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To understand how close Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance came to victory last year — and how far it has slipped since — there is no sharper microcosm than the story of a Gen Z sniper. In April 2025, a female teenager, Anina, enraptured the world, her youth-driven “Spring Revolution” a vivid foil to the sclerotic forces of military dictator Min Aung Hlaing (officially called the Tatmadaw). When her unit captured the town of Falam, fortune seemed on the resistance’s side. Yet, a year later, regime troops stormed Anina’s hometown, a stunning blow to the resistance.
Many observers had predicted the junta’s impending collapse between 2023 and 2025, so the reversal ignited a policy debate in Washington over diplomatic recognition. Advocates of engagement, citing prizes like access to rare earth minerals, have found a receptive audience in the Trump administration amid an internal State Department policy review. But whatever the long-term interests at stake, the pressing question driving this debate is whether the Tatmadaw is actually winning on the battlefield, and, if so, is recognition prudent?
A close analysis of the war’s trajectory suggests the answer is more complicated. So long as the Spring Revolution keeps fighting and holds substantial territory, the junta’s recovery — while real — does not signal inevitable victory.
Here, I examine Myanmar’s battlefield dynamics through three key resistance weaknesses: coalitional divisions, arms shortages, and Chinese intervention. These setbacks are damaging but not yet decisive, because the Spring Revolution still shows real resilience. Recent regime gains do not foretell an inevitable junta victory. As a result, the United States should stick to the current approach of backing the resistance while sanctioning the junta.
From 2021 to 2024, Myanmar’s pro-democracy resistance gained momentum through a nationwide insurgency that leveraged innovative drone tactics and high morale to overwhelm a demoralized and overstretched Tatmadaw. However, this progress ground to a halt by 2025 before suddenly reversing amid several developments, including junta conscription and better drone capabilities.
The Tatmadaw’s February 2021 coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government triggered an armed uprising, the Spring Revolution, which soon gained momentum. Local militias (People’s Defense Forces), the shadow National Unity Government, and over half a dozen ethnic armed groups formed a loose alliance professing democratic values. Through the early adoption of drone warfare and guerrilla ambushes, the resistance gradually wore down a demoralized military that was holed up in easily isolated garrisons. Between 2021 and 2023, the rebels wrested half the country from the Tatmadaw’s control. In late 2023, the China-friendly Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed groups launched a surprise assault called Operation 1027, capturing numerous towns and Tatmadaw formations, further accelerating the resistance’s momentum. Even China, angered by the proliferation of cyber scams, seemingly turned against the junta. By the end of 2024, analysts described a military on the brink of collapse amid a morale crisis, rumors of dissension, and manpower challenges.
However, that trajectory reversed in 2025. By then, the junta had acquired an advanced drone fleet and forcibly conscripted tens of thousands of fighters, which provided it more manpower and freed up elite units for offensive operations at a time when the resistance was bogged down in sieges and vulnerable to airstrikes. But the most important factors behind the junta’s recovery were three interrelated resistance weaknesses, which, although present before 2025, became critical beginning in the middle of that year. First, divisions within the resistance coalition hampered strategy-making in the face of nationwide junta assaults. Second, the resistance faced chronic arms and ammunition shortages that weakened its combat power. Third, China, which holds sway over several powerful ethnic armed groups, turned on the resistance by 2024 and used its influence to split and undermine the coalition. Each of these factors is vital for understanding how the Tatmadaw recovered and rolled back the resistance.
Although the resistance is an unprecedentedly diverse coalition, Myanmar’s long history of ethnic and center-periphery conflict has produced deep distrust that limits resistance unity and strategy-making. Some ethnic armed groups remain wary of a victorious Bamar-dominated National Unity Government recreating a top-down, centralized government that marginalizes their autonomy, while the broader Bamar resistance is itself fragmented. Despite organizing efforts, these political divisions have prevented the emergence of a coherent national framework to replace the junta, and, in turn, a unified battlefield strategy.
The Spring Revolution’s disunity matters because battlefield success depends on strategic-level coordination across regions and actors. Throughout the war, the older and more established ethnic armed groups have increasingly integrated with the newer, largely Bamar People’s Defense Forces, in many cases directly training, equipping, cooperating with, and commanding the militia units formed after the coup. However, the ethnic armed groups remain focused on their own respective territories, not striking into the Bamar heartland. As a result, instead of coordinated offensives supporting a nationwide strategy, such as one that the National Unity Government promised — but failed to deliver — in late 2025, individual units frequently conduct disjointed operations at the local level. While a decentralized model was effective earlier in the war by inflicting thousands of loosely coordinated guerrilla-style “cuts,” it is less effective now that the Tatmadaw has greater numbers and can isolate individual regions.
