How Myanmar’s Civil War Could Actually End

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The end may not be near, but the end is clear—according to those who have kept a close eye on Myanmar’s ongoing civil war, since a military coup toppled its civilian government in 2021. While the fighting between the junta and armed resistance groups was locked in a stalemate for the first two years of the conflict, observers note that the third year has seen the military on the back foot.

The protracted conflict has been estimated to have killed over 50,000 people and displaced around three million. But while much of the violence since the 2021 coup has been marked by a sense of intractability, and global attention has been overshadowed by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, a series of resistance victories in the past year have rattled the Myanmar junta’s once ironclad grip on power, marking what seems to be a turning point.

One of the numerous camps scattered all over the region

“The end of the war is clear-cut. The only thing that is not clear is the means by which it’s achieved and the timing,” Chris Sidoti, an international human rights consultant and a founding member of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), tells TIME. “One way or another, at some point the military will collapse.”

TIME spoke to eight experts, all of whom painted a similar picture of where the conflict stands—and where it may go from here. Here’s what to know:

Feb. 2021

The Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, stages a coup to overthrow the civilian government—on the same day the parliament is set to swear in the winners of the 2020 election, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won by a landslide. As the military accuses the party of election fraud and promises to hold new elections, power is transferred to military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, and the country is declared to be in a year-long state of emergency.

This is met with international condemnation and pro-democracy protests across the country, and the junta in turn responds with a brutal crackdown. (As people took to the streets, more than 500 are killed within two months of the coup.) Thousands of civil servants go on strike as part of a nationwide civil disobedience movement. The junta doubles down on its campaign of intimidation by killing civilians, burning villages in resistance strongholds across the country, and forcibly disappearing hundreds of its critics.

April 2021

A coalition of ousted lawmakers, protest leaders, and ethnic minorities form the National Unity Government, which aims to end military rule, restore democracy, and establish a federal system.

May 2021

The NUG announces its armed wing, the People’s Defence Force (PDF), and calls for a “people’s defensive war” against the junta across the country—a call that’s backed by ethnic armies, which have for decades fought against the military for self-determination in their home states.

August 2021

Min Aung Hlaing names himself the Prime Minister, announces a potential extension to the state of emergency, and repeats his pledge to hold elections.

2022

Resistance forces become more united, with many PDF units and ethnic armies forming partnerships to launch joint attacks against junta troops.

Oct. 27, 2023

The Three Brotherhood Alliance, a coalition of ethnic armies, launches Operation 1027 in northern Shan state, seizing control of key areas from the military, marking a key victory for the resistance and a turning point in the war.

January 2024

China brokers a ceasefire between the junta and the Three Brotherhood Alliance during negotiations held in the Chinese city of Kunming. While China has refrained from openly criticizing Min Aung Hlaing’s regime, it has also balanced unofficial relationships with ethnic armed groups in a bid to safeguard trade and security along its border with Myanmar.

February 2024

In what’s widely seen as a sign of desperation, the junta announces mandatory conscription for all men between 18 and 35 years old and all women between 18 and 27. This sparks panic among young people, many of whom swarm passport offices and embassies in effort to leave the country, while others opt to join the resistance and take up arms against the junta.

April 2024

Myawaddy, a border township in the southeastern Kayin state and a strategically important trading hub with Thailand, finds itself at the center of offensives launched by resistance forces and the junta—amid a series of resistance victories.

June 2024

The Three Brotherhood Alliance launches the second phase of Operation 1027 in northern Shan State and Mandalay, after accusing the junta of violating the terms of the China-brokered ceasefire by bombing ethnic militia territory.

September 2024

The embattled military proposes a peace agreement with the resistance, urging them to “solve political problems politically,” but it is widely snubbed by the NUG and ethnic armies who want the junta held accountable for their brutality and barred from politics.

The disintegration of the junta seems to be well underway, as it faces pressure on all fronts—from rumors of internal strife to territorial losses to fallout from the ongoing humanitarian crisis across the country.

The Tatmadaw may be the most powerful institution in Myanmar and has ruled the country for many of the years since its independence—by decree, political maneuvering, and constitutional provisions—but the military leadership, analysts say, has a history of botching things. After the military seized power in a coup in 1962, Myanmar became internationally isolated, its economy floundered, and insurgencies grew—which ultimately resulted in the resignation of military leader Ne Win in 1988.

“The military has always been totally incompetent,” says Sidoti from the SAC-M. “They destroyed the economy. They have left Myanmar politically infantile. They have exacerbated internal conflicts, and they have not won a single war against any of the ethnic armies with which they have been fighting for 65 or 70 years.”

Indeed, the junta has been steadily losing ground, especially in the north. In the northeastern town of Laukkai, near the Chinese border, nearly 2,500 junta soldiers surrendered in January to the Three Brotherhood Alliance after weeks of fighting; the junta lost its first regional command base when its headquarters in Lashio fell to the resistance in August; and counter offensives launched by the junta this year to wrest back control of lost territories have struggled to make inroads.

