Episode #132: On The Ropes
“They are fighting a multi-front war against several EROs [Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations], and they seem to be itching for a new fight in Rakhine, against the Arakan Army, and of course their supply lines now are being targeted. They're having to fight in the Bamar Heartland, Sagaing and the Dry Zone region. Never before did they have to worry about fighting in the Burmese majority regions and protecting supply lines through them! So I think it's very clear that the Light Infantry Divisions [LIDs], after a year and a half or more of conflict, are operating at a tempo that is unsustainable. They have been taking casualties. They have had some desertions, they have lost some troops to as prisoners of war.”
So begins Zach Abuza’s sobering analysis of the tactical and strategic situation facing the Tatmadaw nearly two years into their attempted coup. A columnist at Radio Free Asia and a professor at the National War College in Washington, DC, Abuza has spent 30 years working on insurgencies and political violence in Southeast Asia, and his recent studies on the state of the Burmese military have become must-read articles for many.
Abuza’s work debunks several theories regarding the Burmese military. One is the oft-cited claim that the Tatmadaw boasts 400,000 fighting men. His own estimate is much smaller, suggesting they have a ground force of as few as 200,000. Moreover, he asserts that many among even this number are not viewed as capable soldiers, leaving the LIDs bearing the burden of most of the fighting. “[The LIDs] are mobile, and they're not assigned to a certain region of the country,” he explains. “They're constantly being trucked or helicoptered about the country, moving from conflict zone to conflict zone. They have a horrible reputation for committing human rights abuses, violence against civilians, massacring civilians, razing villages, and of course, their predilection for sexual violence and gang rape of women.” Before the coup, the LIDs would terrorize a region with brutal violence with impunity. However, that has changed; the military did not anticipate the sustained conflict that has emerged since the coup, and it is now showing signs of strain. “So I tend not to think that the Tatmadaw is as well-armed, equipped or disciplined, or as large, as some of the previous estimates,” Abuza explains.
For years, military recruiters took advantage of the abject poverty that permeated the country, presenting the Tatmadaw as one of the few opportunities for economic advancement available to most Burmese. If soldiers ever did see conflict, it almost always involved fighting in ethnic areas, and the military employed elaborate brainwashing and propaganda to convince them that the brutal violence they were being ordered to commit was absolutely necessary and justified. But since the coup, that all changed. “That's got to be very different when you're going in and razing and shelling villages that look a hell of a lot like the impoverished village you were raised in, inhabited by fellow Burmans,” Abuza notes dryly, openly wondering how this is affecting overall morale and increasing the likelihood of defections. And the fact that some police units have recently been conscripted into the military represents a clear sign to him that leaders are worried about decreasing numbers of soldiers in the face of rising resistance. However, very few LID fighters have defected, a fact Abuza attributes to their fear of being charged with the crimes against humanity they know they have committed.
Abuza is less clear as to why the upper echelon of the military have remained loyal, although he suspects that their financial stake in continuing to exploit the country’s natural resources is a big part of it. He also holds out the possibility of a younger crop being called on to replace the old guard, as leaders become increasingly desperate with their mounting losses. Such a move would only create more instability within the military, however, while at the same time likely perpetrating even more brutal violence on the civilian population as any new leadership looks to cement its position and bona fides.
To Abuza, this would merely reflect the age-old plan that the Tatmadaw has always relied on. “The military's counterinsurgency strategy, going back multiple decades, is the Four Cut strategy. And it's basically meant to terrorize the civilian population,” he explains. “There is no attempt to win hearts and minds. It is meant to terrorize. And that has been the military doctrine for decades. It is a campaign of terror. Now, what's fascinating about the current situation is it's not working! The people are not being cowed into submission. I think from a military leadership position, that's got to confound them. I mean, it's got to drive Min Aung Hlaing and Soe Win absolutely batshit that the population continues to resist the military every day!” Abuza cites how people with almost nothing still manage to give whatever they can to the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), a clear sign of how determined they are to continue to sacrifice to see the military defeated once and for all.
The present difficulties that the Tatmadaw now faces also represent a dramatic departure from how they used to be able to rely on a certain amount of Bamar support (however passive) for their incursions into ethnic territories. But now, that support has completely dissolved; they’re being confronted throughout the country, and their supply lines are being attacked as well. “This is a very new thing for the military! I think they're completely taken aback by it, and don't understand what's happened.” The one trusted corner that the Tatmadaw has been able to turn towards has been Russia, which continues to fête Min Aung Hlaing and other senior leadership at various ceremonies and events. But given the devastating losses Russia has suffered in the Ukraine, Abuza openly wonders to what extent they will continue to “prioritize third rate clients like the Myanmar military.”
Turning to the military’s aerial capabilities, Abuza regards helicopters as by far the biggest threat to the resistance efforts, given their extensive firepower, coupled with the fact that much of those munitions are produced by their own factories in-country. For this reason, Abuza sees the need for sanctions on jet fuel as becoming an increasingly critical issue to push.
In analyzing the military’s ground offensives, Abuza has seen a decrease in the number of mortars being launched into villages. “So that tells me that they're actually concerned about the number of [those kinds of] munitions that they have at their disposal, and frontline troops are not confident of the military's ability to resupply them,” he explains. Another thing that has caught his eyes is when Tatmadaw weaponry appears in published photos. “It's incredible, the kind of the condition and quality and amount of ammunition, and the quality of the kit they are deployed with is really quite surprising, shockingly low.”
One of the often-discussed numbers of the conflict has been how many soldiers have been killed, wounded, or defected since the coup. According to his own calculations, Abuza estimates a figure of around 15% (of the total 200,00 he estimates are actually deployed). “Overall, when we look at militaries, we look at both the material factor and the moral factor,” he says. “And without a doubt, the Tatmadaw is wanting on both of those counts! The degree to which I don't know, but it's very clearly that 19-20 months into this, the war is not going the way they thought it would.”
With all this in mind, Abuza feels it is critical for the PDFs to begin avoiding direct conflict in favor of “fighting the military's ability to wage war. They have to concentrate on the increasingly depleted logistics network.” In a recently published article for the Stimson Center, Abuza also argues that battling the military on an economic front may prove successful for the NUG. Such thinking is all the more critical because the LIDs, in his words, “are psychotic! They're better-armed, they have better mobility. So the PDFs really have to focus on fighting the military's ability to wage war.” It is this topic of the resistance movement that Abuza focuses on in part two of our interview.
At the moment, Abuza’s main concern is the resistance’s ability to sustain their efforts. Despite how poorly the military campaigns have gone, the Tatmadaw still benefits from relationships with China and Russia, it can still make use of its own in-country defense industry, and still the hope of attracting some level of foreign investment, however much that possibility is dwindling. Finally, he reminds us that “they have been the beneficiary of the fact that the international community has really done very little to punish them and sanction them.”