Myanmar’s army controls less than one-fifth of the country but the civil war is at a stalemate
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Among the cruel ironies of the Myanmar civil war, now in its sixth year, is that for an army that is struggling to conscript soldiers, the Myanmar junta has repeatedly bombed its own troops held as prisoners of war.
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In this garrison state, it appears everything may be sacrificed to keep the military and its civilian front government – recently installed following widely discredited elections – in power.
There has been some impressive progress by the National Unity Government’s People’s Defence Force and allied ethnic armies against the military’s front organisation, the Union Solidarity and Development Party.
But after so many years, the Myanmar civil war is now at stalemate.
How did we get here?
The civil war began in February 2021 when the armed forces staged a coup against the elected civilian government headed by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The civilian-led government had been elected in 2015, following more than five decades of military rule.
The army claimed (without evidence) there were irregularities in the 2020 elections and staged a coup months later.
For the army, allowing competitive elections in 2020 was intended as window dressing while it pursued business as usual.
It didn’t expect a genuine challenge to its deeply embedded role in the state. It had constitutionally reserved to itself the right to remove the civilian...