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Azerbaijan, World Bank discuss cooperation prospects, preparations for COP29  News.Az

America’s media institutions have had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad start to 2024.

The Messenger, a well-funded, high-profile news site, dissolved after less than a year. Big newspapers from the Los Angeles Times to the IndyStar saw major layoffs. And Sports Illustrated fell into licensing limbo while sites like BuzzFeed, Vice News, or Complex found themselves at best on life support.

The over 500 media jobs eliminated so far this year reflect a broader, worrying trend. By this year’s end, according to one recent estimate, America will have lost one third of all its newspapers — and two-thirds of all its newspaper staff — since 2005.

The losses have been particularly acute in poor and rural communities, leaving ever expanding news deserts all across the nation.

The collapse of news outlets, especially local papers, is robbing our communities of indispensable watch dogs. The disappearance of reporters from city council meetings and public safety hearings is creating oversight vacuums that leave citizens in the dark and enable shady dealings that let the wealthy exercise undue — and undetected — influence.

How did a country once chock-full of influential newspapers morph into a land of news deserts?

One major factor, says University of Pennsylvania media studies scholar Victor Pickard, has been the disintegration of the advertising model. In short, search engines and social media sites are eating up revenue that once went to local papers.

Hence the rise of paywalls everywhere as more outlets resort to subscriptions. That works well for some, but subscriptions haven’t been enough to replace ad funding in most cases — especially for larger publications or those that serve less wealthy audiences.

Other outlets have counted on the benevolence of billionaire buyers. But that creates real concerns about the influence of exorbitantly wealthy owners — who have been increasingly unwilling to foot the bill for quality journalism.

The Washington Post — owned by Jeff Bezos, who recently became the richest man alive again — offered buyouts to 240 employees this past fall. And Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong’s net worth of nearly $6 billion didn’t save the jobs of the 115 workers the paper laid off this January.

Is there an alternative to for-profit journalism? To be sure, we’ve seen some exciting developments in nonprofit and worker-owned journalism. But these proposals remain limited in scope.

Given all this, some experts are calling for a fundamental rethinking of how we value journalism.

“The information produced by journalism should always be — and should have always been — treated as a public good,” Victor Pickard told me. “And that, by its very nature, is not something that’s easily monetized.”

Good reporting simply takes more resources to produce than it can easily recoup in digital ad dollars or fundraising. The answer? A real commitment to public media funding.

The United States does, of course, invest some money in public media.

Last year Congress allocated $535 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private nonprofit corporation tasked with investing in public radio and television. And some promising experiments are taking place at the state level, with California, New Mexico, and Washington devoting public tax dollars for local news coverage.

But that funding is a drop in the bucket compared to what’s needed.

A 2022 study comparing funding globally found the U.S. spends just $3.16 per capita on public media, compared to $142.42 per person in Germany and $110.73 in Norway. Spending as much on journalism as the United Kingdom does on the BBC would mean $35 billion a year going to sustaining coverage.

We need, as The Nation’s John Nichols recently argued, a “Marshall Plan” for journalism — a robust new era of public funding. Our democracy deserves better than to rely on ad dollars that are rapidly drying up.

This op-ed was adapted from Inequality.org and distributed for syndication by OtherWords.org.

The resignation of the US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, the third highest ranking diplomat in the Biden administration, came as a bolt out of the blue on Monday. 

An easy explanation could be that it rankles that she was overlooked for promotion as Deputy Secretary, a job she coveted in 2021 as the Biden presidency began, and instead Kurt Campbell, President Biden’s key advisor on China, recently moved in.  

The effusive praise Secretary of State Antony Blinken showered on Nuland, 62, over her premature retirement from the foreign service is usually reserved for funerals.

It is a cold war legacy that Russia hands in the US foreign service tend to hold strong views on their area of expertise. George Kennan was frequently full of regrets that his espousal of a containment strategy against the Soviet Union, as outlined in his famous 5400-word ‘Long Telegram’ from the Moscow embassy — followed by a second legendary contribution via an article published in Foreign Affairs under the pseudonym “X” — was completely misunderstood and turned into a militarised program of confrontation. 

