The Myanmar Military is Collapsing Amidst Civil War: How Should the United States and Other Countries Prepare?

As I noted in a blog late last week, which appears to have sparked healthy debate,  “In recent weeks, the Myanmar armed forces, which already have suffered major losses of territory to ethnic minority armies and the People’s Defense Forces, primarily made up the majority Burman ethnic group, has faced some of its worst defeats. In northeastern Myanmar, in the crucial battleground of Shan State, the BBC reports that: ‘Three ethnic insurgent armies in Shan State, supported by other armed groups opposing the government, have overrun dozens of military posts, and captured border crossings and the roads carrying most of the overland trade with China. It is the most serious setback suffered by the junta since it seized power in February 2021. After two-and-half years of battling the armed uprising it provoked with its disastrous coup, the military is looking weak and possibly beatable.’”

The military is also short on cash, no longer able to rely on Russia for the planes it uses to bomb whole villages sadistically, faces defections, and split internally at higher levels. It now must try to defend several critical parts of the country, lacking enough men. The possibility of the combined ethnic armies, People’s Defense Forces (PDF), and the National Unity Government (NUG) moving further into central Myanmar and defeating the military, or the army just disintegrating, is the highest it has ever been since the February 2021 coup.

Yet many in the U.S. government and allied governments in Europe and Asia remain unprepared for a potential collapse and the possibly chaotic weeks after. (Thailand is a notable exception and has thought quite a lot about what might happen if the Tatmadaw collapses, and I imagine China has studied this possibility closely.) Even if one disdains the Tatmadaw and holds a positive view of the cooperation of the NUG, PDFs, and ethnic allies since the 2021 coup, a military collapse will lead to a precarious situation. The country faces significant food insecurity and massive numbers of internally displaced people, as well as a million Rohingya who have fled to Bangladesh. Myanmar’s economy is crushed: any new government will have to rebuild the country’s physical and electronic infrastructure and human capital. Economic reconstruction may require a major donor’s conference to raise funds, potentially from Japan, South Korea, the European Union, the United States, and other major donors. 

As Billy Ford of USIP has noted, the U.S. government thought out “day after” scenarios and planning for countries far less likely to experience regime collapse, like Syria and Venezuela, yet has not done so in a systematic way for Myanmar. Nor have other major European allies, Japan, or many critical Southeast Asian actors like Indonesia. 

For a start, the United States and key Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia need to give up the idea that the military is unbeatable—it is quickly showing that it is not. Making this choice would end any possible scenario planning that assumes some brokered transition in which the military makes a deal with the opposition and the army remains a major political player but promises to reduce its power slowly. This kind of brokered transition has been discussed widely among officials from many countries I have dealt with, but the opposition would never accept this. The military made a deal like this in the Thein Sein era from 2011 to 2016, and then when it felt challenges to its authority, it staged a coup and destroyed the country.

Instead, actors with interests in Myanmar need to start planning for a day after the military collapses and the situation is economically, infrastructurally, financially, and politically unstable. No one can predict what will happen the day after the military collapses or how the most significant external power, China, will react. So, other actors cannot assume that the military has some future role in Myanmar other than as a smaller army under real civilian control. As I have noted, the day after planning should include how to help the Myanmar people quickly create a framework for a federal and democratic government. 

Also, the U.S. government and other governments friendly to the opposition should increase their assistance to the NUG and meet regularly with leading NUG members. In addition, that assistance, even if outlined as nonlethal (as it is in the U.S. Burma Act, which includes support for the opposition), should help the opposition as much as possible—not just small-scale capacity building, but items like satellite phones, drone jammers, and other similar items.