Hun Sen has no such difficulties. Technically he has handed power to his son, Hun Manet, but after running the country for nearly 40 years it is clear he still holds the reins. The army, the ruling party and the media are firmly under his control. His motives for burning his friendship with the Shinawatras are unclear, but it seems he was preparing for a larger conflict over the border. From the start Hun Sen posted constantly, in Khmer and English, on his Facebook page, taunting the Thai government, along with photos that showed him in army uniform or poring over military maps. By contrast the most visible figure on the Thai side has been the mercurial 2nd Army commander Lt. Gen Boonsin Padklang. He is the same officer Paetongtarn had complained about, and his bellicose nationalism has won him plenty of fans in Thailand but has also undermined the government's authority. "Hun Sen is very smart," says Sebastian Strangio, author of Hun Sen's Cambodia, a definitive account of the way his leadership has shaped the country. "He has used this asymmetrical tactic of widening the divisions that already exist in Thailand. And the fact that Cambodia is so good at playing the victim has given it another powerful weapon against Thailand in the international arena." Thai officials admit they are struggling to counter the tactics used by the Cambodian side. "This is totally different from how information wars have been waged before," Russ Jalichandra, vice-minister for foreign affairs, told the BBC. "What we are saying must be credible and able to be proved. That's the only weapon we can use to fight in this war. And we have to stick to that even though it seems sometimes we are not fast enough."