Already by 1948 Kennan began to be dissatisfied with the diplomatic career and in the more than fifty years he lived after quitting, he was a frequent critic of US foreign policy. A splendid revelatory biography of Kennan recently A Life Between Worlds by Frank Costigliola presents a picture of a man of extraordinary ability and ambition whose idea of containing the Soviet Union helped ignited the Cold War but who himself spent the next half century trying to extinguish it. 

Always prescient, Kennan in the 1990s warned that the eastward expansion of NATO would spur a new cold war with Russia. In a cable sent in August 1948 as director of policy planning, Kennan addressed the big question that is resonating today: in the case of a Soviet collapse, should the US favour maintaining the territorial integrity of the Soviet empire or strive towards its partition. 

Kennan advised that while advocating Ukraine’s independence, the US should be exceptionally careful. He recognised the power of Ukrainian identity and counselled Washington not to oppose an independent Ukraine, but to be extra careful not to be viewed as the power advocating for it, given Russian sensitivities! 

To my mind, Victoria Nuland’s decision to throw in the towel as a career diplomat may be in a similar matrix as Kennan’s disillusionment that his advice was ignored by the Truman administration. This needs some explaining. 

The general impression of Nuland is of an inveterate ‘hawk’ and Russophobe fired up by neoconservative ideology and American exceptionalism who precipitated the Russian intervention in Ukraine and is largely responsible for fuelling the ongoing war. Of course, there is no denying that Nuland played a key role in the regime change in Kiev 10 years ago. 

But what lies buried in the debris and all but forgotten today is that Nuland also promoted the Minsk Agreements as the way out of the impasse in Donbass where explosive violence erupted in 2014 as ethnic Russian separatists with support from Russian hinterland rejected the contrived usurpation of power in Kiev by Ukrainian ultra-nationalist forces. 

No doubt, after the new government was established in Ukraine, Nuland became one of the main curators of the country’s politics, in particular, the processes that took place between Kiev and Moscow. Nuland was very active regarding Minsk agreements and in early 2016 met several times with then Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov and discussed plans for the implementation of the political part of the agreements regarding the special status of Donbass within Ukraine. 

However, once Donald Trump came to power in January 2017, the momentum was lost, as the well-known cold warrior Kurt Volker was brought in as special envoy for Ukraine to replace Nuland who quit the government post. Two years later, Volker too resigned the envoy role after becoming ensnared in the Ukraine-related scandal that  consumed Trump’s presidency eventually. 

At any rate, as the November 2019 presidential election (which Biden won) was approaching, Nuland went on record that it would be necessary to resume the work on the Minsk agreements. To quote her, “I think we should start serious negotiations on the implementation of the Minsk agreements… I hope that we will be invited to become a party to this process if and when the United States returns to considering Ukraine as an important pledge for the future of democracy. I hope that this will happen after our elections in (2019) November.” 

Nuland also noted that she did not know any other way to get Russia to withdraw from Ukraine other than the Minsk document, which after all, President Putin himself signed. However, as it happened, Biden’s Russia policies took an entirely different trajectory. 

The only plausible explanation would be that as a strong believer in Trans-atlanticism throughout his career, Biden prioritised the reversal of Trump’s benign neglect of the NATO alliance system (which was also crucial for his containment strategy toward China) and it was tactically advantageous to cast Russia in an enemy image to give new ballast to the US’ transatlantic leadership, which had got weakened under Trump. 

Meanwhile, the inclusion of Hillary Clinton’s nominees in Biden’s foreign policy team in key positions also meant the injection of a heavy dose of Russophobia into the US policies. The rest is history. 

Suffice to say, Nuland has had a big role in the life of Ukraine and we can only guess the massive dimensions of it. Indeed, she publicly celebrated the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which broke the umbilical cord tying Germany to a geopolitical alliance with Russia. Last month, after a sudden visit to Kiev, Nuland promised some nasty surprises waiting in store for the Kremlin in the Ukraine war. 

