The Impasse of a Garrison State
Among the cruel ironies of Myanmar’s civil war, now grinding through its sixth year, is that for an army struggling to conscript sufficient soldiers, the military junta has repeatedly bombed its own troops held as prisoners of war. In this garrison state, everything appears expendable to keep the military and its civilian front government in power. Following widely discredited elections held in late 2025, the conflict has settled into a strategic stalemate where neither the State Administration Council (SAC) nor the disparate coalition of anti-junta forces can deliver a decisive blow.
The statistics paint a picture of fragmentation rather than liberation. According to recent assessments, the military controls merely 21 percent of Myanmar’s territory, while rebel forces and ethnic armies hold 42 percent. Yet this territorial advantage masks a brutal reality. The junta retains control of most major cities, including the economic hub of Yangon and the political capital Naypyidaw, while resistance forces dominate vast rural expanses and border regions. More than 90,000 people have been killed since the February 2021 coup, with over three million displaced from their homes.
The civil war began when the armed forces staged a coup against the elected civilian government headed by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The army claimed, without evidence, irregularities in the 2020 elections. For the military, allowing competitive elections had been intended as window dressing while it pursued business as usual. It did not anticipate a genuine challenge to its deeply embedded role in the state, constitutionally reserved to remove civilian governments at will.
Operation 1027 and the Shifting Tide
The battlefield dynamics underwent a dramatic shift in late October 2023 when the Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BTA), composed of the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), launched Operation 1027. This coordinated offensive in Shan State captured significant territory bordering China, seized over 180 military outposts within weeks, and triggered cascading attacks across the country by other resistance groups.
The offensive represented the most serious challenge to military rule since the coup. Equipped with advanced weapons including drones acquired on foreign markets, the 3BTA forces demonstrated unprecedented coordination. Their success inspired the National Unity Government’s People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) and other ethnic armed organizations to launch synchronized campaigns, temporarily shifting the momentum of the war.
However, the victory proved partial and reversible. China, initially offering tacit approval due to frustration with cyber-scam operations targeting Chinese nationals along the border, soon moved to restore equilibrium. By early 2025, Beijing had brokered ceasefires and pressured the MNDAA to return control of the strategic city of Lashio to the junta, demonstrating the limits of ethnic resistance without sustained great-power support.
Recent months have seen the junta mount limited comebacks. Using relentless air strikes with Chinese and Russian-supplied aircraft, combined with new drone capabilities and waves of conscripted infantry, the military has retaken several towns including Kyaukme, Hsipaw, and Nawnghkio in northern Shan State. These reversals illustrate that while the junta cannot reconquer the entire country, it retains sufficient firepower to prevent collapse.
Beijing’s Calculated Gamble
China’s role has become the pivotal variable in Myanmar’s conflict, though Beijing’s influence is neither absolute nor unidirectional. Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi recently pledged $3 billion in assistance to the junta, including earmarked funds for a census and elections intended to provide the military with a political offramp. President Xi Jinping has met with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, with Chinese state media referring to the general as Myanmar’s “acting president,” a significant upgrade from earlier diplomatic treatment.
Yet China simultaneously maintains relationships with ethnic armed groups along its border, creating a complex principal-agent dynamic where Beijing supports both sides to ensure neither achieves total victory. The United Wa State Army (UWSA), Beijing’s strongest ally among ethnic groups, receives Chinese weapons and transfers them to various armed groups, including anti-junta forces. This hedging strategy aims to maintain a buffer zone of influence while preventing either complete junta collapse or unified democratic victory.
China’s intervention has proven decisive in specific moments. When the Three Brotherhood Alliance seized border trade routes that accounted for over $1.8 billion in cross-border commerce, Beijing cut electricity and internet service to pressure compliance. The Chinese government has also blocked dual-use technology exports to opposition groups while supplying the junta with jet trainers, unmanned aerial vehicles, and technical assistance for drone production.
“China opposes chaos and war in Myanmar,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated in August 2025, summarizing Beijing’s primary concern. “Beijing’s policy is no state collapse.”
This policy reflects China’s fear of a Syria-style meltdown on its southwestern border, which could disrupt the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and Belt and Road investments. Beijing views the military as the only force capable of holding the multi-ethnic country together, despite its unease with the 2021 coup and its destructive consequences.
The Evolution of Modern Warfare
The conflict has evolved into a technological race dominated by unmanned systems. Both sides now employ drones extensively, though the junta maintains superiority in manned aircraft and heavy artillery. The Myanmar Air Force has received FTC-2000G jet trainers from China and continues to operate Russian-supplied platforms, conducting an average of nearly 300 air attacks monthly by late 2024.
Resistance forces initially gained advantage through commercial drones retrofitted for military use, dropping 25,000 munitions during Operation 1027 alone. These cost-effective platforms enabled precision strikes and swarm tactics against isolated outposts. However, the junta has rapidly adapted, establishing dedicated drone units and importing kamikaze drones from China, Russia, and Iran.
The military has compensated for manpower shortages through forced conscription implemented in February 2024. Approximately 60,000 to 80,000 conscripts have entered service, often deployed with minimal training in “human wave” maneuvers to overwhelm rebel defenses. Three rebel fighters confirmed witnessing these tactics in central Myanmar, describing how replacement soldiers advanced immediately after casualties, sometimes under threat from their own officers.
As Maj. Naung Yoe, a military defector who researches the conflict, explained, the junta replaced officers promoted through favoritism with more experienced commanders following the shock of Operation 1027. This personnel shakeup, combined with conscription and drone acquisition, has enabled the military to stabilize its position despite continued territorial losses in peripheral regions.
