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Taking Stock of the Resistance in Myanmar

July 2, 2025
Taking Stock of the Resistance in Myanmar
Taking Stock of the Resistance in Myanmar

Taking Stock of the Resistance in Myanmar

Ye Myo Hein and Lucas Myers
July 2, 2025
In their 2022 article, “A More United, Better-Armed Opposition Can Bring Democracy to Myanmar,” Ye Myo Hein and Lucas Myers argued the piecemeal resistance in Myanmar had several opportunities to improve and make substantive gains against the military junta controlling the country. Three years on, we asked them to revisit their analysis in light of events on the ground.In your 2022 article, “A More United, Better-Armed Opposition Can Bring Democracy to Myanmar,” you argued that the disparate, fractured resistance in Myanmar could make progress in its civil war against the military junta controlling the country if it were better armed and more united. Nearly three years after your article, how would you assess the National Unity Government’s progress in building the political coalition with ethnic armed organizations that you identified as crucial? Have the fundamental trust issues between Bamar-dominated pro-democracy forces and other ethnic groups been resolved, or do they remain a primary obstacle?Since 2022, the pro-democracy resistance has proven remarkably successful in challenging the junta on the battlefield, precisely because it is now better unified than it was at that time. Starting in late 2023, the Three Brotherhood Alliance — comprising the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army — entered the war and proved to be a crucial element for the resistance movement to begin seizing towns and large swathes of territory from junta control. The junta now controls less than 50 percent of the country, and resistance forces have liberated most of Myanmar’s borders in Rakhine, Chin, Kachin, northern Shan, Kayah, and Kayin States.However, true political unity as reflected in a postwar political framework for what an inclusive, federal Myanmar would look like remains elusive. Much of the inter-ethnic cooperation is fundamentally centered around opposing the junta’s rule — with what comes

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In their 2022 article, “A More United, Better-Armed Opposition Can Bring Democracy to Myanmar,” Ye Myo Hein and Lucas Myers argued the piecemeal resistance in Myanmar had several opportunities to improve and make substantive gains against the military junta controlling the country. Three years on, we asked them to revisit their analysis in light of events on the ground.In your 2022 article, “A More United, Better-Armed Opposition Can Bring Democracy to Myanmar,” you argued that the disparate, fractured resistance in Myanmar could make progress in its civil war against the military junta controlling the country if it were better armed

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