Was it the idea of combat deployment in Ukraine by NATO countries she was referring to? There are no easy answers. Well, belatedly at least, White House has intervened twice to assert that putting American troops on the ground in Ukraine is a no-go area. 

The point is, it is entirely conceivable that Nuland’s exit could be a reflection of the collapse of the whole architecture of the US’ Ukraine strategy, which she designed. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has emphatically stated that the development is to be attributed solely to the failure of the US’ anti-Russia policies: “They [American side] won’t tell you the reason. But it is simple: the failure of the anti-Russian policies of the Biden administration. Russophobia, which was proposed by Victoria Nuland as the main US foreign policy concept, is making the Democrats sink like a stone. Well, with them already being at the bottom, it’s not letting them go up.”              

All things considered, therefore, there could be added meaning to the intriguing remark yesterday by the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence Sergey Naryshkin promising his CIA counterpart William Burns that he will scrupulously observe their mutual agreement not to allow any leaks about their communication. “It was our mutual agreement not to allow leaks not only about the nature, about the issues that are being discussed or will be discussed in our face-to-face meetings, in telephone conversations, but also about them happening. I am standing by this agreement,” Naryshkin said. [Emphasis added.]

It could be coincidental that Naryshkin was messaging to Burns on a tumultuous day marking the news that Victoria Nuland is stepping down — and within a week of Putin’s unusual nuclear warning to the US. But it will be extraordinary for a seasoned politician and intelligence chief to speak up fortuitously.  

This article was published at Indian Punchline

By Kabir Taneja

Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, now in its fourth month of operations, continues to be anchored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s advertised aim of ending Hamas both as a militant and political entity. Netanyahu has further vowed to “stand against the entire free world if necessary,” to defeat the group.

The terror attack against Israel on 7 October continues to play out as dozens of Israeli hostages remain under Hamas captivity in the fast-shrinking territory of Gaza. In a recent analysis, scholar and former soldier, John Spencer, argued that it is futile to compare the ongoing Israeli military campaign to other tactical fronts, from recent examples in Ukraine, Iraq and Syria to more historical ones, going as far back as World War II. Other scholars such as Leonard Weinberg and Arie Perliger estimate that 30 percent of terror groups ‘end’ with the capture or killing of the leadership. The hypothesis Weinberg and Perliger present to back their finding is that failure is the most common outcome for the intended political aims of any terror group. Meanwhile, other academics such as Joseph Stieb also warn against banking too much on history to look for lessons to learn.

Ending, or defeating, terror organisations is a contested idea. History has many measurable examples of terror or militant groups that have been degraded beyond viability, if not completely. While for Israel, groups such as Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hezbollah pose an immediate and direct threat, India sees parallels with the cross-border terrorism it has faced for decades from Pakistan-sponsored groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), amongst others.

India’s experience

Within India, home-grown jihadist groups such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) have, in the past, created significant challenges. IM came into the limelight in the aftermath of the 2005 Delhi bomb blasts, which killed more than 60 and injured over 200 in some of the capital’s most crowded markets. The terror attack took place two days before the festival of Diwali, when public areas were at their busiest. Pakistan-based LeT took claim online under the pseudonym of Mahez-e-Inquilab, giving the impression that there is a growing trend of Indian jihadist groups building capacities domestically, while providing IM with plausible deniability.

However, to understand IM better (which is no easy task), it is vital to understand its roots in SIMI and the underlying political events that they hoped to build momentum around. There are two core events that jihadist groups in India continue to build narratives around even today: First, the demolition of Babri Masjid (mosque) in December 1992, and second, the Godhra communal riots in the state of Gujarat in 2002. While SIMI was banned by the Indian government in 2001 (which was temporarily lifted in 2008 due to a judicial intervention), IM was only banned in 2010.

