{"id":81865,"date":"2023-08-23T12:30:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T02:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=81865"},"modified":"2023-08-23T10:38:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T00:38:43","slug":"myanmars-future-is-not-a-foregone-conclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/myanmars-future-is-not-a-foregone-conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar\u2019s future is not a foregone conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

When the topic of armed conflict comes up, it\u2019s easy to fall into the habit of speaking abstractly or in hypotheticals. But for more than 50 million people in Myanmar, the civil war sparked and aggravated by the February 2021 coup is not academic. At least 1.5 million people have been displaced, \u00a0thousands have been killed in combat and thousands more have been unjustly imprisoned. The conflict has strangled the economy and thrown everyone\u2019s life into some level of disarray.<\/p>\n

The fact that almost all of these repercussions are felt only in one ASEAN member state means that, whether it be from Kuala Lumpur, from Thailand, and certainly from where I live in Tasmania, their severity is comfortably distant. That influences our level of concern about Southeast Asia\u2019s most intense crisis, and we can all benefit from an extra dose of strategic empathy. One place to start is to get a stronger grip on what is at stake in Myanmar.<\/p>\n

We analysts have built our consensus on the situation\u2014that Myanmar\u2019s post-coup stalemate won\u2019t shift quickly, that Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and his subordinates are committed to their own authoritarian path, and that anti-regime forces are too weak and incoherent to prevail on the battlefield.<\/p>\n

These arm\u2019s-length assumptions should be continuously questioned. We should push our understanding of the Myanmar crisis to take in its multifaceted security, political, economic, humanitarian and cultural dimensions, with the hope that a resolution might still be found.<\/p>\n

First, we need to get serious about the test we and our institutions all face. This means confronting our own indifference. While ASEAN and others have devoted diplomatic and political energy to the crisis, I\u2019m not sure anybody feels that progress has been made. Myanmar\u2019s empty chair at the political level is a rebuke to the military regime, but it could also be a metaphor for apathy, and even acquiescence.<\/p>\n

When I attended the 36th Asia\u2013Pacific Roundtable<\/a> in Kuala Lumpur on 9 August, there was talk that ASEAN may not survive until 2045. Noting my position as an outsider, I\u2019d suggest that this risk is amplified when a crisis like Myanmar is able to fester year after year. Simply waiting for ASEAN to reach a consensus in such circumstances probably means waiting too long. Could countries like Thailand and the Philippines, and perhaps also Malaysia and Indonesia, with their own historical experiences of managing contested transfers of power, jointly commit to a new approach to dialogue on Myanmar?<\/p>\n

Second, we must find a way to influence\u2014politically, and in a humanitarian sense\u2014what happens on Myanmar\u2019s hundreds of battlefields. Myanmar has a long, terrible history of civil war, but the coup has brought new aspects that we can\u2019t ignore, including the proliferation of hard-punching militias across the Bamar heartlands. It\u2019s a complex picture, but we need to keep the situations of vulnerable populations such as the Rohingya, the Chin, the Karen and, yes, the Bamar in constant focus.<\/p>\n

Third, with maybe less than half of Myanmar under the control of the generals in Naypyitaw, we still aren\u2019t seriously considering what happens if they are toppled. While it seems unlikely that a revolution will prevail, especially if the regime continues to receive combat support including strike aircraft from abroad, we shouldn\u2019t declare it impossible.<\/p>\n

That means thinking differently, right now, about the rebel forces and about how they\u2019re supported, whether morally or in other ways. Also, let\u2019s not pretend that a revolutionary outcome would be easy or inexpensive, or without its own new problems. Myanmar could unravel in the process.<\/p>\n

Finally, and arguably most importantly, the impoverishment and desperation of the Myanmar people will need great and sustained attention over the years to come, whatever the political outcome. Even without a government-level breakthrough, the harsh reality is that Myanmar has gone backwards fast. If Myanmar were a Chinese province, it would already be China\u2019s third poorest in absolute terms and the poorest per capita by a huge margin. Compared with China\u2019s neighbouring Yunnan province, Myanmar is around nine times poorer per capita. If nothing else, ASEAN and its dialogue partners could find ways to make good on support to stem the socioeconomic bleeding, though we know that\u2019s easier said than done.<\/p>\n

In thinking through the steps between today\u2019s tortured stalemate and a better future, it\u2019s also worth thinking harder about how other countries in the region like Thailand and the Philippines have handled their own internal tensions and periods of intense political crisis.<\/p>\n

There is no easy fix, but a clear assessment of the risks of allowing Myanmar\u2019s multifaceted crisis to fester should amplify the call for more proactive regional diplomacy. The region must invest in an institutional and humanitarian way forward, while remembering that military confrontations can always go in unanticipated directions. As we grapple with how to embrace the \u2018least worst options\u2019, it\u2019s clear that the Myanmar people need much more of our time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the topic of armed conflict comes up, it\u2019s easy to fall into the habit of speaking abstractly or in hypotheticals. But for more than 50 million people in Myanmar, the civil war sparked and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1317,"featured_media":81868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[189,212],"class_list":["post-81865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asean","tag-myanmar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMyanmar\u2019s future is not a foregone conclusion | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/myanmars-future-is-not-a-foregone-conclusion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Myanmar\u2019s future is not a foregone conclusion | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When the topic of armed conflict comes up, it\u2019s easy to fall into the habit of speaking abstractly or in hypotheticals. 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