Author: pstaniland

Good David Mathieson piece on the military’s collapse in northern Myanmar:

“In a season of stunning military victories for Myanmar’s anti-military revolutionary forces, the capture of the Northern Shan State city of Lashio and the headquarters of the North-East Command is arguably the most significant. Troops of the ethnic Kokang Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and smaller ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) entered the city several days ago and claimed to have captured the command base and most of the city. It was another remarkable gain from the late-June resumption of Operation 1027 by the Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BA) of the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. . . .

The military regime, the State Administration Council (SAC), has suffered a string of major military defeats over the past month. One of the other members of the 3BA, the Ta-ang National Liberation (TNLA), has also captured the major gem mining town of Mogok, and in recent days nearby Mong Mit in Shan State. These gains effectively render all of Northern Shan State under the occupation of the anti-SAC resistance. Southwest of Mogok, the 3BA allies the Mandalay People’s Defense Force have attacked military bases in Madaya Township fewer than 60 km from the major city of Mandalay. The fall of Lashio is a major development, but must be cast in the broader context of a collapsing military in multiple locations around Myanmar. . . .

The fighting has had a devastating impact on the civilian population. Tens of thousands of residents fled the city as the siege intensified, with traffic jams on roads headed to Mandalay and to the Shan state capital of Taunngyi. This adds to the large number of internally displaced persons in the north, and will exacerbate an already dire economic situation of scarce consumer goods and hyper-inflation of rice and fuel. The SAC is also using punitive airstrikes, artillery, and UAV ‘drop bomb’ strikes on civilian targets captured by the Brotherhood. There has already been considerable damage to many towns and infrastructure, and it’s not yet clear if Lashio will be spared or pulverized. The presence of Wa troops may well be a signal to the SAC to refrain from retaliatory strikes.

There is speculation that the 3BA will be reined in by China, who brokered a ‘peace deal’ called the Haigeng Agreement back in January and have reportedly summoned the group’s leaders and SAC representatives to meet in Kunming in the coming days. The MNDAA claimed to have paused fighting at one point in July as the Chinese Communist Party Third Plenary session was held in Beijing, but there was little evidence of this. Perspectives of Operation 1027 may have to revisit assumptions of Chinese influence and intent and the questionable assertion that Chinese policy is pro-SAC. If Beijing was displeased with the renewed fighting they appear to have little assertive power over the regime or the resistance. The realpolitik for China is that it will be compelled to deal with multiple revolutionary forces in this strategic trade corridor from the border to Mandalay, as the SAC collapses in the north.”

Aidan Milliff and I have been working for years on a project about Indian public opinion toward foreign policy (hopefully someday coming to a scholarly outlet near you!), and part of it involves going through decades worth of historical surveys done by the Indian Institute for Public Opinion.

This is an interesting IIOPO survey on Indian views of the government’s policy toward the 1967 crisis/war in the Middle East in July 1967 among respondents in four metros (Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai), broken down by expressed voting intention. While in most of our work we are not seeing consistent partisan differences in foreign policy views (i.e. in views of the US or USSR/Russia), this is one in which we do see some differences between parties and general ideological inclinations (i.e. compare Swatantra and Jan Sangh to Congress and especially Communists).

A sobering overview by Shoona Loong at IISS (the link also includes valuable maps, part of IISS’s excellent mapping of the conflict):

“In the post-coup context, the SAC’s counter-insurgency campaigns against People’s Defence Forces (PDFs) have differed from its campaigns against ethnic armed organisations (EAOs). In the central Dry Zone, a predominantly Bamar-Buddhist area where PDFs largely fend for themselves in battle, SAC foot soldiers have intensively targeted the civilian population through a mass campaign of arson. In the borderlands where more powerful EAOs operate, the SAC’s use of arson is more limited. Instead, communities in EAO areas face other forms of collective punishment, such as blockades and indiscriminate shelling. . . .

The burning of homes and civilian infrastructure has contributed to soaring rates of internal displacement in areas far from Myanmar’s external borders. These arson campaigns are concentrated in the Dry Zone, particularly Sagaing region. In the first two years after the coup, Data for Myanmar reported that nearly 80% of the 55,000 homes that had burned down were in Sagaing. The UNOCHA reported no displacement in Sagaing before the coup; now, estimates of the number of internally displaced people there range from one million to over two million, more than in any other state or region. . . .

the humanitarian crisis in the Dry Zone can be understood not as an after-effect of the conflict but as part of the regime’s strategy of draining PDFs of civilian support by breaking their will to resist. Although over the years the military has wielded this strategy — inaugurated six decades ago as the ‘four cuts’ counterinsurgency doctrine — against legion enemies, it has found its clearest and most brutal expression in the Dry Zone since the coup. . . .

The Institute of Strategy and Policy — Myanmar (ISP) reported in late 2023 that more than one million refugees had fled from Myanmar since the coup. Adding to this the number of people who have left Myanmar because of the political and economic instability caused by years of fighting, the total could be several times higher. . . .

The coup has left nearly one million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, most of whom fled before 2021, with no good options. On one hand, the conflict in Myanmar has eliminated the possibility of return and citizenship for Rohingya in the short term, especially since the military that expelled Rohingya from Rakhine seven years ago is now in power. On the other hand, the scale of displacement across this border, and Dhaka’s unwillingness to integrate refugees into the local population, has resulted in Rohingya refugees facing intense overcrowding and spiralling violence in the camps.”

“Blowtorch Bob” Komer is well known for his work – and writing about – internal security and pacification in South Vietnam in the mid/late-1960s (his book Bureaucracy Does Its Thing is a classic). But he was on the NSC doing other stuff in the early 1960s, including providing background on India-Nepal relations here in 1962 (from the JFK presidential papers). The context is that King Mahendra took power from an elected government, whose party the Indians were then supporting as exiles, about which Mahendra was angry. After the India-China war later in 1962, the Indians shut down active raids across the border, but this was just prior when tensions were high.

Here is his standardly-caustic take on the situation: Mahendra is “another little King whose tough-mindedness exceeds his common sense” who is “playing footsie with the Chinese” while “our people. . . think Indian policy pretty footless and have counseled moderation, but you know Indians.” Easy to see how he got his nickname.

Amusing little paragraph from a summary of the September 22, 1960 meeting between Eisenhower, Nepali PM BP Koirala, and the Nepali ambassador to the US:

“The Prime Minister said that Nepal was an interesting country and he hoped it would be possible for the President to visit Nepal someday. The President replied that so far as hunting was concerned, he did not like to kill anything larger than birds. The Nepalese Ambassador intervened at this point to say: “But we have birds, too!” The Prime Minister implied that there was more than hunting to be done in Nepal.”