Siege Mentality: Why Myanmar’s Generals Still Trust No One

The Irrawaddy

Myanmar’s ruling junta may see it as a diplomatic breakthrough. The Belarus president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, came on an official visit and, to honor him and the event, a street in Naypyitaw was named after the capital of his country. But, interpreted differently, boycotts, sanctions and condemnations by much of the outside world have forced the Myanmar military rulers into seeking partnerships with countries they do not trust (China), have nothing socially or culturally in common with (Russia and now Belarus), and even an international outcast that few want to deal with (North Korea). And they cannot for the sake of their own survival afford to lose their status as what amounts to the country’s ruling class.

Therefore, they hide behind historical myths about the ancient noble warrior kings “Anawrahta, Bayinnaung and Alaungpaya and their capable Tatmadaws,” to quote an Armed Forces Day speech by the then commander-in-chief, Senior General Than Shwe.

Australian Myanmar scholar Andrew Selth argues in his 2021 research paper “Myanmar’s Military Mindset: An Exploratory Survey” that the military in recent years has become even more “isolated from the rest of the population. They have their own mass media outlets, banks, educational institutions, hospitals, insurance companies, recreational facilities, social structures and support mechanisms. Military personnel, their families and close supporters, plus retired veterans, amount to about 2.5 percent of the population, constituting a privileged caste within Myanmar society.” Such a system does not have the basic prerequisites needed to introduce the kind of reforms and gradual democratization we have seen in previously military-ruled countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. Any kind of perestroika (the “restructuring” of the Soviet Union’s political system in the 1980s under Mikhail Gorbachev) will be out of the question after the upcoming election; it is not even likely that the local version of glasnost (“openness”) witnessed in Myanmar in 2011-21 will be repeated.

Every time a strongman is replaced, foreign analysts begin to speculate what will happen next. “It will be different after Ne Win is gone,” was a very common argument in the 1970s and 1980s. When Than Shwe took over, some analysts thought it would not be the same as it had been under his predecessor Saw Maung. And now Than Shwe has withdrawn into the background and some are hypothesizing about what will happen once he has passed. A paper produced by the Institute for Strategy and Policy–Myanmar, a foreign-based think-tank, in 2025 was typically titled: “Prospective 4th Generation Tatmadaw: Pathways to Reform or Further Regression?” But new names at the top have never changed the fundamental power structure of the military or how it operates.

What keeps the Myanmar Army together, and functions as a barrier to any kind of reform, is a siege mentality that goes back to the early years of independence. When General Ne Win took over as commander-in-chief in 1949, he had, according to military historian Dr. Maung Maung, no more than 2,000 men under his command. Ethnic Karen units had joined the rebellion launched by their people, and Burman regiments had mutinied and forged alliances with the insurgent Communist Party of Burma (CPB). But the Myanmar Army, surrounded by enemies, fought back and won, and rose to become the country’s most powerful institution.

But the feeling of victimization and defensiveness remained. The military had to face two foreign-sponsored incursions into Myanmar: the Kuomintang invasion in the 1950s, which was backed by the US Central Intelligence Agency, and China’s all-out support for the CPB in the 1960s and 1970s. The war with the CPB lasted for 20 years, during which the military suffered heavy losses and had to expand the size of the army and restock its arsenal.

China’s support for the CPB is still fresh in the memory of many army veterans, and it is no secret that the military feels uncomfortable with the close relationship that Myanmar has had with Beijing since the late 1980s, as the Myanmar military had no choice but to turn to China when the West imposed punitive measures after the 1988 massacres. The generals have certainly not forgotten that thousands of soldiers died from bullets provided by China. “It’s like a scar in their hearts,” a local analyst with insights into the Myanmar military’s mindset once told me.

The Chinese are still close to the ex-CBP forces, especially the United Wa State Army—and they and their allies are armed with weapons obtained in China. In November 2019, the Myanmar Army seized a huge cache of Chinese-made weapons from the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, and in a rare, indirect criticism of China, the vice chairman of the military’s True News, Major General Tun Tun Nyi, said at a press conference in Naypyitaw on Nov. 24, 2019: “We are checking if the weapons are new or old. Most of them are Chinese and the total value is high. I’d say the TNLA has illegally acquired weapons from China.” The Chinese are hardly the kind of “friendly neighbors” Myanmar can “trust and rely on,” as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said when he visited Myanmar in August 2024.

The heavy reliance on China after 1988 prompted the military to improve relations with the West. For that to happen, certain initiatives had to be taken—and that, not a desire on the part of the military to become democrats, was the beginning of a decade of openness. But that ultimately backfired. The public became used to enjoying liberties they had never experienced before, and the military’s reaction to what happened during 2011-21 was predictable. A return to absolute power.

Relations with Russia and Belarus—and at one stage, even North Korea—should be seen in the same perspective: to lessen the dependence on China. The price the generals have had to pay for their friendship with Moscow and Minsk is to socialize with individuals whose behavior, religious beliefs and social patterns are completely alien to them. The pact with North Korea—and then the friendship was at least on the same continent—had to be abandoned after heavy pressure from the United States and Japan. According to several credible reports, contacts with North Korea have been quietly resumed since the 2021 coup.

The military has also not forgotten that Karen, Mon, Shan and other ethnic rebels have had access to Thailand’s officially illicit weapons market, that their leaders could move back and forth across the border, and even owned property on the other side where their families resided. Sometimes, wounded rebel soldiers received medical treatment in Thai hospitals. In the mind of the Myanmar military, it has always been surrounded by less-than-friendly powers. The siege mentality has always been there.

And then there are the domestic events that have contributed to the mental isolation of the military. Since the Myanmar Army seized absolute power in 1962, the legitimacy of its rule has been challenged by one popular uprising after another, and, if elections were held and those were free and fair, its proxy parties always fared dismally. In the streets and, whenever possible at the polling booths as well, the sharp divide between the military and the population at large has been evident ever since the 1962 coup. And the military cannot possibly be unaware of that. Not even the massacres, and the arrests and torture of people opposed to military rule, have cowed the public into permanent submission.

It is, therefore, meaningless to expect the Myanmar military to give up its privileged—and powerful—position in society. It is also foolish to believe, as some mainly Western pundits believe, that “engagement” would work. Change may come to Myanmar sometime in the future, and then it would, after all, have to originate in the military. However, in practical terms, there is currently no indication of change. As a result, Myanmar faces the prospect of continued hardship, political repression and more failed uprisings against military rule.