But Myanmar’s civil warfare is not only a humanitarian disaster—it’s a geopolitical fault line. The protracted battle has displaced over 2.6 million individuals, fueled transnational arms and drug networks, and drawn in outdoors powers like China and Russia—but it stays largely absent from worldwide coverage debates.
Analysts warn that continued neglect may destabilize Southeast Asia for years to come back, doubtlessly empowering malign actors throughout the area.
“The United States has lengthy had an curiosity in peace, stability and growth in Asia and stopping the rise of a regional hegemon. The ongoing battle in Burma challenges all of those pursuits,” Derek Mitchell, Senior Adviser on the Center for Strategic and International Studies, tells The Cipher Brief. “War and instability in a rustic on the cross-roads of Asia have value the nation billions of {dollars} in misplaced funding, led to cratering of the home financial system, and unleashed an explosion of drug, human and weapons trafficking, infectious illness, and a humanitarian disaster that has pushed thousands and thousands into neighboring international locations as refugees on the expense of regional stability and growth.”
A Country in Collapse
Following the February 2021 coup, Myanmar’s navy, referred to as the Tatmadaw, unleashed a violent crackdown on protestors. When bullets and concern emptied the streets, resistance went underground.
Today, that resistance has developed right into a full-fledged civil warfare encompassing a patchwork of People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), and native militias.
Some of essentially the most highly effective EAOs, such because the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) within the north and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) within the southeast, have aligned with the PDFs, forming momentary alliances in opposition to the widespread enemy. The junta, in the meantime, has regained territory in locations like Nawnghkio, however at a excessive value — each in casualties and rising resistance.
Just weeks in the past, the junta stated it transferred energy to a civilian-led interim authorities and allowed the state of emergency in place for the reason that coup, to run out forward of elections set for December and January. The established order hasn’t modified although, with coup chief Min Aung Hlaing retaining energy. Western governments and several other analysts have subsequently dismissed the elections as a sham, anticipated to be dominated by navy proxies and only a transfer to additional entrench the navy’s energy.
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“The battle in Myanmar undermines ASEAN unity and dilutes U.S. affect within the area as a result of ASEAN is a weaker accomplice because of this, and extra beholden to authoritarian companions in mild of the Myanmar junta’s realignment with Beijing,” Hunter Marston, an Indo-Pacific safety analyst targeted on U.S. alliances, technique and Southeast Asian geopolitics, tells The Cipher Brief. “At the identical time, the battle has facilitated the proliferation of crime and illicit economies flourishing in Myanmar’s borderlands, which have focused U.S. residents in addition to different international locations across the globe, raking in billions of {dollars} every year.”
ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a key regional bloc that the U.S. depends on to counterbalance China’s rising affect and advance diplomatic, financial, and safety cooperation within the Indo-Pacific. The Association, lengthy hampered by inside divisions and non-interference norms, has not intervened in Myanmar. Recent efforts to re-engage with the junta have made little impression and solely highlighted the bloc’s diminishing leverage. A fractured or weakened ASEAN, consultants warning, not solely hampers coordinated regional responses but additionally complicates Washington’s efforts to have interaction successfully on shared challenges, from maritime safety to transnational crime.
However, that is not simply an inside battle regarding Myanmar. As the warfare drags on, it has develop into a brand new entrance within the world wrestle between democratic and authoritarian powers.
China, Russia, and the Battlefield of Influence
Myanmar’s geographic place, wedged between China, India, and the Bay of Bengal, makes it a essential node in Southeast Asia’s strategic structure. It can also be a rustic wealthy in uncommon earth minerals, oil, fuel, and hydropower — property that Beijing, specifically, is eager to regulate.
China, which has lengthy courted the Burmese navy, has navigated a fragile stability within the battle. While formally calling for peace and dialogue, Beijing has provided the junta with arms and political cowl. Meanwhile, its entry to uncommon earth provide chains by way of northern Myanmar has develop into much more worthwhile amid world competitors for strategic sources.
“The junta receives direct and oblique monetary assist from its gross sales of oil and fuel to China and Thailand, restricted commerce with different ASEAN states reminiscent of Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and direct money transfers and help packages from China,” stated Marston. “Its state-owned banks and corporations additionally extract an excessive amount of income from pure sources throughout the nation, in addition to property taxes to a lesser extent in city facilities like Yangon and Mandalay.”
Russia, too, has deepened ties with the navy regime. In latest years, Moscow has develop into a main arms provider and protection accomplice to the junta, desperate to develop its affect in a area the place Western alliances have weakened. Myanmar has reciprocated, with junta generals attending Moscow’s navy parades and alluring Russian advisors into the nation.
“This is not only a civil warfare — it’s an open door for authoritarian powers to achieve a foothold in Southeast Asia,” one former U.S. official who labored on Myanmar coverage tells The Cipher Brief.
Cross-Border Instability
The battle’s repercussions are already spilling throughout Myanmar’s borders. In Thailand, shelling and firefights close to the frontier have pushed 1000’s of refugees into crowded border camps. In India’s northeast, cross-border insurgencies and weapons flows have revived longstanding safety considerations. Bangladesh continues to shoulder the burden of over 1,000,000 Rohingya refugees, with little prospect of secure repatriation because the navy escalates its violence in Rakhine State.
Illicit arms trafficking, drug manufacturing within the Golden Triangle, and human smuggling have surged in tandem with the combating. Some rebel teams fund their campaigns by way of methamphetamine manufacturing and jade mining, whereas the junta leverages state-owned enterprises and navy conglomerates to bankroll its warfare machine.
Mitchell emphasised that this has “additionally led to the proliferation of ‘rip-off facilities’ alongside Burma’s border which might be bilking Americans and others out of billions of {dollars}.”