This is exactly what happened starting in mid-2025. With its greater manpower, air force, and artillery, the junta shifted from a defensive posture to a divide-and-conquer strategy aimed at smaller resistance formations. Local forces in states and regions like Chin, Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Mandalay, Magway, Sagaing, and northern Shan have been unable to hold against these counteroffensives, while large-scale diversionary attacks from other theaters have failed to materialize to relieve pressure elsewhere. Although some larger resistance units regularly operate outside their own territory, such as the Arakan Army and Kachin Independence Army, no single entity can command the coalition’s overall military power. Even as the resistance inflicts costs on the junta, the Tatmadaw continues to exploit the absence of coordinated nationwide leadership. In other words, the resistance is fighting several smaller, disconnected conflicts across Myanmar instead of pursuing one unified strategy against the ruling government.
The resistance’s second weakness is material: It has never had a stable arms supply beyond a black-market supply chain under Chinese influence. The resistance’s battlefield success has depended on this supply chain, but when Beijing cracked down on its proxies supplying the pro-democracy resistance, shortages became critical.
Small arms were always scarce, but a complicated supply chain developed by 2021-2022, in addition to some local production capabilities. The neutral (but Beijing-dependent) United Wa State Army acquired arms from China, which it then provided to the Three Brotherhood Alliance, who subsequently passed them along to the People’s Defense Forces. This supply chain allowed local militias in places like Chin State, to mature from their ad hoc formation in 2021 into units capable of complex operations, as seen in the capture of Falam in April 2025.
This fragile arrangement collapsed in mid-2025. Junta conscription drives and a jump-started drone and counter-drone program were important factors, but China’s severing of the resistance’s arms supply chain dealt a decisive blow to resistance combat power. Beijing, in line with its pivot to backing the junta in 2024, began heavily pressuring the United Wa State Army to cease transferring arms to the resistance. Given their dependence on China, they acceded by early 2025, leading to the flow of weapons drying up. Resistance forces, especially the People’s Defense Forces, suddenly lacked the combat capability to stand against junta offensives.
The recapture of Falam in April 2026 illustrates this point. Resistance forces held the town for almost a year before withdrawing after six months of junta artillery, airstrikes, and infantry assaults. Retreating resistance troops cited ammunition shortages as the key variable. Anti-junta forces still contest and control the rural areas surrounding towns and villages, but holding urban centers under these circumstances has become increasingly difficult.
China’s support of the junta is perhaps the most instrumental factor in the civil war because it amplifies the other two. China shifted from its initial hedging approach in 2021 to active support for the junta once it concluded that the National Unity Government was both too pro-American and incapable of preventing Myanmar’s fragmentation. Seeking a pliant puppet to advance its geostrategic interests, Beijing began backing the Tatmadaw decisively in 2024. This shift enabled China to use its considerable economic and political heft to directly shape battlefield dynamics, including pressuring resistance-aligned groups and restricting access to weapons.
China used the levers at its disposal to weaken the resistance coalition by applying pressure on two ethnic armed groups under its influence: the Kokang and the Ta’ang. Beijing in late 2024 and 2025 imposed economic blockades on the two groups, cut off the arms trade via the United Wa State Army, and publicly embraced Min Aung Hlaing as Myanmar’s leader. Chinese pressure forced first a lasting ceasefire with the Kokang and then their surrender of Lashio, a newly captured town astride key trade routes to China. Meanwhile, Myanmar’s military assaulted the Ta’ang National Liberation Army as China continued its pressure tactics, forcing the Ta’ang to slowly withdraw from most of the Operation 1027 gains. By October 2025, the Ta’ang signed a ceasefire under China’s auspices, promising in the deal to hand over yet more towns.
In effect, China shifted from a more passive external actor to an active intervener, seriously weakening resistance operations by the start of 2025. This is why China matters more than the other causes of the junta’s recovery. Coalitional divisions and arms shortages were already a problem for the resistance, but China’s influence forced two of the Three Brotherhood’s members out of the war, thereby stripping the resistance of highly capable forces and isolating nearby People’s Defense Forces who had depended on Kokang and Ta’ang support.
