CHIANG MAI - When
United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta signaled at a recent regional
defense confab in Singapore that political reforms underway in Myanmar could
pave the way for bilateral military-to-military engagement, it represented a
possible strategic turning point for the long-isolated, historically
military-run nation.
While the prospect of Washington engaging a
rights-abusing military is not unprecedented, any such move will be highly
scrutinized and closely watched given that until 2011, hard-line soldiers had
governed the country with an iron-fist for nearly five consecutive decades.
Many of the previous ruling junta's top soldiers are in positions of power in
reformist President Thein Sein's quasi-civilian administration.
Military-to-military ties between the US and Myanmar were
first downgraded in 1988, in response to soldiers killing thousands of
pro-democracy demonstrators. Relations were completely severed by the mid-1990s
and further obstructed by sanctions imposed by both the Bill Clinton and George
W Bush administrations in punitive response to the regime's persistently poor
rights record.
The script has flipped since Thein Sein began to
implement an ambitious political reform program, highlighted by the release of
hundreds of political prisoners, an easing of press censorship, and allowances
for pro-democracy icon and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi and her
National League for Democracy (NLD) party to take seats in the country's
partially elected new parliament.
The US has responded by rolling back restrictions,
including a long-held ban against American companies from investing in the
country. While various other economic and financial sanctions remain in place,
including an embargo on arms sales, Panetta said on June 2 that the US would
consider opening the way to strategic engagement if Myanmar stays its current
reform course.
Panetta's broad overture comes at a time of transition
for both militaries. While the US has announced a new global defense strategy,
the so-called "pivot", emphasizing closer strategic ties with allies
and partners in the Asia-Pacific region, Myanmar's military has signaled it is
striving to develop a more professional role after being stripped of many of
its past political functions.
Myanmar Defense Minister Lieutenant General Hla Min said
at the same defense conference where Panetta spoke that the military would
gradually "surrender" its allocated seats in parliament, which
currently consists of 25% of both legislatures. He said that the army, also
known as the Tatmadaw, is "100% in support" of Thein Sein's reform
agenda.
That would necessarily entail a complicated
constitutional reform process, which the military has the power to block
through its parliamentary numbers. However, Soe Win, the military's
second-highest ranking officer, suggested the military may be amenable to
amending certain clauses of the charter after signing a ceasefire with the
rebel Shan State Army-South on May 19.
Observers say there are other tentative signs that
soldiers, especially among the lower ranks, are already shifting away from
governance roles and towards more straightforward security and defense
functions.
"Hla Min's support for reforms and his suggestion
that the military could reduce its political role over time may have opened the
door a crack to begin contacts with the US military," wrote Murray
Hiebert, senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
"Myanmar's armed forces, which have long depended on
China for most of their training and weaponry, are reportedly looking to the
United States and other Western powers as well as Asian powers to help promote
their evolution toward a more professional force under civilian control.
Washington should carefully test that hypothesis."
According to Nyo Ohn Myint, a representative of the
National League for Democracy Liberated Area who has recently worked closely
with Thein Sein's government to aid negotiations with armed rebel groups, the
US could play a key role in this evolution.
"The US government should look at how to improve
[Myanmar] army leaders' mentality. Greater engagement and opening of its
military institutions will bring benefits to all," he told Asia Times
Online.
Influential US lobbyists, including those who have
steadily campaigned against economic sanctions, have recently echoed those
calls. Stanley Weiss, founder of the Washington-based Business Executives for
National Security, a business lobby group, believes recently ramped up
engagement between the US and Myanmar should include security matters.
"We should improve our defense relationship with
Myanmar in every way possible," he said, claiming that decades of
diplomatic isolation has distanced the US from a whole generation of military
officers. He believes that re-engagement would give them "a taste of what
civilized society looks like".
Until now, Myanmar's benighted military rulers have had
little incentive to cooperate in Western-led multilateral initiatives,
including on matters related to human rights.
"The Tatmadaw has always had its own concepts, and
has stood on its own two feet," explained Nyo Ohn Myint. "The more it
has been isolated, the more difficult it has become to deal with… Tatmadaw
leaders have had no alternative but to deal with China, India, and Pakistan.
Distrust with Western countries has created more problems domestically."
