Predicting the Future of Myanmar’s Civil War: Can Half a Century of Military Rule Be Defeated?

Authors

Nathan Ritterling, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow

Document Type

Thesis

Date of this Version

Spring 5-2024

Citation

Ritterling, Nathan. 2024. "Predicting the Future of Myanmar’s Civil War: Can Half a Century of Military Rule Be Defeated?" Undergraduate Honors Thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. March 2024.

Comments

Copyright Nathan Ritterling 2024

Abstract

In 2021, the military of Myanmar launched a coup in response to their overwhelming defeat in the 2020 elections, resulting in an end to the country’s tentative move towards democracy and in intense violence to suppress opposition to the coup. Anti-junta forces quickly formed in the aftermath to directly oppose the military and return the country to democratic rule, and began collaborating with long-standing ethnic militias in their efforts. This has led to a state of prolonged civil war, as the two sides fight for dominance over the nature of Myanmar’s future government. This paper investigated the potential outcome of this conflict, using a program known as KTAB to make predictions given data on the stakeholders involved. The results of this appear to be mixed; although all opposition forces should converge to oppose the regime, the military itself will refuse to compromise and lead to continued fighting. Further analyses were performed to test whether changing certain actors would produce a more desirable outcome; rather than achieving this effect, such changes either did not affect the outcome or strengthened the military’s position. The implications of these findings were then discussed in further detail.