SIMI was founded in 1977 in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh (UP), by a student of physics named Mohammed Ahmadullah Siddiqi, who later went on to pursue his Masters and Doctorate in journalism and media in the United States. The geography of modern UP is not new to extreme interpretations of Islam. For example, it is where the seminary Darul Uloom Deoband,  established in 1866, is becoming home to the Sunni Deobandi Islamic movement—a movement followed by the Taliban as well. On the other side of the spectrum, UP is also the place where Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomenei’s family temporarily lived as part of the then Kingdom of Awadh, ruled by Imamiyaa Shia Muslims of Persian origin, until its annexation by the British in the 1850s.

Siddiqi founded SIMI on an antithetical vision, to address biases against Muslims within Indian society and the country’s mainstream media discourse. However, in his own words, the SIMI he founded was “completely different” to what it eventually became known for, as the influence of other organisations such as Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind took hold. IM, known to be formed out of a breakaway group from SIMI, took towards a more radical route. Like any old-fashioned militia design, to promote its causes, it mixed itself with organised crime to raise funds and gain access to arms. The Persian Gulf of the 1980s and 1990s was already a tinderbox of ideology, radicalism, and organised crime including those who were on the run from the Indian state. Within SIMI, groups were also slowly getting more entrenched into pan-Islamic causes, making the group attractive to others beyond just Pakistan.

In 1981, SIMI ended its relations with the Jamaat over differences in support for Yasser Arafat, the then-leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), who visited India often. At least some factions within SIMI believed that Arafat was a Western stooge, and these differences along with a more public crackdown post-2002 pushed many young SIMI members to look for alternatives. This arguably provided an attractive pool of young ideologues for Pakistan-backed groups looking to fight in Kashmir and others who wanted to go a more independent way.

The crackdowns against IM, technically, continue to this day. And herewith lies the challenge. Because of their loose, fluid hierarchies and even looser ideological and political aims, dismantling these ecosystems may well be a forever process. In 2022, the Indian government banned the Popular Front of India (PFI) under its Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (1967) for having links with terror groups. PFI, founded in 2006 in the southern Indian state of Kerala, is accused of having links to SIMI, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, and the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh in Arabic).

IM alumni and member of other terror outfits from India have also made their mark in foreign theatres such as Afghanistan. For instance, Asim Umar, who went to Pakistan from Sambhal in UP in 1995 to join Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), eventually became the emir of Al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). He was emir since its creation in 2014 and was eventually killed in 2019 by US–Afghan forces.

IM cadre have also been known to have joined ISIS, which is a Salafist group, compared to IM’s more Deobandi anchoring. Scholar Vikram Rajakumar highlights that such an arbitrary shift in ideology towards ISIS by the IM cadre is a pivotal moment in how jihadist groups in South Asia, particularly India, have behaved in the past, which is not particularly aligning with foreign terror groups. Much like in other countries, ISIS and its caliphate, at its peak in 2015-16, broke norms to attract fighters from across the world.

In his 2011 book, Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within, journalist Shishir Gupta highlights in the text’s final chapter that while IM as a group may not be prevalent any longer, its cadre continue to be part of broader terror activities, often aided by Pakistan, and geographically located across West and South Asia, from Arab capitals to cities such as Karachi and Lahore. Ultimately, Indian security agencies continue to fight IM and SIMI as ‘ghost’ organisations, or ones where only the name is left, but core ideologues and members have dispersed into other groups and entities (or as individuals, contractors, freelancers, and organised criminals).

Ultimately, the policies that worked for India’s security establishment are what scholars Seth G Jones and Martin C Libicki conceptually highlight under ‘policing’. A slow and protracted approach under law-and-order operations brought many pro-SIMI and IM cases in front of the courts and eventual prosecution. Very few cases were military in nature. This was as much of a strategy decision as one driven by the fact that the state could not be seen as going to war against a large section of its own population. Similar thinking has also been adopted by the Indian security establishment against Left-wing terrorism, which also encompasses parallel political tracks and even space for rehabilitation via surrender-based policies in exchange for clemency and employment. Tactical operations, when needed, are conducted by semi-militarised (paramilitary) police forces instead of the traditional army.

