Transcript: Episode #268: The Art of War
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Host 0:00
Hey welcome to the Insight Myanmar podcast. Before we get into today's show, I wanted to let you know that we have a lot more written and video content on our website. If you haven't visited it yet, we invite you to take a look at WWW dot insight myanmar.org In addition to complete information about all of our past episodes, there's also a variety of blogs books and videos to check out and you can also sign up for our regular newsletter but for now enjoy what follows and remember sharing is caring.
Brad 1:53
And welcome back. Today I'm joined by Scott Marciel, former US ambassador to Myanmar. And we're going to be talking a bit about the role that diplomacy plays within the broader framework of domestic and international responses to crises. But before we get into the meat of that discussion, Scott, I'd like to thank you very much for joining us and giving us your time. And I'd like to give you the opportunity to more fully Introduce yourself for our audience. Right.
Scot Marciel 2:17
Well, thanks so much for having me. Well, as you already indicated, I served as the US ambassador to Myanmar from 2016 to 2020. It was my final assignment in a 37 year career as a as a US diplomat, mostly in Southeast Asia. And since then I retired two years ago, I'm a fellow at Stanford University. Now continuing to follow things in in Southeast Asia particularly.
Brad 2:49
Excellent. And I mean, 37 years, that's, I mean, it's a very impressive period of time. And I'm sure that you've had a lot of really deep and fascinating insights into different facets of the diplomatic world. And so that kind of takes us to our to our jumping off point. As I indicated to you previously, the the reason that I want to have this discussion, is because the perception that I have, and the perception that I know a lot of other people have, who are looking at the Myanmar crisis, either from within or from the outside, is that the diplomatic voices seem to want to always move towards compromise. They seem to always want to move towards dialogue. And there seems to be an incredible hesitancy on the part of, of diplomats of various types, whether these are national diplomats, whether they are working in international agencies, like the United Nations, transnational, I should say, there seems to be a very great hesitancy on the part of of a lot of these voices to say, No, this, this is not going to be resolved by talking. This has to be resolved by taking much more aggressive action. And and I'm just wondering whether you can give your assessment of of this perception, do you think that it's an appropriate perception? Do you think that it's just a misunderstanding of what's actually going on behind the scenes in in the diplomatic world?
Scot Marciel 4:17
Well, it's a great question. I think there's certainly some truth to that. Behind that perception. I think diplomats in general around the world, see it as their role to try to, you know, do what they can to reduce or end conflict where possible, and usually that involves compromise, usually reached through through dialogue. So I think that's as a general rule, that's true, but I would say it varies a lot on the individual diplomat, and then also varies to a certain extent by country, the US, I would say, diplomatic service certainly supports dialogue and compromised and conflict a lot of the times, but I think we were all brought up realizing that diplomacy was just one tool out of many, whether it's using sanctions, sometimes using military or threat of military or other means to try to address things. But I think, you know, to go to write to Myanmar, I would say, since the coup in 2021, you have seen multiple times, the occurrence of this tendency of international states, men and women to think that this could be resolved, or the best way to resolve this is through some kind of dialogue. And leading to compromise. And I think that's, I disagree with that. And I think that's a failure on the part of lot of diplomats and statesmen and women to understand the real situation.
Brad 6:01
And I'm very glad to hear you say that, because, of course, we're in the situation now, where I see on has been pushing the five point consensus for quite a length of time. More recently, we've had this idea coming out of Thailand, I believe, being led by Shinawatra to try to bring the junta and the PDF and the N ug to an NDA close to the negotiating table. And, you know, at the risk of perhaps being a little bit inflammatory to certain state actors. Is there a sense in which diplomacy and these calls for well, dialogue and, and consensus and de escalation and so on, can just be used to mask inaction or a lack of desire to take concrete action on the part of certain state actors or certain interstate actors and still sort of save face by appearing to be doing something?
Scot Marciel 7:03
Yeah, that's a really good point. I think there's a couple of factors in the case of Myanmar, and people like toxin or others who have, you know, seen themselves as as potential mediators or negotiators among the, between the military and the resistance, I think it's a couple of things. One, I think it's a fundamental misreading of the situation inside Myanmar, some of the people who have been involved in this really, with all due respect, just don't know very much about me. And so it's, you know, from their perspective, perhaps I'm putting words in their mouth. Now, from their perspective, it's, you know, it's a political disagreement. And it's really hard for one side to get 100% of what it wants. So the smart thing to do, or the appropriate thing to do is bring people together, or hammer out a compromise and solve the problem. But I do think at times, there is the tendency that you suggested of when people don't have great ideas, or they don't have the the energy and the time and the resources to invest in it, to want to, you know, for people and governments to want to show that they're doing something. And I think the five point consensus is a perfect example that I think it was, you know, you know, developed in what, April of 2021, I think the intentions behind it by some of the ASEAN leaders were pretty good. But again, it reflected a lack of understanding of the situation in Myanmar, the notion that, you know, the the hotel would stop using political violence, and that there could be some kind of negotiate a political dialogue to resolve this was wildly optimistic and unrealistic, I think, at the time. And since then, my sense is that all Zeon member governments, they're probably the audience probably divided certainly is divided on what to do. And so they can't with a consensus requirement in nauseam for any decisions. They can't reach consensus on anything else. So they stick to the five point roadmap. And then you got a lot of other governments that say we'd like to see implementation of the five point, consensus. And I've said publicly, as you know, the five point consensus has been dead since about the same time that it was announced. And surely a lot of these governments must know that. But it does. It does give them the ability to show that they are supporting something, perhaps because they don't have better ideas, or they just aren't willing to put the time and effort into it.
Brad 9:49
And so this sort of raises a very interesting question of pragmatics and and process, because this is not the only place where these sorts of things happen. Looking at the European Union, the European Union as a whole has had a lot of disputes with Poland and to an even larger extent with Hungary, especially post Russian invasion of Ukraine. And the situation is very similar to what's going on with the Myanmar military, when the leadership will go to the United or will go to the European Union will go to wherever, and will say one thing and will act not necessarily contrite, but at least open to compliance, and then will immediately go home and on domestic media, they will say, Well, of course not. We would never possibly countenance anything like this. It's an attack on our sovereignty, it's attack on our, you know, democratically provided, you know, authority or in the case of the military in Myanmar, that would be saying that it's, it's an attack on national security. And it's it's an attack on the necessary steps that the military have taken to safeguard the nation. And you have the situation where someone will act, at least notionally publicly, open to these diplomatic efforts, but they have made it clear that they are absolutely unwilling to countenance them, they are unwilling to implement them, they have no respect for them whatsoever. And in the case of Myanmar, we've also seen the snubbing of the special envoys and reporters and so on, in these types of cases, is there a standard operating procedure? What diplomatically is the next step? When someone's doing all the officially important box ticking stuff they're meeting with, with people, they're shaking hands, they're doing the photo op, they're signing little pieces of paper, they're saying things, but they're not actually implementing anything.
Scot Marciel 11:45
I don't think there is really a standard operating procedure in those circumstances, and you get a cut, you get a variety of factors at play. I mean, you see this certainly Russia's invasion of Ukraine, not that Putin has, has done much to show any willingness to to back away, but the Russians at times will indicate Well, you know, we just, you know, we want to settle this, but their conditions are basically if Ukraine just surrenders abject ly, then that everything will be fine. And I think you still see people, statesman, diplomats and others members of the public sort of saying, Well, geez, why doesn't why doesn't Ukraine just compromise? Well, what giveaway some of them agree to give up some of their territory. That's absurd. And it's, it's, it's complicated. And there's lots of different views. I think, in the case of Ukraine, you have seen a number of the European leaders stand up, I think, very firmly and say, just what I said, you know, Putin, if you want to end this, you know, pull your troops out and end the invasion. It's simple, but you have others who who get bogged down in the trying to solve something because, you know, conflict is bad. We can all agree that conflict is bad, nobody wants to see conflict as a choice. But the tendency to be willing to, you know, agree to, to unacceptable conditions to end the conflict is a big problem.
