by ANDREW SELTH
In late October, an alliance of three ethnic armed organisations (EAO) launched a major offensive against Myanmar’s military regime in the north of the country. Soon afterwards, other EAOs and militia groups, including members of the opposition People’s Defence Force (PDF), took advantage of the regime’s troubles by opening new fronts in western, eastern and southern Myanmar.
To the surprise of many, the junta’s armed forces (or Tatmadaw) suffered a series of major defeats. According to unconfirmed news reports, at least four military bases, up to 300 smaller outposts and several major towns fell to the insurgents. Important trade and communications links to China and India were cut. Large quantities of arms and ammunition, including some heavy weapons, were captured.
As Richard Horsey has written, these victories constituted ‘the biggest battlefield challenge to the military since the February 2021 coup’. Indeed, they may be the most significant setbacks to a central government in Myanmar since independence in 1948. As a result, there has been a strategic shift in the civil war, and in the balance of power in the country.
Inevitably, perhaps, these developments prompted a rash of stories in the news media and online, trumpeting the insurgents’ successes. Myanmar was said to be ‘at a tipping point’. Pundits, journalists and activists claimed that the junta was ‘mortally wounded’, ‘in a death spiral’, even ‘on the brink of collapse’.
There were also some statements to the effect that the junta had lost control of the country, which was ‘on the verge of disintegration’. The Council on Foreign Relations called on the US government to prepare for the end of the Myanmar Army, which one analyst predicted would ‘collapse in waves across the country’.
Other commentators pointed to recent cabinet reshuffles in Naypyidaw, the rotation of senior Tatmadaw positions and the arrest of a few corrupt generals, to describe a military regime that was ‘desperate’ and facing crippling internal divisions. The Washington Post warned that the US ‘should prepare for its collapse’.
Looking further ahead, a few observers suggested that it was ‘Time to start planning the post-war future of Myanmar’s military’. One academic even floated the idea of UN intervention, along the lines of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1992–93.
Opposition supporters following events in Myanmar can be forgiven for feeling buoyed by the junta’s recent string of defeats. Some of their responses betray an element of triumphalism, but their optimistic prognostications are based on firmer ground than similar claims made in the past.
The EAOs, assisted by the PDF and other militias, have enjoyed a remarkable degree of success. There are still political differences between them, but they seem to have achieved an unprecedented measure of cooperation at the military level. This has permitted them to conduct joint and coordinated operations over two thirds of Myanmar, with dramatic results.
This level of cooperation between Myanmar’s insurgent forces is one of the junta’s worst nightmares. The Tatmadaw simply does not have the manpower to maintain a strong presence everywhere, or to conduct major operations in several places at once. Moving its mobile strike forces to key trouble spots leaves other vulnerable areas exposed.
All that said, predictions of the junta’s imminent demise are premature. Many are based on limited and often unverified sources, a fair degree of speculation and not a little wishful thinking. The junta has undoubtedly been gravely weakened, but it is too early to write it off. The recent operational losses, while significant, do not pose an existential threat.
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