While the causes cannot be blamed simply on isolation
from the West, there is little doubt that the Tatmadaw's archaic approaches,
not just to governance but also to counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare, have been
the most damaging "domestic problems" in Myanmar's recent history.
Certain ethnic rebel groups have fought against the government
for decades, alternately for independence and greater degrees of autonomy. The
ongoing conflict with Kachin rebels in the country's northern region has been
attended by new accounts of Tatmadaw rights abuses targeting civilian
populations, according to reports by Human Rights Watch, a US-based rights
lobby.
Significantly, there have been instances during the
ongoing hostilities where commanding officers have ignored Thein Sein's
commands to stop offensive operations. As COIN strategies against a variety of
insurgent groups have focused on the devastation of entire communities thought
to be supporting rebels, millions of civilians have been displaced both along
the country's borders, entrenching divisions along geographical and ethnic
lines.
Meanwhile, a system where senior generals reward loyal
commanding officers with economic concessions in those areas has meant that
resource extraction and development has persistently suited the interests of
the Tatmadaw and neglected civilians of basic necessities such as electricity
and running water.
Dysfunction pervades Myanmar's armed forces from top to
bottom, and given its rigid obedience to hierarchies based on seniority, change
will likely only come from the top-down. Whether the US would be able to
influence such change through training and other joint exercises is an open
question.
CSIS suggests engagement could begin through joint
cooperation to search for several hundred US pilots shot down during World War
II over northern Myanmar. The influential Washington think tank also suggested
that Myanmar could be invited as an observer at the annual US-led Cobra Gold
multilateral exercises, the largest in Asia, held every year in neighboring
Thailand, as well as the US Navy's Pacific Partnership program or the Air
Force's Pacific Angels operations, annual assistance exercises aimed at
building ties with host countries.
"The United States could also send a military
attache to Myanmar with the task of regularly engaging the country's military,
mapping opportunities to target training efforts to key leaders, and in general
figuring out who is who," wrote CSIS's Hiebert. "Among other things,
the officer could put together an alumni group of Myanmar officers who have
studied in the United States. That group would include some interesting and
influential leaders such as the minister of social welfare, the agriculture
minister, and the chairman of the investment board."
According to a former US Marine Corps Infantry Captain
with bilateral training and advisory experience in Thailand, Iraq and
Afghanistan who spoke to ATol on the condition of anonymity, the US would need
to launch a comprehensive engagement program to have a meaningful impact.
Anything less, he argues, would struggle to overcome entrenched inertia among
the leadership and the myriad of political and cultural factors associated with
the abusive status quo.
"[Military cooperation] would only play a small part
in a much larger picture and so relationships like this must be sustained over
years," said the US military trainer. "Much of the [military's
mentality] has to do with the upper leadership, who often are not engaged in
the day-to-day exercises. Their attitudes will be trickier to change."
He suggests that while joint training can slowly foster
modern military concepts, including the notion that a soldier should serve the
nation and its people, systemic change would involve decades of persistent
engagement and would ultimately be more reliant on initiatives in sectors
outside of the military.
So how likely is the initiation of a US-Myanmar
military-to-military exchange program? As outlined by Panetta, the US's new
defense strategy focuses on developing stronger ties with Asia Pacific
militaries in order to establish new shared "rules" and "modernize
and strengthen alliances in the region".
While the US is being forced by economic reasons to cut
military spending, military planners have also learned from the recent
campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that modern day global security threats cannot
be tackled through only conventional warfare means.
Panetta's outlined "rules" include the
"principle of open and free commerce, a just international order that
emphasizes rights and responsibilities of all nations and a fidelity to the
rule of law; open access by all to their shared domains of sea, air, space, and
cyberspace; and resolving disputes without coercion or the use of force."
Thomas Barnett, a renowned US contemporary military
strategist who among other posts currently serves as Vice President of the
Center for America-China Partnership, has long advocated that the US military
should work first and foremost to build alliances with other states towards the
aim of establishing "new rule sets" for mutual security and
prosperity.
His strategy's premise is that states that have prospered
from economic globalization in recent decades are a lesser threat to the US
than those which remain "excluded from globalization's functioning
core". The theory argues that the spread of neo-liberal economics,
alongside the strengthening of partnered militaries, is the best way to expand
this "core" and pre-empt future security threats.