Brad 13:26
And I think particularly in the case of Myanmar comes across as a little bit perverse, because I feel that the 2008 constitution in Myanmar, was the compromise and to call that a compromise is already very generous because the military wrote that for themselves one sidedly. Yeah. And yet, the military showed that they cannot be trusted. they overthrew a government that was elected lawfully under their own constitution, despite retaining 25% of the seats, despite retaining three key ministries, and so on, and so on and so forth. And yet, they still staged a coup. So this, you know, this is this is that next level, it's not even just an actor that you say, well, this actor is giving us the runaround. This is an actor who has now proven themselves to be untrustworthy, someone who cannot really be held to any agreement without any sort of serious international oversight at the least. Again, is there any realistic approach that can be taken when you want to do this? I mean, I think North Korea would be another example of this rapprochement with North Korea may have a lot of benefits, but North Korea is not a state that has ever demonstrated, at least to my knowledge, a willingness to actually be bound by by agreed upon terms, right. So how do you navigate something like that?
Scot Marciel 14:45
Yeah, no, it's it's exactly right. And in the case of Myanmar, as you said, there was a not so much a compromise but there was a, a an arrangement organized As by the military, but accepted to a certain extent by democratic forces in the public, because it at least seemed to be leading in a positive direction. But I think the coup just reminded everybody that as long as the military is on accountable to civilian control, they can step in whenever they want. And so for sure, there was no, there was no deal to be had. And you see this regularly now? Well, I'll go in and talk to the generals, and we can have a political dialogue and agree to a compromise. Well, what will it compromise be? Presumably, the compromise would allow the military to continue to hold a fair amount of political power. And the resistance would get, you know, who knows what maybe some prisoners released or some promise of badly run elections in the future or what have you. So there's not a viable compromise to be had at this point. And that's why it's so frustrating to see people trying to push something when the conditions just aren't there. And I want to add, it's it's not just diplomats at the sort of defending my, my profession, I guess, a lot of this is politicians, right, international politicians. And, you know, they can act as diplomats too. But it can be politicians, or members of the media, or pundits or others sort of say, well, let's have a compromise. There was also you'll recall, at the time of the coup, there were prominent voices in within the Amazon region, for example, that said, well, the military is essential, because it's the one institution that's holding the country together, which, again, for people who know Myanmar, know that that's the exact opposite of the truth, since the military has done more to damage the country than any other institution by far, and certainly is not been a unifying force in any, any real way.
Brad 17:13
Absolutely. And I think, I mean, I would say it's my cynicism shining through. But let's be honest, this is this is just reality, a lot of the voices within our sound, have very good reason to push the narrative that the military is the glue that holds society together, it is what you know, safeguards the state and the polity as such, which, which is a kind of terrifying place for it to be. And that raises another concern. It seems to me that within this international political sphere, there's a lot of patient waiting going on, it feels that everyone's looking at everyone else. It's I've described it before as the beginning of a bar fight. When no one's looking at the guy that trying to fight, everyone's looking at the guy next to them to make sure that he's also jumping in where the United Nations is kicking the can down the road with regards to the Credentials Committee, and trying to validate one side or the other. I see on his dragging its feet. But it feels that a lot of Western actors are very hesitant to sort of step on osteons toes and be seen as charging in and doing something when ASEAN is already trying to take lead and is trying to resolve this crisis. Is there this sort of not necessarily hierarchy, but but priority within within international diplomacy, where you just, you don't take action as a courtesy to other actors, because you feel that they're entitled to get the first attempt?
Scot Marciel 18:47
That's part of it. I think. I think it goes along, though, with a couple of other things. That is certainly what you're talking about international actors. It's, you know, one, generally speaking, not very many governments have a deep understanding of the situation in Myanmar, there is a tendency to say, well, first early on, I think it was, well, the military is gonna win, it's bad, but the military is going to win. They've got all the guns. And so you know, there's not much point in in supporting this resistance as that's changed. I think you get more and more people who are sympathetic to the resistance, but who, well, it's still always been a fractious nation, all these different groups and the resistance, are they going to be able to hold together? So, you know, how much do we really want to invest in this could lead to the balkanization of the country. And then I think another factor, at least in the West, is you don't have a lot of public pressure to move to act, because it's not in the media very much. You don't have any United States for example, you don't have the media or human rights groups or members of Congress around really demanding action. And so in that environment, when you've got other major crises in the world that are in on the news every single day, it's unfortunately natural that senior people and governments will focus on those other crises, you know, Ukraine, now Gaza, relations with China, etc. And you don't have that pressure to kind of push you to act. And it's not, it's not that they don't care. It's a combination of preoccupied with other urgent and major crises, not sure about the prospects of success. And maybe a little bit of deferring to ASEAN and ASEAN centrality.
Brad 20:50
Because when we talk about the pressure, I assume, you know, this is going to come down to politicians themselves, who have to make these decisions, and they in turn are going to have to listen to the pressure that's been put on them, either by the people who lobby them or the people who vote for them, or the media in general, which, which can sway opinion. And so I think it might be interesting, if we look at the United States as a, as an example of this, because the United States does have a very long history of, of, I think every type of intervention, like the United States runs the gamut from sanctions from strategic aid, soft power, you know, cultural exports, to also, you know, full scale military interventions and blockades and so on. So, clearly, there are a lot of things going on. In the US. However, the the US involvement in in Vietnam, if we're taking it all the way back, the US was in was was committed to defending South Vietnam. They I think that is often sort of forgotten, like the the lead up to the wars, often, I think forgotten, the US was committed to doing that, in the way that the US was committed to protecting South Korea, as well. But both of those led to quite protracted conflicts that became very unpopular. The first Gulf War, I think, was concluded relatively quickly. But the second involvement in Iraq obviously dragged on for a very long time, the involvement in Afghanistan dragged on for I think, two decades, and all of these to my understanding of very unpopular within the American media and are very unpopular within the American consciousness. Does this make it difficult for for politicians in the United States, to be able to put their voices behind something like a military involvement in in Myanmar, even if in the Myanmar case, it is much more likely that the local populace would have been very, very positively receptive to US intervention?
Scot Marciel 22:58
Yeah, I think there's a number of factors that have played into this. One is the certainly the lessons of Iraq, and not to mention Vietnam further back and Afghanistan. Because, you know, once you if you do go into military intervention, which is not not something that you would certainly want to do very often, then you kind of own it, I think it was Colin Powell, who said, you know, you then you own the problem. And so it becomes like Afghanistan, can you quote, fix Afghanistan, it's, you don't just have to defeat al Qaeda and, and the Taliban, but then you kind of have a responsibility to leave the country in a way that is stable and durable. And we were never able to achieve that. And I assume that would be thinking similar thinking in Myanmar. I don't have any reasonably that there was serious thought given to military intervention in Myanmar, but I'm sure if there was, that that would be a factor. I think, though, also, that, you know, you have to look at, you know, the US strategic interests and convincing people that this was a strategically important enough to shed, you know, just send American soldiers over there to fight and die. And also, I think, in the case of Myanmar, that, you know, there would be weariness of intervening in a place right on China's doorstep for fear that that could lead China to see this as a US China issue, and maybe raise the stakes in a way that I don't think anybody wants. So again, I don't have any reasonably to think that senior people in Washington seriously considered military intervention. But I think if they had all of those factors would have come into play.
Brad 24:51
I think that's that's quite a reasonable concern to have. But the other side, not just of the anti puffy that the American public and media may have towards conflict and certainly right now, we're seeing a very confounding, I would say, pushback against US military aid to Ukraine, especially from from certain voices in the conservative media who have traditionally seen Russia as a great enemy. I find it very odd. But if nothing else, that is that is a demonstration of how unpopular any sort of military involvement is. And to my knowledge, there are no like, us, uniformed person, I know that there are US military personnel who have voluntarily flown to Ukraine as effectively private citizens. But to my knowledge, there are no US soldiers fighting on the frontlines with us, you know, flush patches on their arms. And even so it's incredibly unpopular.