Conclusion

While Israel has very different geographic realities, strategically, tactically, and even historically, its current trajectory of annihilation of Hamas exclusively through military means may well be untenable in the long run. Proscribed terror groups such as Hamas are condemned globally; they benefit, specifically after 7 October, from successfully wrapping their narratives around ideas of ‘revolution’, and ‘de-colonisation’, amongst others. This is not much different to militancy in the Indian state of Kashmir, where terror groups market themselves as messiahs against the state, but primarily have their own aims towards power and control. In (relative) comparison, India’s 2019 counter strike in Balakot, Pakistan, as retaliation to the Pulwama terror attack a few days earlier was aimed at resetting the escalation ladder in New Delhi’s favour (successfully). Terrorist-initiated incidents in restive Kashmir, as per government data, have come downfrom 228 in 2018 to 43 as of November 2023.

Finally, the Israelis do not need sermons from others on how to conduct counter-terror operations or build a securitised state despite their own failures on 7 October . But considering the commonalities between Israel and India regarding their experience with Islamist terror, a significant takeaway for the former would be to reassess, or clarify, how it defines a “defeat” of Hamas. This can be contextualised with the Indian experience of dealing with repurposed groups repeatedly mobilising around the same ideology or domestic grievances. In short, even with the hierarchical decapitation of Hamas, it is likely that the group would resurface in another avatar and once again use the Palestine issue as the most convenient political and ideological incubator.

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• About the author: Kabir Taneja is a Fellow with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation
• Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation

The Myanmar military, disputing the results of the 2020 election, seized power on 1 February 2021, triggering widespread civil unrest and armed resistance. Despite international condemnation, Myanmar remains mired in violence, with uncertain prospects for resolution and questions about its future trajectory.

By Om Prakash Das

Introduction

On 1 February 2021, Myanmar’s armed forces (Tatmadaw) rebuffed the landslide electoral triumph of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in 2020 and assumed control of the government. The allegation of widespread fraud in the 2020 elections precipitated a crisis wherein the military, wielding substantial control over the government as a result of a constitution it authored, declined to acknowledge the election outcomes. The coup incited widespread civil disobedience, protests and armed resistance. 

The Civil War

After the 2021 coup, opposition activists and former lawmakers formed a shadow government, known as the National Unity Government (NUG). The NUG has been working to mobilise resistance and coordinate the actions of local militias, known as People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). PDF is a collective term for three types of armed groups that have emerged since the coup—PDFs; Local Defense Forces (LDFs), and People’s Defense Teams (PDTs). PDFs are larger armed units formed or recognised by the NUG, operating under joint command systems with several ethnic armed organisations.1

In June 2019, three armed groups—the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), formed an alliance called ‘The Three Brotherhood Alliance’.2 The alliance rose to prominence in 2023 in resisting the Burmese junta. On 27 October 2023, the alliance launched Operation 1027, an offensive against the junta in northern Shan state. The alliance and other ‘resistance forces’ control a substantial part of the country as of now.3

Amidst internal discord, diverse opposition factions have coalesced, attaining an unprecedented degree of cooperation regarding military strategy. This collaborative endeavour extends across two-thirds of the nation’s territory and has culminated in significant triumphs against their adversaries.4

The civil war has precipitated a grave humanitarian crisis. The UN reports that over 2.6 million people are now displaced within Myanmar, with nearly 800,000 of these displacements occurring since late-October 2023.5 In India, approximately 59,200 individuals from Myanmar’s North-West region have sought protection since February 2021. Of these, around 5,500 are in New Delhi and have registered with the UNHCR. 6

The United Nations reported that ‘security forces in Myanmar have caused the deaths of at least 1,600 individuals and have detained more than 12,500’7 within one year of the coup. A report by the Peace Research Institute Oslo notes that at least 6,000 civilians perished during the initial 20-month period subsequent to military coup.8 According to The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), since the military coup in 2021, the country has witnessed an estimated death toll of no fewer than 50,000 individuals, encompassing at least 8,000 civilians.9