A Member of Karenni Resistance Force scouts the movement of

Compared to the resistance forces fighting for self-determination and control over their home region, the junta troops, who increasingly include civilians who were forcibly conscripted to support the war effort, are from the outset less motivated to fight. “I think the resistance has a good chance of winning if they keep up the pressure, because the morale is very different for the resistance. The fighting spirit is strong,” says Mike, a member of the anonymous Myanmar Film Collective, which documents and protests the aftermath of the 2021 coup through film. “[The] junta’s side, they don’t even know what they’re fighting for.”

A key battle lies in the junta strongholds of Mandalay, located west of Lashio, where ethnic groups from the Brotherhood Alliance forces are pushing in. “They’re on the cusp of losing Mandalay, and if they do, then that’s going to be a huge blow to the entire military morale,” says Yanghee Lee, another member of the SAC-M and a former U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.

The junta has also lost control over critical infrastructure. While it still maintains predominant control over airspace, large swathes of the country’s townships that share land borders with China, Thailand, and India are now controlled by the resistance. A SAC-M report in May determined that the junta “does not control enough of the territory of Myanmar to uphold the core duties of the state,” having lost authority in townships spanning over 80% of the country’s territory, which houses nearly 70% of its population. The NUG runs a network of education and healthcare services in resistance-controlled areas, staffed with personnel who refuse to work under the military government. And despite the junta’s tight grip over the internet, people have found ways to bypass censors.

Perhaps most crucially, the economic pressure of the protracted conflict is building: Half the population is in poverty, inflation is soaring, and one in four people are plagued by food insecurity. And since the coup, Myanmar has become the subject of international sanctions designed to punish members of the junta and curb the flow of weapons into the country.

Such mounting economic troubles may compel the junta to change course. “But one thing we have to remember is the sanctions, of course, affect everyone,” says Amara Thiha, a doctoral researcher of Myanmar politics at Peace Research Institute Oslo. “So economic pressure may [bring the junta to] the table for certain forms of changes, but at what cost? The cost of millions of people.”

The collapse of social and economic order in Myanmar is watched carefully by its neighbors, fearful that instability will spill over. (Immigration and drugs—trafficked to fund rebel weapon purchases—have already surged along the Thai border.) And China, which is mostly concerned about the economic fallout of the Myanmar conflict, has been exerting influence over Myanmar’s ethnic armies while appearing to be running out of patience with the junta, with which it maintains high-level diplomatic engagements.

So how will this end?

The resistance may be making important gains, but it doesn’t mean that defeating the junta will be a walk in the park. Despite a grim outlook for victory, the junta has refused to concede in conflict zones. (In Lashio, where resistance forces have made major advances, the military has resorted to regular, indiscriminate aerial bombardment to destroy the city.) Its desperate conscription drive also has the power to prolong its capacity to fight. And on the other side, ethnic armed groups are unlikely to extend their support outside of their territories and to fight the junta in their strongholds.

“Ethnic armed groups are still not going to be fighting outside their ethnic territories primarily,” says Thomas Kean, analyst on Myanmar at International Crisis Group. “Ultimately, it will be up to PDFs and resistance forces to take the fight to the military in lowland areas, and I think they just don’t have the resources to match the military. That’s going to be a really hard struggle, so I think the military will be able to hold on in those areas.”

Already, the military has been retreating to its strongholds in urban central Myanmar, including Yangon and Naypyidaw. This could result in a scenario where the military retains control over a rump state—a remnant of a once larger territory—while the rest of the country is divided into various ethnic army-controlled regions.

Soldiers from the Karenni Nationalities Defence Force (KNDF

Another scenario could see the junta completely removed from power, though there are different ways that could come about—whether by complete military defeat and surrender, or more likely, through internal power struggle and external negotiations to cede power.

“It may be that they fight to the bitter end,” says Sidoti. “It may be that there is an internal implosion long before the war is finished and the military recognizes and accepts the inevitable.”

Resentment is building within the ranks of the junta against Min Aung Hlaing, who is said to be having trouble finding people he can trust. Min Aung Hlaing has reshuffled his cabinet four times in three years—including the defense and home affairs ministries—repeatedly extended emergency rule, and battled rumors of an internal coup.

In a sign of desperation, the junta offered an unprecedented olive branch in September, urging resistance groups to participate in elections next year and “solve political problems politically.” That ceasefire proposal was rejected by both the NUG and ethnic armed groups, who have made clear their desire for the military to have no role in politics. The elections promised by the junta, slated for 2025, have also been denounced both domestically and internationally as a sham that would grant the junta the guise of legitimacy but offer little actual democracy.

What experts agree on is that the junta’s leadership turmoil, along with steady defections on the ground, spell impending collapse one way or another. But that won’t be the end of the story just yet.