Scot Marciel 25:47
Yeah, well, that's correct. There are no US soldiers fighting in the war. And that was a very deliberate decision. The opposition, I think the support for Ukraine of in terms of military assistance overall, according to the polls, is pretty popular. But you've got this Trump wing of the Republican Party, that is unabashedly pro Putin, which is shocking. And I think that's just a weird phenomena at the moment that I don't think represents certainly mainstream thinking or the majority, but it you know, it certainly it does involve people who have considerable power.
Brad 26:31
Interesting. But then, the point, the greater point becomes, as you're noting, focus is drawn to things like Russia, Ukraine, focus is now drawn to Israel, Gaza, because it always will be does the absolute or not absolute lack, but the pretty serious lack of coverage of the Myanmar crisis mean that even if a politician wanted to do something about it, even if they wanted to kick up a stink about it? You have Mitch McConnell has has openly and publicly sort of allied himself with with Myanmar on numerous occasions throughout his career. But because the people themselves are not getting the information through the media, they're not being reminded that this is still a crisis that's still happening. Does it make it an uphill battle for for politicians and people within the establishment to try to bring about some sort of change or some sort of action? I don't, I don't think
Scot Marciel 27:26
it's such an uphill battle. Because I mean, realistically, what we're talking about is not sending US troops there, that was never going to be serious option, I don't think but, you know, much smaller investments in you know, financial assistance, and, and these sorts of things, I think, would not have been a hard sell in in the environment, and most Americans honestly don't even know what Myanmar is. So I don't think that would be particularly controversial. I think the bigger issue is, it's a place that very few people know much about or understand, I think the there may be a little bit of, you know, there was a fair, fairly significant, at least emotional investment in the reforms and in the NLD government that took office in 2016. And I think there was a feeling and a lot of people in Washington that, you know, they kind of got burned for supporting that, because, well, particularly because of the Rohingya crisis, which, you know, that's just a reality. So it may be, again, lack of media attention, which means lack of public pressure to do something, preoccupation with all the other crises in the world. And maybe just a weariness, both because of what's happened in the recent past. And also lose question, you know, could the Is it viable to, or realistic to think that the resistance could win? And then government put together some kind of stable government? I think all of those things rather than it being politically difficult, are probably the bigger factors.
Brad 29:16
And I mean, because you say that could that resistance put together a government now? If we look at Afghanistan, I don't know what we would call that. I can't remember the actual name of the operation. But when the Soviets were, were invading Afghanistan and the US was funneling arms and training to people to push the Soviets out. That was, I think, a a success strategically, with regards to bleeding the Soviet military capacity, but he was an earth shattering failure in terms of establishing stable governance and and a stable nation. And of course, that sort of raises that that other question. I know that you've commented previously that one country cannot build another button, would there not be a place for countries like the United States, not necessarily always the United States, but countries like the United States, who, you know, do know how to run an election do know how to establish a working public sector. And this is like Myanmar is not in the Stone Age, this is a country that has suffered a military dictatorship, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't have public administration, it doesn't mean that it doesn't understand governance, it doesn't have a functioning legislature and judiciary. So it's not building up from scratch by any means. Would would countries not be in a position to be able to step up and say, Look, if you want to have stable governance, we can help give you the tools, we can help give you the training. If you need a copy of a constitution, we can just give you one that the 1947 constitution in Myanmar was largely copied from from the Yugoslav constitution at the time. So is there not a capacity for countries to to instead of sitting back saying, Well, I wonder whether there will be stability in this country, rather to be able to say we can help provide that stability for you in partnership?
Scot Marciel 31:16
Yeah, I think there is, I think, you know, the challenge is to define your objectives and understand the limits of your influence, so that it's not on you, as the US or the West, or whoever it may be, to, quote, build the governance structure, but rather to get behind the people in the organizations in Myanmar, who are working to try to build this governance structure and try to help with training, some some financing. And, and that sort of thing. I think that's absolutely doable. I mean, the US is doing some of that there is assistance going to Myanmar to support local governance, training, and so on, in areas where the resistance is in control, so some of that is happening, but on a relatively small scale. So I think more could be done by the US and others. And it's a matter of making the investment. But as I said, I mean, you know, me and my people there don't want the West to come in and say, here's how you should set up federalism. But I think there would be an appetite for this is what we're trying to do. We'd love your input, feedback, training, seminars, financing, these sorts of things. And I mean, one really obvious area will be when this conflict ends, which we all hope will be soon there will be a massive need for Reconstruction and and work in money to help the country start to rebuild. Because it won't be just the politics that will also be getting the economy going again. And I don't see why. For example, there isn't a World Bank led effort right now, for contingency planning. This is how something this is what's the sort of thing that we might be able to do if slash when the situation reaches the point that there is an interim government or transition government or whatever it turns out to be. So yes, I think there's, there's lots of room for that.
Brad 33:29
And you say, you know, we hope that the conflict ends as quickly as possible. And of course, we will do. But this is where it gets a little bit sticky. Yeah. Because when we sit back, and we look at a situation that's about this in any aspect of our lives, if we're looking at a situation, that's bad, and we're saying, Well, we hope that the situation end soon, can we morally justify not getting involved and helping it to end sooner, especially when delay means lives lost, and additional future costs for Reconstruction and so on? So is there not an argument to be made for at the very least, let's say something like lethal aid, that I personally am very much in favor of, to try to accelerate the end of this conflict? Or is that just a bridge too far?
Scot Marciel 34:18
Well, it's been a bridge too far so far. But I think you have seen from the United States and others very clear efforts to put massive pressure on the junta starve starved of dollars, with sanctions and the like, for example, diplomatic support for the energy and the resistance, these sorts of things, as well as some some non lethal aid. I, you know, I'm not privy to the discussions in Washington or elsewhere about possible lethal aid. I would, I would speculate that when it comes up, there would be a couple of concerns. One is how do you account For the weapons, how do you know that they don't end up in the wrong hands. Because we all know that in Myanmar, there are lots of armed groups that are acting, some of the resistance and others that are, let's say, playing a less positive role in the country. So there would be some weariness, I think about that about just sort of a chain of custody of weapons, and accounting for how they're used some process to deal with justice issues that might, that inevitably will come up if one or more of the groups gets involved in human rights violations using your weapons. And I would guess two other factors have probably played a role. One is just the logistics. Given that you couldn't, you know, it's not like Ukraine, where you could literally bring weapons into Ukraine, here, you can't really bring weapons into me and what you can't fly them in. You can't take them in by train. And most of the neighbors me and Mars neighbors have been if anything, pro junta. So I don't know how you would deal with that logistical problem. And then again, I'm speculating here, I would assume there would be some concern about how China might react, not so much because China, you know, loves the junta. But there I think, have been some concerns in China that the the pro democracy forces might be, in some ways a proxy of the United States. And so if the United States started to arm them, would that exacerbate that concern of China and possibly lead China to counter by providing more weapons to the military? So I think it's a difficult issue. I think that if if it were me, I would say, if you look at the situation in my the Korean need is for weapons and other equipment and technology to help defend against air attacks. And so that would be a place where I'm not a military expert, but you bring together some military experts who could look at what might be possible, that would be helpful to defend not only the resistance, but the civilian population from air attacks. And that also could be, you know, with some ability to control where it ends up, whose hands it ends up and how it's used.
Brad 37:34
Because and I'm glad you point that out. Because that's, it's an argument that I've suddenly made in the past as well, that if we're talking about the types of weaponry that you use to just like small arms effectively, then yes, you have a problem, because you have a proliferation of small arms throughout a country where there is no go, there's no control, there's no you know, chain of ownership. And you're going to wind up with a country that post victory and post democracy is still heavily armed and inundated with unregulated weapons. But if we're talking about the types of weapons that are specifically designed to take down military equipment, we're talking about, you know, rocket launchers, for example, you know, the 80, fours and and Stinger missiles and so on. From what I've been told, the ability to track these is much better, because you're using fewer individual pieces. It's easier to film what you're using it for, and, and send that back as evidence. And, and ultimately, it's, it's, I would argue, I mean, it's still killing people, like, at the end of the day, that is what we're talking about. But I would argue it's more humane to shoot down a helicopter with two pilots in it than it is to engage in a battle on the ground and try to kill 20 3040 people. I mean, I'm open, I'm open to counter arguments, you, you seem you seem to?
