Will 2024 Be the Junta’s End in Myanmar?

The opposition forces in Myanmar have made notable gains throughout the country in recent years, particularly in areas controlled by ethnic armed organizations. It has also made progress in some areas filled with fighters from the People’s Defense Forces, created after the 2021 coup by people, including many ethnic Burmans, who turned to armed resistance. As I have noted before, the junta faces a range of serious problems, including declining morale, defections, a failure to recruit enough people to keep the army’s size stable, terrible conditions for soldiers, and a loss of some armed support from its major patron, Russia, among others.

The rest of this year is now shaping up to be critical for both the junta and the opposition forces, who have generally maintained their alliance. And unlike prior situations in Myanmar, the opposition forces have called for a change in Myanmar’s post-junta politics that would potentially mean genuine federalism in a country that cannot succeed without political decentralization, which it has never truly enjoyed. The opposition forces, already strong in many areas and having won battles at major army outposts and briefly taken the key border town of Myawaddy, next to Thailand, will likely now try to strike hard to take back Myawaddy. It will also, importantly, try to take the battle to the junta in central Myanmar, in the kinds of areas, like Mandalay, where the junta still has significant forces and which are the heart of ethnic Burman Myanmar. There are several other locales, like the Mandalay area, where the opposition could strike and, if successful, demonstrate that the military cannot even control central Myanmar, shrinking the junta’s grasp to Naypyidaw and a handful of other sites.

If the opposition is successful in this attempt, it might finally convince other Southeast and South Asian countries, some of whom are beginning to show signs they think the junta cannot survive, that the junta indeed will not win. Such a scenario might prod a more aggressive intervention in the situation from either critical Southeast Asian states or China, which is increasingly frustrated with the junta’s failures and has had extensive contacts with opposition forces, particularly those near China’s border. China is already pushing several major ethnic armed organizations to come to a ceasefire, at least for now,  with the military.

However, in the long term, if the opposition wins, they are unlikely to agree to a permanent ceasefire, potentially creating a situation where China, a realist regarding Myanmar, would intervene differently. Such an intervention might prompt some end game in which a framework is developed for transition to opposition forces. At the same time, the remaining junta members avoid significant punishment. Still, the military is removed from its central role in power—perhaps not what the opposition ideally wants, but a compromise it might be willing to take.

There is also the possibility that significant opposition campaigns in the Myanmar heartland, if successful, will drive a wedge in the junta and lead to fractures that cause it to fail. However, senior Myanmar military leaders seem to be grimly holding on to this point. And if the opposition continues to make gains, leading democracies, while shy of intervening with arms so close to China, may make more of a concerted effort to support the opposition with non-lethal aid and other types of supplies.

However, the military will be looking to push back during the rest of the year as well to show that it cannot be dislodged from its strongholds at least to take back Myawaddy and to ensure that, at the very least, the country remains in a state of chaos with opposition and military forces controlling different areas. (This is, of course, a recipe for a long-term conflict and a failed state, which would make average Myanmar citizens even worse off than they are now, but the junta cares little about that.)

Suppose the military, with its advantage in aerial and heavy weaponry, can protect its strongholds and even take back some areas. In that case, it might be able to keep the state of long-term conflict or push China to try to broker some deal in which the military maintains an actual degree of power in a future Myanmar. However, it is difficult to imagine the opposition, having spent so much blood, agreeing to that. Further, when many other major conflicts are happening worldwide, a continued stalemate would probably lead democracies, including the United States, to pay even less attention to Myanmar than it does now—which is not a lot anyway.