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), as of 19 February 2024, a total of 26,147 political prisoners were in detention.10 This includes nearly 4,000 women and at least 300 children. The Global Investigative Journalism Network states that approximately four journalists have been killed, as of February 2023, with 145 journalists having been arrested and approximately 68 remaining in detention.11

The Junta’s Tenuous Position 

Operation 1027 has seen an increase in junta’s airstrikes, causing significant civilian casualties with over 554 deaths documented by the UN since October 2023. The total number of civilians killed by military actions exceeded 1,600, marking a sharp rise from around 300 in the previous year.12 In November 2023, a coalition comprising Karenni ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) initiated an independent offensive termed ‘Operation 1111’ in Kayah (Karenni) State. 

Simultaneously, the Arakan Army (AA), ostensibly in solidarity with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Karenni forces, launched assaults on numerous military outposts in Rakhine State, achieving comparable success.13 Furthermore, the Tatmadaw contends with ongoing offensives in Chin, Kachin and Mon states, as diverse PDFs, representing the armed factions of the NUG established by the deposed government, operate in Tanintharyi Region, having established the Southern Brothers Army.14

The State Administration Council (SAC)15 has lost control of most of the country except for a central corridor connecting major cities. Rebel groups now hold the majority of territory, including seven entire states and parts of five others.16 They even control some key roads leading to neighbouring countries. This signifies a significant shift in power dynamics within Myanmar. Nonetheless, Myanmar’s military has shown resilience and adaptability across generations despite international and domestic challenges. It maintains unity through an institutional system distributing benefits and managing officer ambitions towards collective goals.17

The incidence of battlefield losses has the potential to precipitate regime instability and elevate the probability of regime breakdown. Such defeats not only unveil vulnerabilities within the Tatmadaw but also have the potential to instigate subsequent rebel incursions that exploit the military’s perceived limitations, thereby exacerbating losses.18 Reports note that military setbacks have led to low morale, weakened unit cohesion, and increased desertions. Over 4,000 soldiers have defected or surrendered since Operation 1027 began, adding to the 14,000 who defected after the 2021 coup.19

The October 2023 military operation has significantly challenged the junta’s grip on power. Over 5,500 soldiers and 10 generals have been killed, and 30 towns captured.20 Failing to retake lost territory and increasingly resorting to brutal tactics like airstrikes and arson, the weakened junta shows signs of losing public support and control. The junta government is currently contending with escalating casualties and defections amidst an unpopular war, compelling it to contemplate contentious measures such as mandatory military service to address manpower shortages.21However, this initiative entails significant political risks, as evidenced by incidents of backlash among young adults in response to enforced mandatory military service.22

The military employs both ideological loyalty and financial incentives to maintain the dedication of its officers. There has been no significant internal dissent that threatens the stability of Myanmar military, till the 2021 coup. But since the coup, ‘an estimated 10,000 soldiers and police officers have defected by joining the “people’s side” in opposing military rule’.23

Anti-Junta Forces and Conflicts Within

Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs) and PDFs have different visions for the future of Myanmar and could face challenges in power-sharing and moderating their respective ideological positions. Myanmar’s armed rebel groups operate independently even as they agree on the core need relating to the removal of the Tatmadaw. However, their end goals differ significantly. The EAOs aim for liberation and self-governance, while the PDFs aspire to restore democratic order under Aung San Suu Kyi.24

Despite these issues, pro-democratic forces like NLD and few ethnic groups led a transformation known as the ‘Spring Revolution’.25 In response to this, the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), the broadest front of resistance, endorsed and published a new Federal Democracy Charter in April 2021. The promulgation of the Charter marked a new phase in popular resistance to military rule and efforts to rebuild politics of Myanmar.26 This charter deals with the questions about how certain issues need to be approached and highlights legal and political considerations to support interim institutions’ constitution-building efforts.27

Where is Myanmar Heading?