Scot Marciel 39:05
I'm not sure. I mean, if if foreign countries were to look at providing that kind of a and I think that that would be a logical place to provide it. And you you would probably not want to go toward anti aircraft missiles in the sense of going after planes and jets, because there's been a concerted effort by the United States and others over the last 2030 years to really control those because they can get into terrorist hands or criminal gain hands, you can literally can shoot down commercial aircraft. So I think that would be a danger but maybe something that targeted helicopters might be a viable option. So if you if you wanted to look at what could we do that would be helpful, relatively limited and controlled, and you know, justifiable that might you know, something could go after a military helicopter might be might make sense, as well as things that aren't necessarily lethal, but can be really helpful helpful, like communications equipment.
Brad 40:10
Okay, so I agree with the point that you just raised with regards to materials that are, like communications equipment, as you mentioned, materials that are clearly military of nature that are of assistance to people who are carrying out military operations, but are not themselves weapons or explosives or things that are capable of, of directly killing? How, within the broader sort of diplomatic space or within the broader aid and support space? How are things like that viewed? Is it more palatable to send these sorts of things as as a form of quote unquote, non lethal aid, even though they have a military application? Or would they still be lumped in together with things like small arms and rocket law?
Scot Marciel 40:52
It really depends, I think, on the specific country situation. And, you know, it's not, you know, if you're, if you're talking about providing these sorts of things, it's probably a somewhat different set of people, at least in the US government, for example, USA ID through which we provide humanitarian assistance, governance, training, all those sorts of things. Probably most cases would not be involved in something like this. They just don't do anything military related. So they would solve the aid givers. And typical aid givers in that sense wouldn't necessarily be in the room. But the policy people looking at it. Yeah, I think generally speaking, it's easier to, I think, win approval for providing things that are useful, but but not lethal as a general rule.
Brad 41:56
Okay, I mean, I think that makes a lot of sense. I want to transition now to a slightly different area. And this is one that has fascinated me for some time. And it's a question of legitimacy. And you've sort of hinted at that I've hinted at that throughout this interview. Fundamentally, I would just like to understand how you and more broadly, sort of the diplomatic sphere understands the concept of legitimacy. Because of course, when we look at Ukraine, Russia, we're looking at the Ukrainian government. And we're saying, well, the Ukrainian government is a legitimate government, it is a legitimate actor. And it is therefore acceptable and appropriate for people to have relations with that government. When we look at, for example, Israel, and Palestine, not to get sort of bogged down in that very sensitive conflict. But the general international perspective is that the Government of Israel is a legitimate state actor, and we can have relations with them. Hamas is not a legitimate state actor, and it's very difficult to have relations with them. Similarly, the national unity government enjoys a very large level of support, but does not seem to have that magical legitimacy. And it seems that there's a very abstract concept, very loose weave, this sense of there are certain things that make it okay for us in the diplomatic space to have communications overtures, give aid, take sides, officially, what have you. But if you don't have those trappings of legitimacy, it's very dangerous for us to go out on that limb and stop communicating with you. Or at least that's how it seems, to me looking at the way that ASEAN has dealt, looking at the way that the United Nations has dealt, looking at the way that many Western states have dealt with conflict. But I'd like to understand your point. Yeah,
Scot Marciel 43:44
I'll take a stab at it. I mean, I'm certainly no expert on this particular subject. And it's one that in some cases, particularly if you get into a there's there's legal aspects of it, at least for the United States government. And part of the trouble is with the term legitimate or legitimacy, there's a lot of legitimate actors in the world. Some are governments, some are not. But they're considered, you know, broadly legitimate in the sense that people accept that they have a role to play. It's slightly different. I think if you're talking about the logy, conferring legitimacy on a, on an entity, as a government, and generally, again, I'm not a lawyer, so others could correct me on this. We were talking about the legitimacy of a government. There's lots of ways of looking at it, you know, but generally, to be widely accepted as the entity that is in charge of the nation as a government, it means it would be considered a legitimate government. It's not that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good government. So, you know, most governments in the world are considered legitimate guys. Governments, even if they have perhaps significant flaws, or don't treat their people well or so on, because, you know, they have ceded to you when they clearly have control of the country. That's there's some process by which they've gained that. And and I think that's part of the confusion because it sounds like a value judgment. And it isn't always,
Brad 45:24
you talk about, well, this government has the control of the country and so on. There are principles that I'm sure you're familiar with. Some of our listeners would some of them wouldn't the principles laid out in the Montevideo convention, that sort of outline the concept of what it is for a state to be a state. And there have been a lot of commentaries that have been made you on the internet, variations on the theme of what what makes the country a country. And the punchline is always well, the recognition of other countries makes the country a country. And that sort of leads to a very tricky situation, because we have even right now in the world, a lot of very sticky cases. You mentioned seats of the United Nations. But obviously, Taiwan does not have a seat at the United Nations. The Vatican City State does not have a seat at the United Nations because it chooses not to act as a state, even though it is one. You know, the government of guaido in Venezuela, Breakaway areas like Kosovo. You know, these are these are partially recognized states. But, you know, some of the things that you mentioned do exist in the states, some of the things that you mentioned, don't exist in these states, because they don't have, you know, complete territorial control. They don't have a seat of the United Nations. How do you navigate these situations?
Scot Marciel 46:45
That's a good question. I don't think I can really answer I just don't have experience dealing with that. It's just not something that I dealt with, in my own diplomatic career, enough to to have expertise. And I could make up stuff. But I don't want to do that.
Brad 47:03
Certainly, I, I appreciate that. I respect that. But then looking specifically at the Myanmar context with the national unity government. This is this is the big question, because the national unity government seems like it's in a bit of limbo. There's, there is a, there is some sort of communication, sometimes it's quite overt, sometimes it's behind the scenes, but it doesn't have the legitimacy of being recognized. There have been certain legislative bodies, for example, the senator France, which has in fact passed a resolution saying that they want to recognize the national unity government, but that is the responsibility of the executive, not the legislature. So in this strange, interim thing, do you think that there is a a likelihood that before the end of the conflict, the national unity government will be granted that legitimacy by western state actors? Or B, do you think it's not even necessary to try to gain legitimacy? Because it's an unnecessary label? That's not necessarily going to massively increase the level of agency?
Scot Marciel 48:15
Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. I don't know that I have a great answer for you. I mean, it, it would help. There's a symbolic value to being, you know, recognized as the legitimate government. It's very hard when you don't hold the seat of power to be recognized as legitimate government doesn't mean people don't think you're a very legitimate player. But I think it would be hard without having, you know, control of the seat of power. I mean, obviously, likewise, governments have not recognized for the most part. The SABC because it's seen, even though it controls naypyitaw. It's not seen as having legitimacy, because of the way it came to power and its lack of support, those sorts of things. So I think all things being equal, it would be better to be to have that legitimacy of being a recognized government than not, I'm not sure it's essential. And I think it's difficult to see it happening on a large scale. Absent further change within Myanmar is just my own. My own sense has I think I mentioned earlier for the United States, United States recognizes states rather than governments. But I think if you look at the US willingness to engage with not only the N ug but other elements of the resistance, you know, the can you they can PP, the Kyle etc, I think shows recognition of the legitimacy of them as employee Are players?