While the resistance’s setbacks are real, they do not yet constitute a strategic defeat, especially as the Spring Revolution shows signs of resilience. Although the Tatmadaw has regained momentum, Myanmar’s resistance in 2026 still controls one-third to one-half of the country and fields viable fighting forces. The major belligerent non-state actors rejected Min Aung Hlaing’s April 2026 proffer of peace negotiations, and many resistance formations dispersed into the countryside rather than face annihilation. People’s Defense Forces have returned to rural-based guerrilla tactics, even slowing more recent junta offensives. The regime also has its share of weaknesses, including severe fuel shortages, economic mismanagement, and alignment with the despised Chinese government, which could galvanize popular opposition within Myanmar. As of June 2026, the conflict is best understood as entering a new stalemate phase wherein neither side has achieved decisive advantage.
Importantly, the resistance has been resilient, demonstrated by its effort to resolve coalitional divisions. The National Unity Government and four of the most closely aligned ethnic armed groups — the Chin National Front, Kachin Independence Army, Karen National Union, and the Karenni National Progressive Party — announced in March 2026 a Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union. This body prioritizes developing a nationwide military strategy first and then resolving thornier center-versus-periphery political questions, while also engaging international actors as a collective body. The Kachin Independence Army’s participation is a significant political step given its previous unwillingness to publicly align with the National Unity Government on account of Chinese pressure. Meanwhile, the most powerful actively fighting non-state actor in Myanmar, the Arakan Army, although long critical of the National Unity Government, increasingly operates alongside it. Relatedly, 19 other groups separately coalesced as the Spring Revolution Alliance and engaged in coordination talks with the National Unity Government. To be sure, past unity efforts like the National Unity Consultative Council did not resolve the coalition’s political divisions, but the resistance is making concerted progress.
Regarding arms shortages and the China factor, some progress is also evident. As the resistance has no reliable provider of small arms at scale, returning to the guerrilla tactics that wore down the junta from 2021 to 2023, while conserving and rebuilding munitions stockpiles, has shown some success in inflicting casualties on the junta. Going forward, directly attacking the junta’s munitions factories to disrupt its supply and capture more weapons will be necessary to mitigate the arms issue.
Regarding China, as the Kachin have recently shown, one of the only viable means of countering Chinese pressure is to gain control over rare earth mines and Belt and Road Initiative projects. Importantly, although Beijing forced the Kokang and Ta’ang out of the war, they have failed to do so with the Arakan Army or the Kachin, suggesting that China has limited leverage over groups based further from the international border. Over the long term, given China’s violations of Myanmar’s sovereignty, the resistance could benefit from more assertively portraying itself as the defender of Myanmar against Beijing, rather than trying to win it over.
Myanmar’s nationwide civil war remains unresolved despite the junta’s recent gains. Rather than signaling an end to the conflict, current trends point to a prolonged stalemate. Over the long term, it is conceivable that the resistance can reconsolidate to address or mitigate its three weaknesses: coalitional divisions, arms shortages, and Chinese pressure. As such, policy shifts predicated on the assumption that the junta is close to victory are premature.
Therefore, despite the junta’s apparent momentum, the Trump administration should refrain from formally recognizing Min Aung Hlaing’s regime, because recognition is more than a symbolic gesture. Instead, recognition would impart diplomatic legitimacy and begin the process of relaxing U.S. sanctions, potentially providing billions in denied revenue. Making such a shift during an unresolved conflict would reinforce a pro-China regime likely to advance Beijing’s geopolitical goals in Southeast Asia, while alienating the still viable anti-junta movement.
Instead, the Trump administration should maintain the current U.S. policy of denying the military government legitimacy and applying pressure until it concedes to good faith negotiations with the resistance. This option also aligns with U.S. political realities, as current policy remains relatively low-cost and bipartisan-supported. U.S. sanctions implemented by the Treasury Department require little effort as they sap junta revenue. A growing number of policymakers have called for additional sanctions on the Tatmadaw while appropriating $121 million for humanitarian aid and governance assistance for the resistance. While U.S. efforts may not swing the conflict decisively in the resistance’s favor, maintaining the status quo denies the regime international legitimacy and critical revenue amid an ongoing war whose outcome is uncertain.
So long as the Spring Revolution remains in the field and holds substantial territory, prematurely discounting the resistance and treating the junta as the foregone victor, warranting diplomatic engagement would misread Myanmar’s still-contested internal balance of power.
Lucas Myers is the assistant director of the Program on China and the United States at the University of Maryland and a non-resident visiting scholar at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University.
Image: Russia Ministry of Defence via Wikimedia Commons
