Call It A Revolution (Emergency Edition)
“I'd been looking at insurgencies around the region, primarily in Afghanistan, during much of the 80s and 90s, but also in Myanmar, in Indonesia, in the southern Philippines, and not least in southern Thailand. So over the years, I have [not only] had a significant amount of what I would call ‘on the ground experience’ with insurgent groups, but also with government forces countering insurgent groups.”
Anthony Davis, a security analyst and consultant specializing in insurgency, terrorism and military affairs in the Asia-Pacific region, joins this podcast episode to provide an update on the continuing conflict in Myanmar. He begins by contrasting his time in Afghanistan several decades ago with his more recent role as an analyst sitting behind a desk. In Afghanistan, he traveled on foot or by horse across the country for several months at a time to assess developments, while since the coup, he has not been able to be on the ground in Myanmar. Moreover, the complexity of Myanmar crisis is compounded by it being what he calls an “accelerated conflict,” meaning events can change rapidly and unexpectedly; in Afghanistan, the evolution of the conflict was much slower. In short, it is very challenging to stay on top of events in Myanmar.
In spite of his distance from the situation in Myanmar, Davis is confident in his assessment that the current moment is different than any time in recent Burmese history, something that many past guests have also expressed. “Whether they're from a Bamar background, or from ethnic minority areas, in different parts of the country, they subconsciously or consciously made a decision that, ‘We've had enough! It is now time to stand up to this regime,’ which has been suppressing the Burmese people and suppressing their instincts for democracy since 1962.” Davis’ analysis leads him to believe that the widespread, popular discontent goes beyond a mere rejection of military rule, indicating something far more consequential. “This is a profoundly revolutionary metamorphoses of Burmese society, at all levels: political, most obviously, [but also] economic, social, and perhaps most important, generational.”
To Davis, this current moment can only be correctly understood as a full-scale revolution. That diplomats and other outsiders have largely missed this reality may partly explain why the response has thus far been so underwhelming. “They do not fully understand that this is a revolutionary transformation of Myanmar society! And if they did understand that, they would adopt a very different attitude.” He explains that bona-fide revolutions cannot be resolved through negotiations or resolutions. “There is no way that this is going to be put back in the box and dusted up tidally, and we all move on or go back to the status quo and the military survives in some form.” On the other hand, from ASEAN’s ineffective Five Point Consensus to the limited engagement of the West, Davis wonders whether there may not even be a reluctance to recognize this moment as a full-fledged revolution because of how that would shatter the status quo and impel those entities to dramatically change their responses and policies.
What is more, although Davis has studied dozens of insurgency movements and revolutions through history, he cannot locate a single, historical precedent for what is happening now Myanmar. That is because “the revolution emerged from an inchoate, spontaneous popular uprising,” even as the leading resistance bodies (such as the NUG and CRPH) are “anything but a revolutionary party,” and the country’s leading democratic figure, Aung San Suu Kyi, was never really a “revolutionary figure.” So even as every aspect of the society is now in open revolt, “there is no revolutionary core at the center, which can direct and organize that struggle.” Instead, there are EAOs whose operations are mainly limited to their own respective territories, and the NUG is charged with trying to somehow “herd all these PDF cats loose across the center of the country, [and] herd them into something resembling an army, which sooner or later, will need to confront the military on an on a semi-conventional basis in order to defeat them. “So yeah,” he continues, “it's a revolution, but without a single revolutionary core, and that is a fundamental impediment to its success.”
Davis points out that even if outside countries were to finally recognize the situation in Myanmar not just as a “conflict,” “crisis,” or “civil war,” but an actual revolution, there remains an unusual level of complexity among the various actors and their intentions that would complicate fashioning an appropriate response. “At the end of the day, you're in a very complicated international environment where this is not the Cold War anymore, where you're not on one side or the other.” And as if it weren’t challenging enough, Davis further argues that “whether you accept the premise of a revolution or you don't, any country's reaction to what is happening in Myanmar is going to be constrained significantly by wider factors in terms of the increasingly fraught, international environment that we now live in.” With ASEAN showing itself incapable of or unwilling to engage meaningfully, and the West too distracted by their own domestic issues and other international crises, a massive humanitarian disaster continues to unfold with no sign of abating. “The United States has neither, to put it boldly, the bandwidth or the interest to get involved,” he says simply.
Moving onto Operation 1027, Davis minces no word in expressing how monumental this recent offensive was. “Essentially, it burst the balloon of military invincibility,” he says. “The idea that this is a military which is so central to governance in Burma, is so ubiquitous in terms of its deployments across the country, is so well integrated into society everywhere, that their defeat is impossible. 1027 burst that balloon! So if you're sitting in Beijing, New Delhi, or Bangkok, and you've been counting all this time on the basic premise that these guys are not going down, they can't go down, they're too big to fail, whatever happens, they've got to be included, and then you see this invincible army getting rolled over like a bunch of school boys, I mean, this is this is remarkable stuff, really remarkable.”
Given that this air of invincibility has since been punctured, one would think that the international community may finally begin to provide greater support to the resistance movement which single-handedly altered this momentum, albeit with heavy losses of their own. And to some degree, this change has been reflected in various countries seeking a closer relationship with the once-ostracized EAOs. But in Davis’ estimation, it is an entirely all-too-optimistic view to suggest an imminent collapse of the regime, no matter how bloodied they were in the aftermath of 1027. For one, Myanmar’s neighboring countries, which have been quietly betting on the regime, are using the military’s losses during 1027 to double down on their support rather than looking for a new side to partner with. “There may be a dynamic where countries… who are now aware that the military is in deep trouble, are actually more likely to step up their support for the military.”
Davis estimates that the conflict could still have three more brutal and violent years left. He acknowledges the many variables that could change that timeline, such as if the regime lost all of Rakhine. As to the possibility of regime change from the inside, he believes that soldiers and generals alike will “dig in” behind Min Aung Hlaing. And despite the military’s heavy losses of personnel and morale, Davis points out the uneven nature of resistance efforts. While ethnic groups are able to conduct both semi-conventional and conventional operations in their own regions with great success, PDFs in the heartland are essentially conducting ongoing guerrilla operations, which, he says, “are not going to do what the ethnic groups are capable of doing, namely, overrunning battalion headquarters, capturing towns, etc.”
For this reason, another important, potential factor in assessing the direction of the conflict is the state of PDF-EAO collaboration, and how ethnic armies might support the fight beyond their territories. Such a partnership would determine to what extent the battle begins to intensify in the Bamar heartland, as well as urban centers.
“I think all of us have been humbled by the amazing resilience and strength of spirit that citizens across Myanmar have displayed over the last three years,” Davis says in closing. “It's been, in my opinion, without precedent. So many people have lost so much, and that's been really humbling. I would simply say that this is a struggle, which, given the losses and given what's been achieved to date, is worth prosecuting to the end, it's worth pushing on. It's not in the short term going to get any easier. I fear, it's going to get tougher, bloodier, harder. But I think the nature of this revolution is underscored for everybody who's looking at it… Everybody realizes that this revolution is about putting an end to a morally bankrupt regime! And this is a regime which needs to be shown the back door of history. I just hope and pray that the courage and resilience that population the vast majority of the population in Myanmar has displayed over the last three years can be sustained in the years to come.”
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