The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Myanmar's Bleak Future: Civil War and Ethnic Strife || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Myanmar doesn't often catch my attention, but with the ongoing civil war, I figured it was time to throw it into the mix. After years of civil unrest, is there a clear path to stability? Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/myanmars-bleak-future-civil-war-and-ethnic-strife

Everybody, Peter Zine here, coming to you from Colorado. We are in the first full week of August, August. And today we're going to talk about a place called Myanmar. We've had a lot of military activity there in the region. There's basically a civil war going on, and the rebels have captured a major military facility in one of the regional capitals. First of all, what is a Myanmar? Myanmar is a country that used to be called Burma,

that is sandwiched between the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It's primarily mountainous, it's primarily jungle, but cutting through the middle of it is the Irrawaddy River, which is actually a navigable riverway like the Mississippi or the Rhine. And so it's a huge push for commerce right there. The population, of course, as you would expect from jungles and mountains, is fractured. The core population, the Berman or the Burmese, based on what your ethnicity is, runs right along the river, right in the lowlands, the most viable area, the most economically viable area, where most activity has. happens where most agriculture happens. They're about two-thirds of the population, and they are large and in charge. They have also had a succession, a succession of governments under military and civilian rules that are kind of pricks and treat everyone else as disposable. Before you

even consider that mountainous people and jungle living people are a little ornery, there's plenty of reasons for all the other ethnicities in Myanmar slash Burma to be agonement. To be agroed with the Burmans. And so we basically have been in an increasing state of civil breakdown in now civil war for the last 15 years. And there are over 100 other ethnicities. None of them make up more than 10% of the population. But all of them have their little areas that they've carved out. Big into smuggling, big into heroin, because these are things that you can do when the center cannot hold. I phrase that wrong. The center can hold. The center can hold the center. But it has a real hard time pushing power into the provinces and to the edges of everybody else.

The problem is that all the borders are porous. The development is limited. And what infrastructure you have is largely limited to the Burman areas in that low lens around the Eirawadi. This, unfortunately, is becoming the new state of affairs. The Burmans have mismanaged their affairs under civilian and military rules, it's currently military rule, to the point that relations with pretty much all of the ethnicities have broken down. And while there's a civil war in one hand, there is also, because of military rule, a pro-democracy push across the country that is weakening the government from within.

So if the center holds but nothing else, you're basically looking at this giant U of territory in the northwest and east becoming stateless in the traditional sense. This is how it's going to remain until such time as someone is able to consolidate power. That could be a change of government among the Burmins who can maybe do some sort of national reconciliation, but I don't see anyone alive in the political system right now is capable of that. Or it could be a third party coming in and knocking some heads together. The only country in the region that has that capacity would be China. And while the Chinese are okay with Myanmar being weak, they are not okay with being the power that have to come in and then take over the security situation because it would be. just as hard for them as it has been for the Berman. So unfortunately, despite a reasonably favorable geography in the core,

this is a country whose time has not yet come and will not until we can have some sort of political resolution, which does not unfortunately appear to be on the horizon. All right, that's it. Bye.