn's entire administration crashing down.

Since then, Thailand's new prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, has faced mounting challenges of his own.

Critics have accused his administration of reacting too slowly to floods that killed more than 160 people last month, and to the money laundering and human trafficking spilling into Thailand from the scam centers surrounding it in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.

As in Cambodia, the border clashes may distract Thais from their own government's problems ahead of national elections expected early next year, said Sophal Ear, associate professor of global politics and Asian affairs at Arizona State University.

"The renewed fighting allows it [the government] to shift public attention toward an external threat and to present the military as a guardian of national integrity. That posture can help consolidate support ahead of the election season," said the Cambodian-American political scientist.

Political liability of Southeast Asia's scam industry

Fallout from the scam industry has started landing especially close to Anutin, according to Chambers and Thitinan.

The premier's finance minister, Vorapak Tanyawong, resigned in October amid allegations he had links to a Cambodian scam network, which he denied.

Photos posted online earlier this month show Anutin and other past and present senior officials posing and dining in Singapore back in 2014 with Benjamin Mauerberger, a South African financier suspected of laundering vast sums for Cambodia's scam syndicates.

Anutin has denied any wrongdoing or close association with Mauerberger.

But Chambers and Thitinan said the scandal has nonetheless hurt his government, and that the border clashes could be a helpful diversion.

"With the floods, with the scam networks, I think they have a vested interest to try to divert attention away from all that," and in turn "to capitalize on nationalism going to the polls," said Thitinan.

Politics complicates end to fighting

The analysts said the rising pitch of nationalist feelings — on both sides of the border — will also make it that much harder to bring a quick end to the latest round of fighting.

"The stoking of nationalist sentiment by each side only serves to reinvigorate antagonism by each side, which does nothing to help locate a durable peace," said Chambers, who sees no outside mediator with much chance of brokering a ceasefire like last time.

In July, US President Donald Trump helped broker a peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia that ended five days of intense fighting by threatening to pause trade talks with both countries unless they stopped.

With that accord now in tatters, trade talks completed with Cambodia and nearly finished with Thailand, and tempers only growing, Washington may have less leverage over the dispute this time around, said Thitinan.

He said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Thailand and Cambodia are both members, is making little headway despite the best efforts of Malaysia, which currently chairs the 11-nation bloc.

China has close ties with both countries, especially Cambodia. But Thitinan said Beijing will be wary of attempting to broker a deal itself at the risk of failing and looking weak. If Beijing or anyone else does broker another ceasefire, he said, informal backchannel talks will probably come first.

Openly, Thailand says it will not negotiate with Cambodia or accept any outside offers to mediate for the time being. Cambodia has said it was "ready to talk at any time."

According to Sophal, a lasting deal will most likely come from direct military to military talks, encouraged but not necessarily mediated by other governments.

"A lasting settlement will not come from an outside power," he said. "It will require both sides to agree on verification, demarcation, and communication mechanisms. Until that happens, any mediator can only deliver a pause, not peace."

Edited by: Wesley Rahn