The protracted armed conflict between the junta and anti-junta groups shows no sign of imminent resolution. In January 2024, Myanmar army chief, Min Aung Hlaing, extended the ‘state of emergency’ and affirmed that the military would take “whatever measures necessary to restore stability to the state”.28 In December 2023, Myanmar’s junta leader Min Aung Hlaing called on armed ethnic groups that “it is necessary to consider the lives of the people, and those organisations (EAOs) need to solve their problems politically”.29

The NUG perceives the junta’s position as indicative of its apprehension regarding the imminent collapse of the military regime. The NUG asserts that the junta are 

“losing badly on the ground, they are trying to find an exit route. There would be genuine dialogue if the military guarantees that it no longer has a role in politics; they must be under an elected government.”30   

A pro-junta publication in November 2023 had noted that at a meeting of the National Defence and Security Council, apprehensions were raised that the country can split into various parts if the government did not effectively manage the incidents in the border region.31 As the anti-junta forces advance, the cohesion of the diverse EAOs in pursuit of the overarching objectives of democratic and federal reform in Myanmar will be open to question. Will the EAOs sustain their unity for the collective vision, or will they vie for privileges, increased resources, and authority relative to other factions? Intra-group competition could exacerbate the risks of balkanisation.32   

The NUG and significant ethnic armed organisations have advocated for the establishment of a genuinely democratic federal state, explicitly opposing the constrained democracy outlined in the 2008 constitution. However, concerns persist regarding potential post-conflict scenarios regarding the equitable distribution of power and resources among the diverse factions that are opposing the junta. These factions are keen to assert their own governance, explore self-determination, and secure a portion of the nation’s considerable resources.33

EAOs are poised to exploit the current vulnerabilities of the Tatmadaw while also seeking to expand their control over territories, which presently encompass more than 50 per cent of Myanmar’s landmass.34 The resistance movements in major urban centres such as Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyidaw have yet to achieve the same level of success as the insurgents operating in the country’s peripheral regions. There is no doubt though that armed resistance groups have inflicted notable defeats on the junta, which can potentially destabilise power balances among its elite factions.35

Conclusion

Recent developments in Myanmar indicate a low probability of the junta reclaiming lost territory. They are presently entrenched in a defensive posture focused on maintaining control of towns and defending logistical routes. There is a possibility that the civil war may escalate further into the major urban centres of Myanmar. Despite ongoing international pressure for a negotiated resolution, the prospects for the acceptance of negotiations within anti-junta forces are slim, and international support is limited. Importantly, resistance groups have indicated a readiness for political integration and a federal structure of democracy, a factor that could potentially reshape Myanmar’s political trajectory.

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.

About the author: Mr Om Prakash Das is Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