“The violence and absence of an efficient worldwide response have created a gap for China to insert itself even additional into the inner affairs of the nation, nook its uncommon earths and broader useful resource market, and try and create a shopper state by way of which it could have strategic entry to the Indian Ocean,” he added.
Washington’s Take
So, what’s the United States authorities doing to handle the Myanmar disaster?
The second Trump administration has taken a markedly completely different strategy to Myanmar in comparison with the Biden period.
“The first Trump administration was sluggish to sentence the Myanmar navy’s violent clearance operations in opposition to the Rohingya, which the Biden administration later confirmed met the factors for genocide and crimes in opposition to humanity,” Marston stated.
While sanctions in opposition to the navy junta stay in place, the Trump administration has largely kept away from commenting on the nation’s inside dynamics. Broadly, it has sharply diminished U.S. funding for democracy promotion, human rights, and impartial media. American-backed shops reminiscent of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia have been considerably affected—a transfer that Min Aung Hlaing publicly welcomed, expressing his “honest appreciation” to President Trump.
In a notable diplomatic growth in July 2025, President Trump despatched a direct letter to Min Aung Hlaing relating to tariffs, which the junta interpreted as a type of public acknowledgment and a diplomatic victory, marking a departure from earlier diplomatic isolation.
Furthermore, the Trump administration has enacted new journey restrictions, together with a whole suspension of entry for Myanmar nationals as immigrants and non-immigrants, doubtlessly stopping persecuted individuals from reaching American soil.
This mix of continued sanctions with diminished democracy assist and a extra transactional, direct communication strategy with the junta underscores the Trump administration’s “America First” international coverage, leaving the way forward for U.S. affect in Myanmar unsure amidst the continued disaster.
There are, nonetheless, different efforts to convey Myanmar again into the limelight.
Recent legislative efforts, reminiscent of the “No New Burma Funds Act” launched in July by Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA), goal to curb oblique monetary flows to the regime. These embody revenues from pure fuel exports involving international corporations, charges paid to military-controlled infrastructure, and leakage from humanitarian assist operations in junta-held areas.
Additionally, Burmese gems and timber usually attain U.S. markets through third international locations, and digital platforms might unwittingly monetize content material linked to the junta — all contributing to the regime’s monetary lifeline.
According to Marston, “western international locations may theoretically apply secondary sanctions on any nation conducting enterprise with Myanmar’s vitality corporations or state-owned banks, which might squeeze Thailand and Singapore specifically, together with China, however they’ve been unwilling to expend the political capital vital to take action.”
“Furthermore, Washington has kept away from imposing essentially the most complete sanctions on Myanmar’s financial system for concern of wounding the complete inhabitants and setting the nation’s financial restoration again even additional after earlier rounds of sanctions within the 2000s,” he continued.
In addition, there may be the “BRAVE Burma Act,” a bipartisan U.S. House invoice launched on May 5, 2025, by Representatives Bill Huizenga (R-MI) and Betty McCollum (D-MN), amongst different co-sponsors from each events. This laws, which has superior within the House, goals to extend strain on Myanmar’s navy junta by requiring stronger sanctions on entities like state-owned enterprises and people concerned within the jet gas sector, and by establishing a U.S. Special Envoy for Burma.
“Right now, the administration ought to appoint a particular envoy. Personnel is coverage, and with no champion in Washington, US Burma coverage will stay adrift,” Marston asserted.
Mitchell concurred that the Trump Administration “ought to appoint a particular envoy based mostly within the area to construct nearer relations with the (opposition) National Unity Government, ethnic leaders and different professional representatives of the Burmese individuals, and coordinate with our regional allies and companions on a standard strategy to the battle.”
“The administration ought to make it clear that it doesn’t think about the junta professional and that its pretensions to rule are unacceptable,” he continued. “To that finish, it ought to tighten sanctions to close off its entry to cash, weapons, and worldwide legitimacy. Overall, the administration ought to acknowledge that China is making the most of our neglect and reply constantly with the place developments within the nation are trending.”
The Strategic Cost of Indifference
Entire cities have been razed. Schools and hospitals have been bombed. More than 18 million individuals—almost a 3rd of Myanmar’s inhabitants—now rely on humanitarian assist, based on the United Nations. The warfare has triggered one of many world’s largest inside displacements and turned Myanmar’s borderlands right into a hotbed of organized crime, cyber scams, and weapons trafficking—networks that now attain far past Southeast Asia.
“The longer the U.S. stays disengaged, the more room there may be for China and Russia to entrench themselves,” says Hunter Marston. “Without high-level diplomatic strain or punitive measures, the junta could have no cause to pursue a negotiated resolution, and the nation’s collapse will proceed to tug down the area.”
China has already endorsed Myanmar’s deliberate elections in December, regardless of ongoing civil warfare and widespread instability. In distinction, ASEAN has stated elections ought to solely observe a return to peace.
“Realistically, the one hope of pressuring the navy to pursue peace talks is to win on the battlefield. Thus, it’s important to curb the navy’s entry to arms,” Marston burdened. “The solely method to try this is by imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese weapons corporations like NORINCO, which proceed to supply munitions to the navy. Doing so would put Beijing on discover that it not has carte blanche in Myanmar and would align with the targets of U.S. competitors with China in checking China’s world navy enlargement.”
Mitchell additionally underscored that Washington’s solely leverage for optimistic change lies in straight chopping off the junta’s monetary streams. If Myanmar is allowed to fall absolutely into the grip of autocracy, crime syndicates, and international navy powers, the results won’t stay confined to its borders.
“Pressuring international banks (in Thailand and Singapore, as an example) into shutting off monetary companies to the junta, sanctioning Myanmar’s Central Bank, and imposing penalties on different banks inside and out of doors the nation doing enterprise with the junta will help shut off capital to the regime,” he stated.
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