Brad 50:04
Because you I mean, you mentioned this, as you say that the United States recognizes states and not governments and the United Nations has the same stance, I think most nations would have that stance because it keeps things neat and simple. But at the same time, the reality is a state is still a collection of people. If you have any treaties with a state, then by definition, you have to have a human being somewhere in that state, who receives you who, you know, sends an ambassador who, you know, picks up the checks if you're sending you know Adel, or development or what have you. There has to be a certain degree doesn't there of actually deciding who isn't is not a legitimate representative of the state that you recognize, in order to be able to do diplomacy at all. Yeah,
Scot Marciel 50:54
yeah, that's fair. And again, often, you know, when one is presenting credentials, it may be to the head of state, who in a lot of countries isn't the head of a government. And that makes it that's kind of easier. Right? If there's a if the situation is politically fraught, and there's a head of state, who is not the head of government, presenting credentials to that person, kind of, is in keeping with the idea of recognizing a state rather than a particular government. And I mean, I think this is why there's been a lot of controversy around the decision of, let's say, various UN agencies, leaders to go and present their credentials to the SAIC. Because to a certain extent, you're, you're basically saying we recognize you as the legitimate representatives of the state. Now, they might argue, Well, look, we're just being practical, we've got to get our work done, and that's the price you pay. But I again, I wasn't privy to these conversations. I don't know the reasoning. But I I'm saying it's perhaps not a coincidence that the US has chosen not to send a new ambassador to Myanmar, because such an ambassador to to to be able to play the role of ambassador even to be able to get a visa would have to present credentials, presumably to the SEC.
Brad 52:30
And that that act of presenting credentials would be on the part of the United States, it would be a tacit recognition of the legitimacy of the SEC.
Scot Marciel 52:38
I think, in that case, if that were to happen, I think the US would argue that it's not it's just a practical matter. But certainly the SAIC would use it as a as a means to try to confer show that legitimacy has been conferred on itself. And this was the challenge you have whenever some well intentioned individual goes to naypyitaw to try to help solve the problem. That's why there's photo ops and size like, look, they came to us where the you know, the SEC, they recognize and effect the SEC trying to argue that them coming to us, whether they're presenting credentials or otherwise meeting with us, shows that they recognize our legitimacy, that may not be the intention at all of the person who's meeting them, but it will be used that way. So it becomes very politicized, because whereas normally presenting credentials is not political at all.
Brad 53:35
But so we are effectively saying that you now have a situation where the United States recognizes Myanmar as a state, but does not seem to be officially recognizing any government at all of that state. Is that something that happens frequently? Or is this uncharted territory?
Scot Marciel 53:51
I'm sure it's happened before. And again, I want to make it clear that I'm not speaking on behalf of the State Department, because I don't know what they're, you know, what discussions they had, and, and you know, what decisions they made, and on what basis? I'm just saying that by, by choosing not to an appointed ambassador, they have avoided a situation where they, that Ambassador would have had to present his or her credentials to the SABC. I'm not saying I don't know that that's the reason they chose not to tell an ambassador, but it's one of the one of the results. And, again, I think the US government would simply say, Well, we haven't recognized anybody because we recognize the state. But we don't want to do on a sort of a political level. We don't want to do something that would inadvertently from our perspective, seem to confer legitimacy on a regime the SEC that we don't think has legitimacy.
Brad 54:57
But so it does indicate that this question And of legitimacy, the image of legitimacy, the Conference of legitimacy and so on, is something that is taken quite seriously in diplomatic circles that you seem to be indicating that this would have been the subject of some pretty serious conversations that were closed,
Scot Marciel 55:12
I would think so. Yeah, I mean, it may not be decisive. I mean, in the end, what's going to be decisive is the actions within Myanmar itself, how much pressure the essay essay see faces. But if you're in diplomacy, or you're representing a government, you try to avoid actions that send a signal that you very much don't want to send. And so it, you know, there's there's the legal side of it, and the protocol side of it, but in some cases, in relatively rare cases, there is a political, it becomes a political matter as well.
Brad 55:55
And I recognize that I respect that you may not be in a position to be able to speak on this or may not wish to speak on this. But it does feel to me that there are a lot of cases where, you know, as you said, there are cases where you you have a recognition, and therefore, legitimacy of the government that, you know, is bad, like, a very good example of that would be the government of the DPRK. These are not friends to any of us in the West, but we recognize them as a legitimate government. But conversely, it seems that there are a lot of situations where Western countries, the United States, definitely among them, have allies and friends, in many places in the world, they fund them, they train them, they try to support them, there's ideological agreement. You know, one case that that does sort of come to mind is various different armed groups in the fight against the Islamic State, and notably Kurdish groups. These are groups that, you know, everyone, there may not be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they there was a lot of ideological agreement. Many of them had, you know, values that were very agreeable to the west, and they were definitely dedicated to the fight against the Islamic State, which is objectively good thing. But even though they were liked and favored, and to varying degrees supported by various Western states, nobody really wanted to confer legitimacy on them. It feels like there is a willingness to give legitimacy to bad actors who have these notional trappings of authority. But there's a great hesitancy to confer new legitimacy to a group, even if that group is ideologically aligned, even if that group is allied, even if that group, we might say, it would be better if they won, and we could give them legitimacy. It feels that everyone's afraid to take that first step and say, You know what, I'm just gonna give them legitimacy. The only real exception I can think of to this pattern is Russia, who uses legitimization, of of unrecognized states, as as a political tool, the, you know, recognition of East Ukrainian rebel groups recognition of Abkhazia and so on. Why do you think there is this? Oh, do you believe that there is this hesitation? And if there is this hesitation, why is there this hesitation to stand up and say, you know, what, I think these people are good, I think they should be in charge, because their values are better. And and I want to let you know, I
Scot Marciel 58:18
think if you start talking about, you know, the Kurdish area, and I'm like, not my area of expertise I did serve in, in Turkey. But you know, if you're looking at the role that Kurdish forces played, for example of playing, for example, in Syria or in Iraq, I think there's a difference between recognizing a group as a valuable and legitimate player, as opposed to recognizing officially as the representative of an entire nation, particularly when it may not even have the pretense of representing that entire nation. If it only represents a piece of it, then that's a very different situation, where you would in effect be recognizing a potential breakaway piece of a state or something, and I think I haven't dealt with that myself directly. But I think that's a very different level of discussion.
Brad 59:15
Okay, so let's then veer off again, to a different area. I believe that you were very much involved in by necessity. The US is response to Myanmar during the financial crisis. And now we're looking at two very different things. The current situation the US response seems to be let's hold the military at arm's length. Let's not, you know, do anything to unduly legitimize them. Let's not sort of be friendly friendly with them or anything like that. But at the very least, during the Rohingya crisis, there was still an embassy, there was still an ambassador US relations still existed. And I believe correct me if I'm wrong under the system that existed at the time in Myanmar. They were was separate diplomatic relationships from the civilian government to foreign states and the Damodar to foreign states. I can't remember if that's actually correct, but that's how it was explained to me. So can you sort of take us through what was the diplomatic approach to the Rohingya crisis? And why do you think the approach currently is so different?