Even when the junta falls, experts warn that democracy—and even stability—in Myanmar will be far from guaranteed.

“On the resistance side, we see all these different groups having a hard time governing territories that they control. They’re very good at fighting against the military, but governance requires a different skillset,” says a photojournalist who spent the first two years of the war embedded with ethnic armed groups in Karenni state and spoke to TIME on the condition of anonymity for their safety. “There hasn’t been any cohesive, collected effort from the anti-military or the resistance side.”

Unlike the NUG, ethnic armed groups appear to be more guided by ethnocentric nationalism than actually implementing a democratic system—such as holding free and fair elections, legitimizing a central administration, and being transparent over their finances, says Amara. “These are the very basic three principles of democracy: election, control and accountability,” he adds. “If you’re putting on these lenses, it is very difficult to say that EROs [ethnic resistance organizations] are functioning on democratic principles.”

“The struggle against the junta and today’s civil war will not be resolved with a big group hug,” reads an op-ed published in January in The Irrawaddy, echoing a sentiment shared by many political observers. “And if care is not taken, regime collapse could simply lead to more war, with the same belligerents but new alliances.”

There have long been differing interests among different ethnic armed groups, which have fought one another before and during the ongoing civil war. Such tensions are likely to resurface. In Shan state, ethnic armed groups which had allied against military forces last year have increasingly found themselves at odds with one another over territorial disputes.

“The thing that holds all this together is a common enemy, the Myanmar military. But beyond that, there’s lots of divisions and disagreements,” says Kean.

Soldier from the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and

To be sure, there have been sustained efforts to enact a vision of governance in post-junta Myanmar. Many in the resistance have committed to the idea of a federal state—though agreement on the specifics of that vision of federalism remains wanting.

One prominent proposal came in the form of the Federal Democratic Charter introduced just one month after the coup by the National Unity Consultative Council, the advisory body of the NUG. A separate proposal backed by 12 political parties was introduced in February. Neither has managed to garner broad enough support among the resistance.

“The National Unity government and many of the resistance organizations talk about a Federal Democratic Myanmar, and that is a strong and essential commitment, but there has been too little work done so far on fleshing that out, on giving it substance,” says Sidoti. “It needs to be an equal society in which there is a high level of autonomy at the regional level, but international leadership through a national government.”

In at least one state, a hybrid model of governance is already being experimented—to significant success. The Karenni State Interim Executive Council has established administrations in 16 townships across the state, all elected by residents and consisting of leaders representing civil society and ethnic communities. This model of decentralized authority is unprecedented in the state, which before the coup had local leaders appointed by the central government.

“We call it bottom-up federalism,” says Khu Plu Reh, general secretary of the Karenni State Interim Executive Council. “It is very important, the recognition of the self-determination of each ethnic group.”

Khu Plu Reh says he’s not sure if this model can be replicated across the country—only that it is a “very suitable model for the Karenni state right now.” Still, the political innovation has sparked intrigue from other ethnic leaders, who Khu Phu Reh says have contacted them to learn more about their vision of governance.

There are doubts as to whether the NUG is capable of leading the charge to bring lasting peace to Myanmar. It has limited influence on the ground, where it has partnered with different ethnic armed groups to fight the junta but has not managed to strike a political consensus among its partners.

Many in ethnic rebel groups are cautiously skeptical of NUG leaders, who have not proven to be the biggest champions of ethnic minorities in the country. For all Aung San Suu Kyi’s government was associated with the fight for democracy and human rights, it was also criticized for its conspicuous silence on the military’s brutal campaign against the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group in Rakhine state that now makes up one of the world’s largest refugee groups, most residing in exile in camps in neighboring Bangladesh.

Some temporary partnerships with the NUG are already falling apart. In September, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), a powerful pro-China ethnic armed group that’s part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, publicly rejected the idea of working militarily or politically with the NUG and said that it would not help anti-junta efforts in the Shan state capital of Taunggyi or Mandalay.

Time is ticking for the NUG, whose work analysts say is set to get more difficult as the junta weakens. “The NUG will no longer have this kind of a central power after the military collapses,” says Lee from the SAC-M. “And they cannot wait until, for instance, winning the war, until the military collapses, then think of how to form a new future Myanmar.”

There’s a lot of uncertainty, observers all agree—but there’s also hope. The past three years of fighting the junta have fostered new bonds across different factions of the resistance, even as negotiations among various stakeholders for a post-war Myanmar remain challenging.

“We can see tensions in the future, but the commitment to a Federal Democratic Myanmar now is so widespread and so deeply grounded in the people’s aspirations that there is an opportunity like never before, and there are signs like never before of a commitment to national unity,” says Sidoti. “That’s what needs to be fostered. That can be built on, and I think it will be built on, but it’s going to require hard work.”

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