The Humanitarian Catastrophe
Beyond the territorial maneuvering lies a deepening humanitarian crisis. The United Nations reports that 3.6 million people remain displaced, with more than 500,000 newly displaced since October 2023 alone. As fighting moves closer to major cities like Mandalay, humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels in a country where the UN response plan is the least well-funded globally, operating at less than 30 percent of required financing.
The junta has long restricted access for international aid groups, employing legislation that limits how and to whom assistance can be provided. When resistance groups capture territory, the military often responds with blockades or indiscriminate air strikes targeting schools, hospitals, and displacement camps. In November 2024, an air strike on a village in Chin state killed 11 civilians, including eight children.
Local aid organizations have stepped into the breach, providing assistance within affected communities where international NGOs cannot operate effectively. However, these groups face severe resource constraints and bureaucratic obstacles, including requirements from the National Unity Government to seek prior permission before entering controlled areas.
“We’re trying to empty a pool with a spoon and the water keeps coming,” said one international aid worker operating in Myanmar under conditions of anonymity.
Thomas Kean, senior consultant on Myanmar for the International Crisis Group, warned that the new phase of conflict would have “a devastating impact” for civilians caught in the crossfire, with desperate regimes resorting to “booby traps and sinister stuff like that happening, retaliation, hit squads.”
Political Dead Ends and Fragmentation
The political dimension of the conflict has reached an impasse mirroring the military situation. The junta’s planned elections, conducted in stages through late 2025, have been widely condemned as neither free nor fair. The National League for Democracy has been forcibly dissolved, and Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention, rendering the polls a mechanism for legitimizing continued military rule through civilian proxies.
Overseas Myanmar communities have largely boycotted the voting process. In South Korea and Thailand, home to millions of Myanmar migrant workers, regime authorities reportedly forced passport renewal applicants to fill out voting forms and called people by phone urging participation. Activists organized boycotts, with most migrants refusing to participate in what they viewed as a sham process.
The National Unity Government, formed by ousted lawmakers, has failed to unify the resistance movement. Despite claiming 85,000 fighters under various PDF formations, the NUG lacks command and control over the ethnic armed organizations that hold the most territory and weapons. Powerful groups like the Arakan Army and United Wa State Army maintain distinct agendas, often prioritizing local territorial gains over national democratic revolution.
Recent ceasefires brokered by China have further eroded trust between ethnic armed organizations and the broader PDF movement. When the MNDAA struck a deal with the junta to return Lashio in exchange for recognition of its control over Kokang, it violated the collective bargaining principle established by the Three Brotherhood Alliance. This behavior suggests that ethnic groups may prioritize securing their own autonomous regions over national regime change.
The Risk of Permanent Balkanization
Analysts increasingly warn that Myanmar faces permanent fragmentation rather than unified victory for either side. The International Institute for Strategic Studies describes the conflict as a “war to nowhere,” where protracted violence deepens divisions and closes paths toward peace. Three scenarios dominate strategic planning: continued protracted violence, partial non-inclusive ceasefires that stabilize some regions while escalating conflict elsewhere, or simultaneous inclusive ceasefires that remain politically improbable given current disunity.
The resistance itself has fractured along ethnic and ideological lines. The Arakan Army controls most of Rakhine State and seeks confederal rather than federal arrangements, while engaging in repressive policies against the Rohingya that risk stoking new insurgencies. The TNLA and MNDAA have clashed with other ethnic groups over territorial control and resource extraction. In central Myanmar, what began as a democratic struggle increasingly resembles warlordism as PDF units finance themselves through local taxation and criminal activities.
Geopolitical shifts have reinforced these fragmentary trends. The return of Donald Trump to the US presidency in 2025 signaled diminished American interest in democratic norms abroad, while Russia’s continued support provides the junta with diplomatic cover and military hardware. ASEAN has proven unable to develop an effective unanimous position, with the Philippines currently chairing discussions but lacking leverage to force concessions from Naypyidaw.
David Mathieson, an independent analyst following Myanmar affairs, noted that “ASEAN cannot react with umbrage if China is making more ‘progress’ than the regional body; their regional efforts have been fruitless.” This dynamic leaves the conflict frozen in a state where the junta cannot win, but the resistance cannot govern.
Key Points
- The Myanmar civil war has reached a strategic stalemate after six years, with the junta controlling 21 percent of territory and resistance forces holding 42 percent, yet neither side able to deliver a decisive blow.
- Operation 1027 in October 2023 marked a high point for anti-junta forces, but Chinese diplomatic intervention has since forced partial reversals including the return of strategic Lashio city to junta control.
- China plays a pivotal double role, providing $3 billion to the junta and brokering ceasefires while historically arming ethnic groups via the United Wa State Army, pursuing a hedging strategy to prevent total state collapse.
- The military has adapted through forced conscription of 60,000 to 80,000 troops, “human wave” infantry tactics, and expanded drone warfare capabilities supplied by Beijing and Moscow.
- Humanitarian conditions have deteriorated drastically with 3.6 million displaced and severely restricted international aid access, creating what aid workers describe as an emptying pool with a spoon scenario.
- Planned 2025 elections have been boycotted by overseas voters and opposition groups, failing to provide the junta with international legitimacy while exposing the fragmentation of anti-junta forces.
- Analysts warn of permanent Balkanization as ethnic armed organizations prioritize local control over national unity, potentially creating autonomous statelets dependent on neighboring countries rather than a unified federal democracy.