Scot Marciel 1:00:21
I think, first, there wasn't a different diplomatic relationship with the, with the military. I mean, you know, we, when I was ambassador, I, you know, I presented credentials to the state, to the President, as representative of the state, that meant dealing with lots of different actors, obviously, the, the elected government, the militaries of police, different ministries, as well as people at regional and state level. And that's normal. That's sort of typical, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a like a some different completely. It wasn't like there were two relationships, two diplomatic relationships, one with the NLD government and one lesson military, it was to the state, and you dealt with all of the actors in it, which we do normally. So when I was ambassador to Indonesia, I dealt with the elected government, I dealt with some military, I dealt with a lot of other actors, business community, you name it. So in that sense, it was it was not unusual, obviously, what was unusual was the extraordinary power under the 2008 constitution that the military had. And so the goal at that point, having, I got there in 2016, so you'd seen four to five years of opening up and reform, significant progress in some areas, lack of progress in other areas. And obviously, the lack of progress in the Rohingya issue was a major concern. And at that point, in our view, it involved trying to convince both the military and the elected authorities and to a certain extent, you know, people throughout the country who had concerns and to a certain extent, antipathy toward the Rohingya to take a different approach. And so that was, and then when the intense violent crisis really took off in October of 2016. It was, again, I think, diplomats in general, saw a first to stop the violence against the Ranga. And second, to support the implementation of the recommendations of the Kofi Annan Commission, which had come up with, as you know, all these recommendations for trying to address the issue. And so the diplomatic effort was to try to push for aid, you know, again, as an end to the violence and the burning of villages and all these other things that drove led led seven to 800,000 Rohingya to flee the country. And, you know, ending of the institutionalized discrimination against the Rohingya and beginning to implement making some progress toward implementing those Kofi Annan commission recommendations and that involve talking to lots of different people in the, in the elected government in the military, in the media was in Rakhine state itself. Other people who might have influence to, you know, encourage change. And what you have now and part of that was talking to the military, they were obviously a big part of the problem. But they were, if they weren't going to move it was going to be hard to make much progress. So it was essential to talk to them. I think the difference now is since the coup is that and I say the US has gone more than rather than just distancing itself from the military has in addition also tried to put significant pressure particularly financial pressure on the on the SABC and so there it's it's different because you have, instead of an entire nation that included civilian government, military and many other players who while maybe disagreeing with each other on many things, all kinds of needed to move in a different direction to address the Rohingya crisis. Now you have a situation that, you know, where the military has suddenly grabbed control, which was, you know, no legitimacy and engaged in you know, in private brutality against those who disagree with it, and in effect, a national uprising or even revolution against it. And so it's just a completely different situation.
Brad 1:05:13
Honestly, because with the Rohingya crisis, obviously the end result of that was declared by by Anthony Blinken as a genocide, and I think, very fairly so. So it was obviously a terrible, terrible outcome, which everybody wanted to avoid. However, I want to ask, do you, how effective do you feel the US response and the response of a lot of other international actors? was during that crisis? Do you feel that it was able to lessen the severity of the crisis? Was it able to bring it to a stop or at least bring the massacring and ethnic cleansing to a stop sooner than he otherwise would have? Or did a lot of effort just fall on deaf ears? Yeah.
Scot Marciel 1:06:00
I mean, it wasn't very successful. That's for sure. I mean, you just look at the results. And, you know, if, if the international diplomatic community had done nothing? How much different would it have been? It's really hard to say, I would like to think that it had some impact. It made it. It didn't stop it from being awful. Did it maybe make it slightly less awful? I hope so. But I don't know that there's any way of measuring that because, because we'll never know. And it was, it was a terrible situation. Because obviously, first and foremost for the Rohingya who suffered, and continue to suffer, you know, incredibly. But as a result of that crisis, also, you had a sharp decline in support, at least in the west and some other countries, for the NLD. Government and for Myanmar, in general. Because, frankly, a lot of people were just appalled, not only by what the military did, and, you know, you know, and leading these operations are taking these operations, but in the, you know, the denials of biologic people, including the civilian government of of the reality of what was happening, and by the tremendous racism, frankly, that was demonstrated toward the Rohingya people. So, it it was a disaster on multiple levels, I think, for the Rohingya, first and foremost, but for the country, as as a whole. Because it, you know, a lot led to a significant loss of support.
Brad 1:08:02
I wonder as well, was there any effort being made? And this might be like, way too deep for foreign actors to want to get involved in But was there any effort being made to fight a domestic information war because I was living there at the time as well. And one of the horrifying things was, I'm reading international media, I'm reading Reuters, I'm reading reports from the United Nations, Amnesty International and so on, which are mostly being published in English. And the people that I knew in Myanmar, many of them, you know, good, decent people, not sort of psychotic people, not overly racist people, not nationalists or anything. They had simply taken hook, line and sinker, the narrative that they were being fed, that, that there are injured legitimately out there, raping and murdering, you know, Burmese Buddhist women, and that they've instigated a race war. They've instigated a religious war and they're trying to undermine the state. And I simultaneously had another friend of mine who was working at a newspaper at the time. I believe he was working for the global new light of Myanmar, but I'm not 100% And he told me that on multiple occasions, they had been messaged by Naypyidaw that under Article 66 D, which is sort of a media communications censorship law under 6060, they were not even allowed to say the word Rohingya they were required to refer to them as illegal Bangladeshi migrants are terrorists. So was there any effort made to try and sway Myanmar public opinion about this crisis? Because it was, it was bad. I remember Shan people, Shan State people telling me that yes, we're like, we're at war with the military, but the Muslims are the real problem in the country. And I just thought, how, how has the misinformation gotten this extreme? Was that was there any effort to try to rectify it? Dianne,
Scot Marciel 1:10:00
you're you're right. This was a big part of the problem, right? Because you had people all throughout the country, not everybody, but a lot of people certainly in this. I mean, obviously the military, but in the civilian government and the media, just ordinary people, local staff at our embassy, who were had been fed for a long time, this propaganda, this misinformation, this fear mongering, information about the Rohingya is some threat to the Buddhist soul of the of the nation, and who believed it. And so you have these diametrically opposed narratives, you had the internal narrative that the Rohingya was sort of, you know, ISIS has come to me and Maurice, as one person told me, and they don't belong here, there. And they're, you know, if we, if we let them stay, you know, next thing we know, they'll have taken over the country, versus the international narrative, which may not have been perfect, but was much closer to reality, certainly much, much more accurate, that, you know, you have a discriminated against minority that now, as a result of a few actions by our CIO, which, you know, most of us condemned, at the time, has led to this, you know, wholesale, wildly disproportionate, what we call it the time ethnic cleansing, operation and vilification of an entire population. So yeah, we spent a lot of time trying to, you know, change attitudes in, in the government, among the media, civil society, and because we got a lot of hate ourselves. Why are you backing these Rohingya? Why do you support the balls? They were people didn't call them growing up. But why do you? Why do you support them? And people couldn't understand it? So it was, it was one of the most horrible and and frustrating episodes I've ever been involved in.
Brad 1:12:17
In, did that, sort of lay the groundwork for the current response by that what I mean is, was, was the aftermath of that in diplomatic circles, a shift in how the military was viewed, and a sort of solidification of the understanding that these are not people who are reasonable. These are not people who can be trusted. These are not people who can be negotiated with under normal circumstances was Was there a shift in how the military was perceived? And has that sort of determined the lack of cooperation and outreach to the military in the current situation?
Scot Marciel 1:12:56
I think that's that was a part of it. It wasn't the whole story, though. Because at the same time, I mean, during the same same period, where you would have the initial significant reforms, you know, the ending of censorship, civil society, the development of political parties, competition among, you know, political competition, greater liberty, all these economic reforms, all those sorts of things. The military had not been seen as leading the reforms, but there was, at least, my sense was, and I think, shared by a lot was that there seemed to be some space for these sorts of reforms, and that the military wouldn't necessarily be blocking all of them, while at the same time recognizing that the military was still attacking the kitchen, for example, at the time and other bad actions and human rights violations. So I think there was some folks that that, that I had, and maybe others had initially that with the right incentives, ie if if BMR continues to make progress, and the military doesn't stand in the way of that there may be an opportunity for more international engagement, these sorts of things, that you could, that that there could be more progress. But I think, even before the Rohingya crisis are pretty clear signs that, that that was overly optimistic. The, you know, the intense violence again, in the kitchen area was was just one example of it and is the most obvious. And then with the Rohingya crisis that sort of cemented and it became, you know, even clear that these people were not people who they were uncompromising, not not interested at all in changing their behavior. They wanted the legitimacy that came with international For all recognition and better relations for Myanmar, but they didn't want to change, they weren't willing to change their behavior. And that became very clear. With the Rohingya crisis, maybe making it crystal clear. And certainly that plus the factor the coup itself and the brutality of the other military in the aftermath of the coup, I think, for me, there's no dealing with these people. They're there. They're beyond the pale.
Brad 1:15:30
Yes, absolutely agreed. And so the question then now turns to the future. What do you think is the best way forward here as as you know, a diplomat, as somebody who wants to find solutions to problems and conflicts? What do you think is the best thing that external actors, diplomatic actors, state actors, transnational actors can be doing to to help in the current situation? Right?
