Cambodian Armed Forces (Forces armées royales khmères – FARK). In March 1954, combined Viet Minh and Khmer Issarak forces launched attacks from Vietnam into northeastern Cambodia. Conscription was introduced for men between fifteen and thirty-five years of age and national mobilisation was declared. Following the conclusion of the Geneva Conference on Indochina in July, Viet Minh representatives agreed to withdraw their troops from Cambodia. FARK troop numbers of 47,000 dropped to 36,000, with demobilisation after Geneva at which it was to be maintained for the next fifteen years except during periods of emergency. Second Indochina War (1954–75) In 1955, the United States and Cambodia signed an agreement providing for security assistance. In addition to a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) and military budget support, FARK received US supplies and equipment worth approximately US$83.7 million for eight years until the assistance program was discontinued at Sihanouk's request in 1963. France also retained a military training mission in Cambodia until 1971 from which FARK military traditions and doctrines were adopted. As the United States failed to guarantee a reliable military support program Sihanouk increasingly pursued a neutralist foreign policy during the 1960s and eventually declared that Cambodia would "abstain from military or ideological alliances" but would retain the right to self-defense. From 1958 on Northern and Southern Vietnamese combat troops began to violate Cambodian territory on a regular basis. Neither Washington nor Hanoi responded to Sihanouk's protests, which lead him to establish diplomatic relations with China. By the mid-1960s, large areas within Cambodia served as supply routes and strategic staging sites for North - and South Vietnamese communists and Viet Cong forces. FARK could do little more than monitor these developments and maintained a modus vivendi with the intruders as Sihanouk charged the United States of complicity with the Khmer Serei, which further strained Cambodian–American relations. Economic and military cooperation with the United States was formally terminated on 3 May 1965. Although French military assistance and training continued until 1972, Sihanouk began to accept military assistance from the Soviet Union. He also accused Thailand and South Vietnam of subversive cooperation with the USA whom he suspected to actively destabilize his government and promote the Khmer Serei. By the mid-1960s Cambodia's armed forces had failed to incorporate into a comprehensive program of one of the opposing sides of the cold war. Mixed military equipment of several suppliers with varying doctrines and structure worsened