Isolated by decades of punitive Western sanctions,
Myanmar has until now been excluded from this core. The George W Bush administration
took hard aim at the Tatmadaw's abusive record, once referring to Myanmar as an
"outpost of tyranny". The isolation and presumed threats of a
possible US invasion forced the previous military regime led by Senior General
Than Shwe into some hard choices, including military engagement and arms deals
with North Korea's rogue regime.
With Thein Sein's election and Western engagement,
Myanmar's current military leaders have signaled a course shift, including a
shelving of its previous North Korea-assisted nuclear program. Speaking at the
July 2 conference, Defense Minister Hla Min made clear his understanding of the
connection between economic prosperity and security.
Moral military
dilemma
Whether that understanding translates into meaningful
military reform is an open question. Premature outside assistance to the
Tatmadaw's operational capacities, including potential US-facilitated arms
deals channeled through its ally South Korea, would risk destabilization of the
country's already fragile security environment further and potentially put
civilian populations at greater risk.
According to Timothy Heinemann, a retired US Special
Forces Colonel and founder of Worldwide Impact Now, a non-governmental
organization that works with war-affected ethnic minority communities in
Myanmar, argues such a move would be "wrong" both "morally and
practically".
"Discussing the prospect of defense engagement as
the [Myanmar] Army is attacking Kachin villagers is particularly bad
style," Heinemann said. "It casts a blind eye to the established fact
that the primary function of the [Myanmar] Army has been repression and
exploitation."
With around 25% of Myanmar's land mass under the control,
or heavy influence, of armed non-state ethnic minority groups, any US efforts
to empower the Tatmadaw alone will likely perpetuate the conflict and
marginalize even larger civilian populations, he argues. "Seeing the
[Myanmar] Army empowered [by the US] can drive them toward radicalism that we
have not seen to date," he said.
"As we have experienced in both feudal Iraqi and
Afghan societies, attempts to empower a central government and single standing
army have proven to be folly," said Heinemann. "Any discussion of
empowering Burmans without parallel discussion of empowering ethnics in the
security sector is a bankrupt approach from the start."
Although Thein Sein's government has initiated an
unprecedented number of ceasefires with rebel groups in recent months, many
have proven fragile and Myanmar remains a deeply fractured state. While the
government's current approach aims to bridge gaps through economic development
and centralization, its refusal to make armed opposition groups legitimate
political stakeholders has perpetuated conflict in some areas and distrust of the
government's motivations in others.
Ethnic groups have essentially been told to give up their
arms, cooperate with government-led economic development initiatives and set up
political parties to run for parliament if they wish to have political influence.
The 2008 constitution, however, provides little space for local autonomy, which
remains at the core of most opposition groups' demands.
For decades, these groups have served as the primary
providers of relief, healthcare and education to millions of marginalized and
disenfranchised citizens and maintain significant popular support. The fact
that over 90,000 people displaced by fighting in Kachin State have fled into
Kachin Independence Army-controlled areas rather than territory held by the
government, as have millions of others in similar situations in ethnic Shan,
Karen, Karenni and Mon areas, displays clearly these grassroots preferences.
Heinemann argues that while the US should steer clear of
directly empowering the Tatmadaw with weapons, it should leverage its newfound
influence on Thein Sein's quasi-civilian government to get "control of the
[Myanmar] Army and reform the defense-security sector in a manner that is
inclusive of ethnic [leaders], and that properly empowers states for local governance".
"The conversation [of US military engagement] must
be about balanced professionalization and empowerment of all ethnic groups
within a federal union. This needs to be done at national and state levels or
the place will be a mess," said Heinemann.
In an era where Myanmar's future is influenced by
external factors more than any time since independence from colonial rule, the
US is expected to play an increasingly significant role. Washington's influence
over Myanmar will grow as long as Thein Sein continues to open the economy and
the US incrementally lifts its remaining economic and financial sanctions.
Reformation of the Tatmadaw into a more responsible army
will take time, and will depend more on domestic factors than external ones.
While the US pushes to have more influence over Myanmar's military, any
engagement will likely be a process of evolution rather than revolution.
"Development of the military is just one small point
of really developing a nation," said the former US Captain and military
trainer. "It's got to be tied in with a good plan on developing governance
systems, security systems such as the police force, and economic systems to
really get a country on the right path."
Kim Jolliffe
Kim Jolliffe is a research and analysis consultant
focusing on politics, security and humanitarian issues in Myanmar.
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