Scot Marciel 1:15:57
Well, I think, as I said earlier, 80 to 90% of what happens is going to be determined by me and my people. What happens inside the country that said, oh, what can the international community do? What more should do a couple things. One, my personal view is that the best hope for Myanmar as a country to make progress, and political, economic, etc, is for the military to be forced to relinquish political power. I don't see really any hope for progress at all, or even for stability, as long as the military continues to hold political power. And I also don't believe that, you know, some people will say, well, there needs to be a compromise deal. And as of Myanmar, people have said, but we tried that, we had the so called hybrid situation of 2012, to 2020. So I don't think that's the solution. So I do think the solution is for the military to be forced to relinquish political power. And to me, that means for the international community, maximum pressure on that military, nothing to confer legitimacy on it. More effort to squeeze it financially, more effort to support the resistance, both diplomatically but also through assistance. And I think one of the other challenges, of course, for the resistance not only is defeating the military, or at least putting weakening the military, to the point that it's going to make major political concessions. At the same time, of course, you also have to figure out what comes next. And I think this is an area where a lot of people understandably, are concerned, will the country hold together? Can you get a balkanization? And I think, though there's a real risks, but again, to me, the answer is rather than be paralyzed by the risks, what can the international community to do now to help the various helped me in MMA, the various elements of the resistance, civil disobedience, movement, civil society, other political actors, and prepare for some kind of transition process. And that means not not defining the transition process. Those are political decisions for me and our people to make. But as much training as you can in governance, funding capacity, you know, it's so overused term of capacity building, promoting and encouraging the dialogue among the various players, that's going to be essential to figuring out the way forward politically, perhaps planning already ahead of time, like, well, for more humanitarian aid for, you know, economic rebuilding of the country, once this crisis ends, I think there's a lot that can be done, obviously, in coordination with resistance. But letting the letting Myanmar people always take the lead?
Brad 1:19:21
Because you've you've preempted my question, because that's exactly what I wanted to know is what what role can diplomacy and diplomats and international actors play ethically and sustainably? Post post peace because, you know, as we've discussed, bringing the military to the negotiating table, in the current state of affairs or in any previous state of affairs, is not viable, partially because the military is not a trustworthy actor and partially just because nobody wants to deal with them domestically. But all these other actors, you're talking about the PDF, you're talking about the CEOs you're talking about the NUJ as we're gonna see them and so on and so forth. All of these groups have stated that they want a unified Myanmar. They want a federal democratic system. They want us to work. You know, you talk about balkanization, which is a very realistic posit possibility. But everyone has said that they're trying to avoid that. Does that signal to you, as someone who's, you know, 37 years of diplomatic Korea rests on getting people together and agreeing to mutually beneficial things? Does that signal to you that this can be done, we can get these people around the table, we can find a compromise? Or do you think it is still possible that we'll be in a situation where No, everyone is married to terms that are so biased in their own favor, that they are actually economically and geographically mutually exclusive requests? And it is not going to be possible to make a compromise? What's your attitude?
Scot Marciel 1:21:02
To be clear, you're talking about a compromise among the various actors outside of the military? Right? Yeah. Correct. Yeah. I mean, in the end, it's going to be up to the people in Myanmar, right there. And only they can make these compromises and come up with, if you will, you know, have the discussions that produce hopefully some kind of blueprint, that that has a chance of working a series of negotiations for exactly what kind of autonomy are we talking about? What does federalism actually look like? What's the transition? Who, who has guns, and who doesn't? All these sorts of things, I think the international community can play a helpful role in providing this sort of as being resource people. Because in the international community, there's a lot of information about other examples of maybe not identical situations, but situations that people in Myanmar could benefit from knowing them out. That, you know, Country X, they did this, this and this country why they did that, that Matt, you know, bringing people actually paying and facilitating the sort of for the dialogues, but avoiding trying to lead the dialogues and dictate the solution, which is the tendency of a lot of well intentioned international actors. Well, why don't you do this, and I think it's important international community resist that temptation, but see itself more as resource people, people who can provide ideas, resources, facilitate dialogue, provide training on specific issues, all of these sorts of things. I think, you know, this was where the UN envoy could play a significant role, for example. And, you know, the challenges, we saw this in the peace process, a lot of people I mean, why they didn't basically didn't want foreigners, in telling them what to do. Fair enough. I think that it's their country, right. So it's, again, trying to be available and offer assistance. But, you know, very much been in the background in terms of not trying to overly shape the blueprint.
Brad 1:23:26
But it's very interesting that you that you say that and of course, like what you're saying makes makes sense. And you've said in the past, and we've discussed this, that you said that another country cannot or one country cannot build another. However, it is interesting, it feels to me that intuitively, if you have a lot of different parties to a negotiation, and they all have their own interests. It feels intuitive that you would want those negotiations to be mediated by a disinterested, external party, someone who is not going to gain territory or political authority, no matter how the negotiations go in it. You know, every time we do this, this Middle East peace talks thing. The idea seems to be well, let's have international groups come in and mediate and granted, Middle East peace talks don't generally seem to go anywhere. But that feels like it's it's a natural thing or whether you're going to therapy, whether you're a couples counseling, whether it's a business negotiation, or or courtroom matter, it feels that that would be logical. Do you not feel that there's a risk that you might have some actors in the room? If the international community just says, Look, I'm going to be sitting in the corner, tapped me on the shoulder if you need anything, otherwise, I'm going to shut up that there might not be some actors who say, Hey, guys, I've got the most territory, I've got the most guns. I'm therefore going to be setting the terms of this negotiation, and therefore preemptively cooling some other people who might be thinking you know what this negotiation is probably doomed from the start. I don't really like These people don't really trust them.
Scot Marciel 1:25:02
Is that not inevitably there, those discussions will happen with international players have been involved to some extent. So I think, you know, again, it's, it's, it's such a big task that it's, you know, hard for me even to imagine exactly how it would work. I think there is a role for the international community to sort of say, in terms of incentive structure, the international community as a whole, I think, has an incentive in Myanmar saying, a unified country without 25 armed enclaves being inside of it, that's not a recipe for stability or success. And, you know, so certain incentives in terms of wealth, we'd like to come in with significant assistance, or help rebuild the economy, all these sorts of things. But there's got to be some basic bottom line conditions. Such as you know, you don't declare independence, or you don't set yourself up as a completely independent enclave state was in a state. So you've got to create some incentives for the compromise, sort of, you know, I mean, in a way, you the panglong, spirit idea of Aung San su chi, maybe, you know, lost some of its luster because of what happened in those 2016 1718 The lack of progress, but the idea of, you know, a voluntary agreement to stay part of main MA with autonomy. And then that question, you know, trying to get everybody to agree on that. And then the details of exactly what does that autonomy look like? I think the details need to be worked out, certainly by me and my people in Myanmar. But the international community can and should play a role in doing as much as possible to encourage that as opposed to breaking away, or we're just going to keep our little army here and do what we want to do. So yeah, I think there's a balance there. Yeah.
Brad 1:27:18
Absolutely. And that that kind of comes into the other half of this is not just the negotiation half, but you you made mention already, of the value of investing, and we're looking at a country now. I was asked just the other day, you know, by journalists, well, what is what is the country going to look like after the conflict? And the first thing I had to say was, well, first of all, you don't know what after the conflict is going to mean, anyway, like, they can always be pockets of resistance and fighting that go on for years or decades. But even besides that, this is a country where the economy is in shambles with you know, some people have started saying the hyperinflation word. The the power grid, has either collapsed or is on the verge of collapse. You know, most of the industries have been devastated. The agriculture sector has been categorically devastated nationwide. Food shortages, fuel shortages, and all of the existing international trade relations that previously benefited the state. I mean, once those are destroyed, it takes time to rebuild those relations. It takes time to rebuild that, you know, Tylenol, Tylenol did amazing things for the for the telecommunication sector in the country. But obviously, they got burned hard, and they had to cut and run and obviously, they might not be too eager to come back in. So the country is in a very, very precarious place. But I've spoken to leading economists, I won't say who because they were speaking off the record. But I've heard the comment said that if Myanmar were were fully brought up to her potential, Myanmar could overtake Thailand economically. That's that's the potential that the country actually has, in terms of its its geography in terms of its resources in terms of its people. And the role of investment, the role of aid in rebuilding the country in this situation is enormous. But and there's always that, but is that investment going to come with very harsh terms is is it likely that Myanmar has reconstruction is going to come at the expense of predatory loans and lots of strings attached?
