Now is the time to help Myanmar win its battle for democracy

Three years ago, the Myanmar military staged a coup that ended a decade-long experiment with limited democracy and civilian government, reimposing a brutal and repressive regime. The coup provoked an unprecedented resistance movement, finally bringing the country’s dominant Bamar majority into a struggle that ethnic minority groups have waged for many decades.

Before 2010, the military’s grip on the country was unshakeable and its economic mismanagement and corruption so entrenched that Myanmar (also known as Burma) went from being one of richest countries in Asia at its independence in 1947 to one of the poorest and most isolated.

During its transition to limited democracy in 2011 to 2021, Myanmar made significant economic progress: opening to trade and modern telecommunications, expanding electricity access to an additional 20 percent of the population, spurring economic growth of 5-6 percent per year, reducing childhood mortality and malnutrition, and raising real per capita income by over 50 percent. In contrast, the military continued to act with impunity, razing villages and engaging in bombing, murder, rape, arson, torture and forced displacement of ethnic minorities, including the Rohingya.

Since Covid and the coup, economic progress has been reversed as conflict has intensified. Thousands of civilians have been killed by the military and an estimated 2.5 million have been forcibly displaced. Economic contraction has left national income below 2019 levels, with trade, industry and agriculture suffering from disruptions to transport routes and now-frequent power outages. High inflation has doubled the cost of a healthy diet and the share of households facing food insecurity. Government spending on health and education has fallen from 4 percent of national income in 2020 to less than 2 percent in 2023, a small fraction of spending by the military and military-linked enterprises.

The military junta is failing on the economic front and, more surprisingly, has suffered a string of defeats at the hands of the resistance movement since late 2023. Military losses are high and morale low; more soldiers are surrendering or defecting. In desperation, the junta just activated an old conscription law subjecting men and women to obligatory military service. Thus far, its impact is to send Myanmar’s youths running for the borders or into resistance camps.

Recent victories by the resistance reflect stronger alliances among long-established ethnic organizations, as well as better collaboration with the post-coup National Unity Government in exile and its peoples’ defense forces. It may also reflect a shift in attitude by Myanmar’s dominant neighbor, China.

This shift may prove important. China wants a stable Myanmar to serve its geopolitical and economic interests, most tangibly via a transport corridor across Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal. With the junta failing to deliver on this most basic promise of stability, many suspect that China is looking favorably at resistance victories that would force the junta into a negotiated settlement aimed at restoring stability.

What does this mean for U.S. policy toward Myanmar? What more can we do to support Myanmar’s struggle for democracy?

The good news is that the BURMA Act, signed into law in late 2022, already gives us the scope to do more. It authorizes actions and appropriations through 2027 to hold the Myanmar military accountable for atrocities and support the resistance movement in its struggle for democracy.

The troubling news is that much of the promise of the BURMA Act has yet to be realized. With the Myanmar resistance achieving a string of victories, now is the time for the U.S. to take greater action in three areas.

First, the U.S. should enhance its dialogue with China on Myanmar. America has a timebound window where China’s support for resistance may align with our own goals. U.S. support that seemed threatening three years ago may be more palatable today. This will certainly have limits, because any Chinese-brokered settlement that leaves the military intact and unaccountable to civilian government is a recipe for more brutality. It should be unacceptable to us and to the long-suffering people of Myanmar.

Second, the U.S. should deliver all forms of assistance authorized by the BURMA Act. Since the coup, America has provided mostly humanitarian aid, with a side helping of support to foster democracy. The U.S. also can provide non-lethal assistance (e.g. protective armor, drones, medical supplies) to those fighting for democracy in Myanmar, as we have done to support Ukraine and other worthy causes.

Third, the U.S. should scale up assistance to foster a future federal democratic state in Myanmar. This work is underway, but now is the time to ramp up financial and technical support to the National Unity Government and ethnic resistance organizations to address problems that crippled democracy in the 2011-2021 period. Paramount among these is ensuring accountability of a reformed military to civilian authority, resolving citizenship status for the one-in-five people who are without (including the Rohingya), and defining responsibilities and systems for a functional federated state.

The people of Myanmar have been surprisingly successful in their fight for democracy. The U.S. can and should do more to help.

Ellen Goldstein is the former director for Myanmar at the World Bank and author of “Damned If You Do: Foreign Aid and My Struggle to Do Right in Myanmar” (Ballast Books).