How does the regime change and political crisis in Myanmar threaten regional security and peace? (2023, 15 Marks)
On 1 February 2021 the Tatmadaw seized power, detained Aung San Suu Kyi and annulled the 2020 election; lethal repression turned protest into a multi-front civil war. Mohammed Ayoob (The Third World Security Predicament, 1995) argues that post-colonial insecurity begins inside weak states, and Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver‘s regional security complex theory shows how it travels: when a state loses control of its territory, insecurity crosses every border it shares.
Channels through which the crisis spreads
- Displacement. Refugees have crossed into Thailand, Mizoram, Manipur and Bangladesh, which already shelters over a million Rohingya at Cox’s Bazar. With the Arakan Army holding most of Rakhine, their return is further away than ever.
- Arms and insurgency. Ungoverned borderlands give sanctuary and supply. Weapons looted from army posts have reached Manipur, whose 2023 conflict was aggravated by cross-border flows.
- Narcotics and organised crime. The Golden Triangle drives a methamphetamine boom, and cyber-scam compounds on the Thai border traffic workers across Asia; India has repeatedly repatriated its trafficked nationals. Quad and ASEAN statements in 2026 both name the crisis’s link to transnational crime.
- Economic disruption. India’s Kaladan project and the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway are stalled; Paletwa fell to the Arakan Army in 2024.
- Great-power competition. Isolation pushes the junta towards China, whose pressure on ethnic armies helped the army retake Lashio in 2025, deepening Chinese access to the Bay of Bengal. Russia supplies arms; Western sanctions have not changed behaviour.
The regional response and its limits
- ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus (April 2021) has been honoured only on humanitarian aid. After the Cebu summit of May 2026, the Philippine chair, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., called it “moribund”. Excluding the junta from political-level meetings, still in force, is ASEAN’s first sanction on a member.
- ASEAN is divided: Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore push hardest, while Thailand, Laos and Cambodia lean towards engagement. Non-interference blocks collective action, bearing out Michael Leifer‘s view that ASEAN manages diplomacy but cannot provide security.
- Staged elections (December 2025–January 2026) led parliament to elect Min Aung Hlaing President on 3 April 2026 without changing who rules. Divided reactions risk normalising the coup by default.
India’s stake
India shares a 1,643 km border and follows engagement without endorsement. It ended the Free Movement Regime in 2024 and ran Operation Brahma after the March 2025 earthquake. Min Aung Hlaing chose India for his first foreign visit as President (30 May–3 June 2026); the joint statement backed “Myanmar-led” reconciliation, pledged to complete Kaladan and the highway, and the talks covered rare earths. Border security, connectivity and denying China the Bay of Bengal limit how hard India presses on democracy.
Conclusion
Myanmar endangers regional peace less through interstate war than through state fragmentation, which exports refugees, guns, drugs and great-power rivalry. A durable settlement needs an inclusive process with the ethnic armed organisations and the opposition; without it, each neighbour will keep containing its share of the spill-over alone.