Source: This article was published by Manohar Parrrikar IDSA

• 1.Ye Myo Hein, “Understanding the People’s Defense Forces in Myanmar”, United States Institute of Peace, 3 November 2022.‌
• 2.Naseer Ganai, “As Three Brotherhood Alliance Moves Forward in Myanmar, What Should Be India’s Next Step?”, Outlook India, 27 November 2023. ‌‌
• 3.Yun Sun, “Operation 1027: Changing the Tides of the Myanmar Civil War?”, Brookings, 24 January 2024.
• 4.Andrew Selth, “Three Years On from the Coup, What Could Help Myanmar’s Opposition Movement?“, Lowy Institute, 17 January 2024.
• 5.“Myanmar Emergency – UNHCR Regional Update – October 2023”, UNHCR Operational Data Portal.‌
• 6.Ibid.‌
• 7.“Myanmar: ‘Appalling’ Violations Demand ‘Unified and Resolute International Response’”, UN News, 2022.
• 8.“New Report Documents Over 6,000 Civilians Killed in 20 Months Since Myanmar”, Peace Research Institute Oslo, 12 June 2023.
• 9.“Conflict Watchlist 2024, Myanmar: Resistance to the Military Junta Gains Momentum“, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, 18 January 2024.
• 10.“Political Prisoners Post-Coup”, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. ‌
• 11.Laure Siegel, “Independent Media Rebuilds Inside and Outside Myanmar after Violent Coup”, Global Investigative Journalism Network, 14 March 2023; “Myanmar: Two More Journalists Arrested as Junta’s Crusade Against the Right to Information Continues“, Reporters without Borders, 16 December 2023.
• 12.“Myanmar: Human Rights Situation Worsens as Military Lashes Out Indiscriminately Amid Losses“, Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights, 30 January 2024.
• 13.“Myanmar Ethnic Minority Fighters Seize Town from Military“, The Economic Times, 16 December 2023.
• 14.Emily Fishbein, Jaw Tu Hkawng and Hpan Ja Brang, “Blood and Sweat”: Myanmar Resistance Fights to Overturn Military Coup”, Al Jazeera, 17 February 2024. ‌
• 15.The State Administration Council was formed on 2 February 2021 with 11 members in the aftermath of the 2021 Myanmar military coup d’état. On 3 February, five civilian members were added to the council. On 17 March, a civilian joined the council. On 30 March, a military officer and a civilian joined the council. As of late August, in total, the council comprises nine military officers and ten civilians. See “State Administration Council List”, Ministry of Information, Myanmar.
• 16.Priscilla A. Clapp and Jason Tower, “Myanmar’s Junta Is Losing Control of Its Border with China“, United States Institute of Peace, 8 November 2023.
• 17.Pamela T. Stein, “The Role of the Military in Myanmar’s Political Economy”, Master’s Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2016.
• 18.Terence Lee, “IP24018 | Assessing the Myanmar Junta’s Grip on Power“, RSIS, NTU, 15 February 2024. 
• 19.Star Digital Report, “People of My Parents’ Age Are Being Killed”, The Daily Star, 30 January 2024. 
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By Connor O’Keeffe

On Thursday evening, President Joe Biden is set to give his third State of the Union address. The political press has been buzzing with speculation over what the president will say. That speculation, however, is focused more on how Biden will perform, and which issues he will prioritize. Much of the speech is expected to be familiar.

On top of all that, the administration is dealing with the consequences of their chosen inflation rhetoric. Since its peak in the summer of 2022, the president’s team has talked about inflation “coming back down,” which can easily give the impression that it’s prices that will eventually come back down. But that’s not what that phrase means. It would be more honest to say that price increases are slowing down.

Americans are finally waking up to the fact that the cost of living will not return to prepandemic levels, and they’re not happy about it.

The president has made some clumsy attempts at damage control, such as a Super Bowl Sunday video attacking food companies for “shrinkflation”—selling smaller portions at the same price instead of simply raising prices. In his speech Thursday, Biden is expected to play up his desire to crack down on the “corporate greed” he’s blaming for high prices.

In the name of “bringing down costs for Americans,” the administration wants to implement targeted price ceilings—something anyone who has taken even a single economics class could tell you does more harm than good. Biden would never place the blame for the dramatic price increases we’ve experienced during his term where it actually belongs—on all the government spending that he and President Donald Trump oversaw during the pandemic, funded by the creation of $6 trillion out of thin air—because that kind of spending is precisely what he hopes to kick back up in a second term.

If reelected, the president wants to “revive” parts of his so-called Build Back Better agenda, which he tried and failed to pass in his first year. That would bring a significant expansion of domestic spending. And Biden remains committed to the idea that Americans must be forced to continue funding the war in Ukraine. That’s another topic Biden is expected to highlight in the State of the Union, likely accompanied by the lie that Ukraine spending is good for the American economy. It isn’t.

It’s not possible to predict all the ways President Biden will exaggerate, mislead, and outright lie in his speech on Thursday. But we can be sure of two things. The “state of the Union” is not as strong as Biden will say it is. And his policy ambitions risk making it much worse.

• About the author: Connor O’Keeffe (@ConnorMOKeeffe) produces media and content at the Mises Institute. He has a master’s in economics and a bachelor’s in geology.
• Source: This article was published by the Mises Institute

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