Min Aung Hlaing Is Destroying the Myanmar Military

By Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd 10 August 2022

Final week’s resolution to execute 4 political prisoners has not had the impact Senior Common Min Aung Hlaing little doubt hoped for. Removed from cowing the inhabitants, it touched off one other spherical of protests and worldwide condemnations and re-energized his opponents. When the overall staged his coup final 12 months, some predicted that it will be the top of the Myanmar navy in its present type. Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing is doing his greatest to show them right. His management has been merciless, immoral and devastatingly inept. The coup has introduced terror, demise and financial devastation to Myanmar’s inhabitants. It has additionally been a catastrophe for his personal establishment—the Myanmar navy. The folks’s opposition has solely elevated. The members of the Myanmar navy have to get up to the catastrophe of Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s management.

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing is a basic instance of Machiavelli’s warning in opposition to rulers overusing concern as the first means to manage folks. Beneath any circumstances, the Myanmar folks would have opposed the coup and overturning of the election. However it was Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s resolution to show weapons on peaceable protesters that pushed tens of hundreds of individuals to take up arms. His unique reliance on firepower and “arduous energy” to terrorize folks into accepting his rule has had the alternative impact. His orders to systematically and indiscriminately kill, torture, pillage, rob, steal, rape and terrorize unarmed civilians have hardened the folks in opposition to the navy as an entire. His poor management traits and unique concentrate on sustaining his private energy have persistently clouded his judgement. He’s unable to understand that the folks will battle till he’s eliminated.

In hanging on to the ability he seized for himself, he’s taking the navy down with him. Beneath him the navy, as soon as identified by the time period of veneration, the Tatmadaw, is now reviled throughout the nation. He has turned the nationwide navy into his personal private military to rob the ability from the folks.

He has inducted hardened and violent criminals into his navy group to fill the shortfall of recruits. As such, he has turned the Myanmar navy into an organized prison gang. The navy below his command has skilled an unprecedented degree of defections and desertions, whereas many nonetheless throughout the ranks shirk once they can. Morale has plummeted. Drug use is rampant. Chains of command and self-discipline are in tatters as hungry troopers roam the countryside killing civilians. Or just searching for meals. Furthermore due to the large common help for these prepared to battle in opposition to Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, the as soon as mighty navy is now dropping. It’s struggling its heaviest battlefield casualties in many years. On any given day, the navy is dropping 5 to 10 occasions as many troopers as its opponents. Troopers are the one largest group of lifeless within the wake of Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s coup. Someplace between 10,000 and 15,000 troopers have been killed. And for what? To defend one man’s declare to energy in opposition to a inhabitants that despises him?

Internationally, Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing has fared no higher. ASEAN needs no a part of him. The bloc has damaged with its personal coverage of noninterference to exclude him from conferences. China just isn’t impressed. Russia goes to get bored with him because it realizes he can not pay for weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to satisfy him throughout his journeys to Russia in 2021 and 2022. As a substitute, he received to satisfy the chief of Tatarstan. Moreover, whether or not Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing admits it or not, everybody is aware of he’s operating out of cash—and quick. Worldwide monetary sanctions have bitten arduous and deep. Worldwide monetary establishments suspended funds in February 2021. One after one other the most important international corporations and international buyers have left the nation. Gems and jade gross sales have suffered an entire collapse. There may be nearly no international alternate getting into the nation. Min Aung Hlaing has dug deep into international alternate reserves, which have plummeted from US$7.7 billion on the time of the coup to an estimated $2.5 billion now. How does he intend to proceed paying for gasoline or medication? Nobody will take the kyats he’s so busy printing? The determined measures, like banning automobile imports, ordering companies to default on greenback loans and forcing companies and banks to right away alternate {dollars} for kyats, are merely not going to work.

When Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing ordered his troops to shoot unarmed protesters within the head, he additionally put a noose across the neck of the Myanmar navy. His orders have been in clear violation of his troopers’ Skilled Code of Conduct. When he ordered his followers to hold the political prisoners, he additionally tightened the noose across the neck of the Myanmar navy even additional. Each time he has had an opportunity to train management and resolve this political disaster of his personal making in a wise means, he has as an alternative chosen to make use of violence and brutality. Each step of the way in which, he has misinterpret the operational setting and miscalculated. His newest motion of executing the political prisoners was an ideal instance of his ineptitude as a navy and political strategist. This motion woke up and reenergized everybody.

Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing’s poor selections have little doubt been pushed by inaccurate data and his private isolation. Individuals round him are unable or unwilling to supply data that’s opposite to what he believes and what he needs to listen to. This can be a drawback of his personal making. As he continues to drag Myanmar additional into isolation, he’s additionally more and more isolating himself throughout the partitions of Naypyitaw. This elevated isolation will trigger him to make extra detrimental selections for the nation and the Myanmar navy.

Dr. Miemie Winn Byrd is a professor on the Daniel Okay. Inouye Asia Pacific Middle for Safety Research (APCSS) in Hawaii, and a retired US Military officer. The views expressed listed below are her personal and don’t signify these of APCSS or the US authorities or Division of Protection.