Scot Marciel 1:29:31
Yeah, I mean, I certainly hope not. The, you know, I would think there's, you know, there's multiple levels, right? I mean, I think investment per se from the private sector is going to be commercially based. assistance from individual governments, but also from the Asian Development Bank and World Bank and the UN. I is quite different. And I would hope that it is. If and when the conflict winds down, and you're, you have the beginnings of an interim government or transition government, whatever it's going to be that talked about a transitional national national unity government, something like that, then I would hope and expect that the the key international actors, you know, led, at least administratively by the World Bank, I would think, would come up with a plan to, you know, help the country kind of get through the first couple of years and begin to rebuild, both physically, but also, you know, the logistics, the banking sector, access to finance for farmers, all of that trading networks, all of that is going to take time, and that should, I think, be, you know, in pretty, reasonably generous terms. And mean, hours, on the one hand, a big country, on the other hand, its GDP is not so big, so that the sums of money involved would be significant, but not, I think, overwhelming for the international community. But you know, that all house, you know, you don't want to start thinking about that the day after, you want to start thinking about it now, even if it's premature to actually implement any plans. So yeah, I think, but then, you know, then getting the private sector to come in. I mean, it'll depend on a lot of things. I mean, I think the private sector, certainly in the US, they would need to have some reasonable basis to believe that there's going to be some stability, and a government that's capable of it that they can interact with. I mean, obviously, that's going to be, you know, there's nothing that you can do if that doesn't happen. But it'll take a little bit of time, I would think you would have, you know, a period of time, it's whether it's a year, two years, three years, where you're sort of trying to restore stability and some semblance of governance. And then you build from there.
Brad 1:32:18
But I mean, it's true, of course, as you say that the private sector is interested in business, they're trying to turn a profit, whether in the short term or the long term. However, what happens when a state gives money? Are you? Are you suggesting that when someone like the United States, or any state really gives aid? They do so purely altruistically? Or are they still hoping to gain something, whether it's soft power influence, whether it's, you know, people who have become accustomed to the product that their country supplies, and are therefore going to be reliant on that for maintenance and upkeep in the long term? Is, is there that still that sort of selfish long term thinking?
Scot Marciel 1:32:58
I have to say that I'll just speak for the United States, I can't speak for other countries, but for the US my experiences the USA, ID, US assistance, economic assistance, governance assistance is pretty altruistic. And, you know, it's it's grants, it's not loans. And, you know, it's the conditions are not political conditions, ie you've got to vote with us in the UN or things like that, they may be conditioned to make sure that the money spent on what it's supposed to be spent on that kind of, are you not doing major damage to the environment or something when you're implementing it? So in that sense, I think it's pretty altruistic. I mean, the US self interest is the US has an interest in a stable, peaceful and hopefully over time prosperous Myanmar. That's in the US national interest. And that's the basis plus humanitarian interests. That's the basis that you provide assistance, our governments may look at it differently.
Brad 1:34:10
Okay. And that makes sense. And I think that's, that's a sort of hopeful note. To end on that there is at least that possibility of of Myanmar receiving that that friendship and that aid and that support in the reconstruction. Post links such as post conflict may, may be However, before we before we conclude, by tradition, we'll always invite our guests to share some final thoughts with the audience, either specific to what we've discussed here today, or a little bit more broad, but anything that you think the audience should know or should consider and think about. I would like you to share.
Scot Marciel 1:34:44
I think one of the challenges both within me in MMA and for the outside world looking at me in MMA is the challenge facing the country is immense. It was immense. That I can 2012 2013 Because you'd have 50 years of bad military rule where there was no progress made on almost anything. And in many cases, things went backwards, then you begin to make progress. It was, in many ways undermined significantly and up ended by the Rohingya crisis first, and then even more so by this coup. So, I don't want to say that, you know, you're back where you started with, because I think all of you know, a lot of knowledge and gained and so on in the country over the last decade. But the challenge is immense, both because you've got to push this military out of political power, and you have to then try to build a, a new, a new Myanmar, if you will, in terms of system of governance, and it's not going to be easy. And it's not going to be smooth. Under under the best case scenario, it's still going to be very bumpy, two steps forward, one step back. But I think it's, I think there's hope, and the only hope is, again, for the various elements of the pro democracy, pro federalism resistance to win. And then, and so you know, that the focus has to be on trying to trying to achieve that. And then the last point I would make is a little bit specific because it's been on the news a lot lately. You're seeing again, reports of significant violence in Rakhine State affecting the Rohingya community. And some are blaming the mill. I mean, obviously, there's violence between the AAA and the military and a lot of people in Rakhine State are caught up in that. But there seems to be, you know, burning of Rohingya villages military clearly trying to, you know, forcibly recruit Rohingya and in doing so those stoking ethnic rivalries and concerns again, but I think what happens on on visa vie, the RO Hanga, in the coming weeks and months, is going to be significant not only for them as a community, and for Rakhine, but for the willingness of at least some of the international community to be willing to be very supportive. Again, to the extent that it's the military, that's at fault for all of this, then Okay, everybody has already made military enemy number one. But if other players if it turns into more of an ethnic conflict, and I hope it I hope that doesn't happen. Or if it's seen that the Rohingya are being singled out again, by groups beyond the military, then I think that makes things that much harder.
Host 1:37:57
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. As regular listeners are aware, we often remind our audience about our nonprofit mission better Burma at the end of the show. Truth be told, fundraising is hard work. And I can personally attest the fact that it's really no fun to keep asking for contributions. Yet the situation on the ground now in Myanmar is so distressing, that we continue to do so on behalf of the Burmese people. What is most helpful at this time are recurring donations, which help alleviate both the stress and time involved in fundraising. If you are able to pledge a certain amount per month, our team can plan around having at least a consistent minimum amount to work with them each month. If you would like to join in our mission to support those in Myanmar who are being impacted by the military coup, we welcome your contribution in any form, currency or transfer method. Your donation will go on to support a wide range of humanitarian immediate missions, aiding those local communities who need it most. Donations are directed to such causes as the Civil Disobedience movement CDM families of deceased victims, internally displaced person IDP camps, food for impoverished communities, military defection campaigns, undercover journalists, refugee camps, monasteries and nunneries education initiatives, the purchasing of protective equipment and medical supplies COVID relief and more. We also make sure that our donation Fund supports a diverse range of religious and ethnic groups across the country. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about past projects as well as upcoming needs. You can give a general donation or earmark your contribution to a specific activity or project you would like to support. Perhaps even something you heard about in this very episode. All of this humanitarian work is carried out by our nonprofit mission Better Burma. And the donation you give on our Insight Myanmar website is directed towards this fund. Alternatively, you can also visit the Better Burma website betterburma.org and donate directly there. In either case, your donation goes to the same cause in both websites accept credit card you can also give via PayPal by going to paypal.me/betterburma. Additionally, we can take donations through Patreon Venmo, GoFundMe and Cash App. Simply search Better Burma on each platform and you'll find our account. You can also visit either website for specific links to these respective accounts or email us at info@betterburma.org. That's Better Burma. One word, spelled b e t t e r b u r m a.org. If you'd like to give it another way, please contact us. We also invite you to check out our range of handicrafts that are sourced from vulnerable artists and communities across Myanmar. Available at alokacrafts.com Any purchase will not only support these artists and communities, but also our nonprofits wider mission. That's Aloka Crafts spelled A L O K A C R A F T S one word alokacrafts.com Thank you so much for your kind consideration and support.