Myanmar (Burma)

Myanmar illustrates how history refuses to stay buried. Three times in the past century—1962, 1988, 2021—the same cycle repeated: democratic opening, military coup, decades of repression. Each time, the military won. The question now is whether the latest cycle can break the pattern.

The Irrawaddy River made Myanmar—a 2,200-kilometer artery carrying silt, trade, and kingdoms from the Himalayan foothills to the Andaman Sea. Around the 9th century, the Bamar people migrated down this corridor, founding the Pagan Kingdom in 1044. Pagan unified the valley for the first time, built over 10,000 Buddhist temples, and by the 12th century ranked among Southeast Asia's great powers alongside the Khmer Empire. Mongol invasions toppled Pagan in 1287, beginning 250 years of fragmentation. The Konbaung dynasty (1752-1885) reunified Burma, expanded aggressively into Assam, Manipur, and Siam—and drew British attention. Three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824-26, 1852, 1885) ended with King Thibaw's exile to India and total annexation. On January 1, 1886, Queen Victoria received Burma as a New Year's gift; local structures—monarchy, village administration—were demolished and replaced with British Indian bureaucracy.

Independence came on January 4, 1948, just six months after General Aung San—the 'father of modern Burma'—was assassinated. His death left a young nation without its unifying figure, and ethnic federalism unraveled almost immediately. General Ne Win's 1962 coup established the 'Burmese Way to Socialism'—a mix of Buddhism and Marxism that nationalized the economy and isolated the country for 26 years. By 1988, Myanmar had collapsed from 'rice bowl of Asia' to UN Least Developed Country status. The 8888 Uprising of August 1988 saw hundreds of thousands protesting military rule; thousands died in the crackdown. Ne Win fell, but the military held power. In 1990 elections, Aung San's daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, led the National League for Democracy to landslide victory—392 of 498 seats—but the junta refused to transfer power. She spent 15 of the next 21 years under house arrest, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, and became a global symbol of nonviolent resistance.

The 2011-2020 opening—Thein Sein's reforms, Suu Kyi's 2015 election victory, foreign investment flooding in—proved another false dawn. On February 1, 2021, the military staged a coup, arrested Suu Kyi, and triggered civil war. Today, Myanmar exemplifies extinction-vortex dynamics: the kyat has crashed 80% (from 1,330 to 4,520 per dollar), inflation approaches 30%, and rice prices have surged 47%. Resistance groups control over 40% of territory. Myanmar became the world's leading opium producer; FATF blacklisted it for money laundering. Over 3 million are displaced; 20 million need humanitarian aid. The March 2025 earthquake compounded misery. Rakhine faces potential famine. December 2025 elections proceed amid war.

By 2026, Myanmar tests whether a state can sustain collapse indefinitely. The military controls Yangon and major cities; resistance controls the periphery. Neither can decisively win. The extinction vortex may stabilize into failed-state equilibrium—or isolation and economic collapse may finally prove fatal to the junta.