By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Readers may have noticed that I link to Myanmar news a good deal, perhaps more than its geopolitical importance warrants. However, I am more interested in Myanmar’s internal struggles: The current civil war is a natural experiment in armed resistance against an extremely brutal and stupid military junta can succeed on its own, without — and this is the key point — any color revolution nonsense exported from the United States. So I imagine there are many, repressors and insurgents alike, who are following Myanmar with interest.

Recent headlines suggest that the Myanmar’s civil war may be reaching its culminating point for Myanmar’s military, the Tatmadaw[1]:

Junta moves to ‘fortify Naypyitaw at all costs’ Myanmar Now. (Naypyitaw is the monstrous capital, in the center of the country, founded by the military in 2005.)
Revolution and the Escalating Collapse of Myanmar’s Junta The Irrawaddy
Shan State Omen: Is Myanmar’s Junta Losing Control of the War? The Diplomat
Armed Rebels Seize Nearly 50% Of Myanmar In Military Offensive; Junta Says Nation On The Brink Of Breaking Apart Eurasian Times
Commentary: The Myanmar military is losing control Channel News Asia
‘A real blow for the junta’: Myanmar’s ethnic groups launch unprecedented armed resistance France24
Myanmar’s NUG negotiates ethnic differences as crisis deepens Al Jazeera
Is the rule of Myanmar’s junta under threat? Reuters

Let’s begin with a map:

As you can see, Myanmar is bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos, Thailand, and the Andaman Sea (the United States being a maritime power). Myanmar has two rivers, its own Irrawaddy and the Mekong, which China cares about as a means of controlling its downstream “neighbors.” The map does not show that China has built a pipeline across Myanmar as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Some say these factors make Myanmar of central importance to China (and therefore to India (and possibly to the United States)) but personally, I don’t think that (going East) “Gateway to Yunnan” or (going West) “Gateway to the Bay of Bengal” are especially compelling.[2]

The key feature of the map is the names of the various “states” or provinces: Kachin, Shan, Chin, Mon, Kayin, and so forth. These indicate not only political entities, but ethnicities, a key point in understanding Myanmar’s politics (which I will forthrightly admit I do not. In all, there are more than 135 ethnic groups in Myanmar’s 55 million population).

Therefore, geopolitics are out of scope for this post (including ASEAN). So is Myamar’s tortured and tragic political history (here is a timeline), although I may allude to key events as I go along. Rather, I will focus on the key players in the Myanmar civil war: The Tatmadaw, the National Unity Government (NUG), the NGOs (who are much the same in Myanmar as they are anywhere), the locals, and the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs)/People’s Defence Force (PDFs). This is, in other words, not a binary story of fascist regime[3] vs. democratic resistance. There are a lot of players! Let us take each in turn.

Tatmadaw

Myanmar’s military government is stupid. From George Packer in 2008:

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