Myanmar’s enduring geopolitics

In his 2015 book Prisoners of Geography, the British journalist Tim Marshall wrote that “the physical realities that underpin national and international politics are too often disregarded both in writing about history and in contemporary reporting of world affairs”. Marshall felt that, while geography may not be the determining factor in global events, it was certainly the most overlooked. It can be argued that this has long been the case with Myanmar (formerly Burma).

Most books and articles that examine Myanmar’s modern history focus on subjects like the political role of the armed forces, the fluctuating fortunes of the opposition movement, the country’s unrealised economic potential and its perennially prickly relations with near neighbours. Given the drama of recent developments, and their impact on the international community, this is understandable. However, it is important also to keep in mind the complex geopolitical factors that, in one way or another, lie behind such issues.

Take, for example, Myanmar’s size, geographical position and physical features.

Myanmar is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia. In Samuel Huntington’s terms, it is on a fault line where the civilisations of south, southeast and north Asia converge. More particularly, it lies between India and China, the world’s two most populous countries. Both have strong economies and formidable military forces. Both are nuclear armed. They also share long, poorly demarcated and porous borders with Myanmar, where a host of ethnic insurgents, black marketeers, transnational criminals and refugees are active.

Adding to these complications, the topographical axis of Myanmar is north to south. Inside a horseshoe of mountains and plateaus, the hills and rivers run lengthwise down the country to wide deltas. This makes east-west travel difficult. For example, the British felt Myanmar constituted a strategic barrier almost as great as the Himalayas, such were the difficulties of traversing the natural obstacles separating its two colonies of Burma and India. This belief was vindicated in 1944, when the Imperial Japanese Army spectacularly failed in its attempt to invade India.

These days, the land-locked areas of both eastern India and southern China look to Myanmar for outlets to the Indian Ocean, through multi-modal communications and supply routes. Beijing also sees this as a way of avoiding what Hu Jintao called the “Malacca dilemma”—the maritime chokepoint that potentially threatens oil supplies from the Middle East. China’s Belt and Road economic corridor from Muse on the Yunnan border to Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal, and India’s Kaladan Road Project from Aizawl in Mizoram State to Sittwe on Myanmar’s coast are critical, but both are vulnerable to disruption by unrest in Myanmar.

For decades, Myanmar was neglected by India. Successive governments in New Delhi were comfortable in the knowledge that Myanmar’s nationalistic military government was strongly independent and determined to remain non-aligned in world affairs. However, since the fall of General Ne Win’s socialist regime in 1988, India has become increasingly anxious about China’s perceived position in Myanmar. It has cited Beijing’s apparent influence over the junta, and the generals’ dependence on Chinese arms. After a period of relatively friendly relations with Naypyidaw, Delhi also fears renewed pressure on India’s thinly populated and politically unstable eastern border.

Myanmar’s strategic significance and growing relations with China reportedly has also attracted US interest. Washington has denied accusations that it wants to “balance” China’s presence in Myanmar. However, Barack Obama’s 2011 “pivot to Asia” was seen by many as a response in part to Beijing’s advances in Myanmar, as was Obama’s decision to welcome Thein Sein’s quasi-democratic government, inaugurated in Naypyidaw the same year. Despite occasional reports that the US plans to wage a proxy war against China in Myanmar, Donald Trump seems to have different priorities.

Inevitably, economic factors play a major role in such calculations. Myanmar is rich in natural resources, including timber, gas, rare earths and other minerals. These have attracted the interest of Beijing and Delhi and prompted varying degrees of support for the current junta. For its part, ASEAN is conscious of the potential for Myanmar to exacerbate rivalries between the major powers, and to threaten regional stability. Yet the demands of realpolitik will ensure that its members stop short of imposing meaningful sanctions against the junta. For example, natural gas from Myanmar meets 11% of Thailand’s annual energy needs.

Geopolitical factors, or political geography, affect more than Myanmar's foreign relations.

Developments inside Myanmar have often been influenced, if not decided, by its peculiar geography. Even before the country was nominally unified in the 16th century, and formal boundaries drawn on maps by the later colonial powers, its ethnic Mon and Bamar monarchs really only held sway over the country’s central and southern lowlands, consisting mainly of the valleys and deltas of the Irrawaddy, Sittaung and Salween Rivers. The surrounding uplands and jungles were dominated by other ethnic groups, like the Arakanese, Chin, Kachin, Shan and Karen. The independent Arakan kingdom, for example, only fell to the Burmese king in 1785 (before being lost to the British in 1826).

Due to the problems posed by Myanmar’s geographical features, military operations in the more remote parts of the country have always been fraught with difficulty. Early governments tended to rely on agreements with local rulers indirectly to exercise a measure of control. During the colonial period, for example, the British let the Shan princes (or sawbwas) rule over their traditional domains, subject to “advice” (and the occasional punitive expedition) from the Crown. Even before the outbreak of the current civil war in 2021, many peripheral areas of Myanmar remained effectively beyond the control of the central government, the ruling military regime represented by what was in effect an army of occupation. These areas are now effectively controlled by ethnic armed organisations (EAOs).

The problems posed by Myanmar’s geography were perhaps most clearly revealed during the Second World War. In his memoir Defeat Into Victory, General William Slim, commanding the British Fourteenth Army, famously described Myanmar as having “some of the world’s worst country, breeding the world’s worst diseases and having for half the year at least the world’s worst climate”. In 1944, after surveying the number of its troops suffering from various tropical diseases, the British authorities described Myanmar as “one of the most unhealthy [countries] in the world”.

To look more closely at its weather for a moment, Myanmar experiences three seasons, popularly known as the cool, hot and wet seasons. They are dictated largely by the southwest monsoon. This climate pattern has always had a direct effect on travel, commerce and military operations. The traditional “fighting season”, for example, lasts from November to April. Movements during the rainy season, from May to October, are very difficult, made worse by the lack of paved roads. Large scale ground campaigns and air strikes – an increasingly important aspect of the junta’s strategy – become highly problematic. As seen in the current civil war, this favours small bands of mobile guerrillas, as fielded by the EAOs and opposition People’s Defence Forces.

As the war correspondent Erik Durschmeid has written, climates have always been underestimated as an influence on history. After Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in 2008, for example, the ruling State Peace and Development Council believed the country was about to be invaded by Western powers and refused their offers of humanitarian aid.

Stretching the term “geopolitical” further, it is relevant that Myanmar is, in Martin Smith’s words, “one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world”. The official count of 135 distinct ethno-linguistic groups can be challenged but, as the veteran Myanmar watcher David Steinberg has argued, Myanmar has never been a “nation-state” in the true sense of the word. It has always been a constantly changing mosaic of often mutually antagonistic ethnic groups, most of which have taken up arms against the Bamar-dominated central government at one time or another. These problems are now reflected in the current opposition movement.

Of course, Myanmar’s internal dynamics are also influenced by economic matters. One reason why the junta survives and can continue fighting, for example, is Thailand’s payments of over one billion US dollars a year for Myanmar’s natural gas. In the vast “ungoverned spaces” around the country’s rugged periphery, EAOs and warlord armies control precious natural resources like jade and rare earths that provide them with a steady income. This permits them to purchase the arms needed to maintain their fight against the central government. Their activities, and those of international criminals, have an impact not only on Myanmar’s domestic politics but also developments further afield, as narcotics traffickers and electronic scammers reach out to the global community.

It is only to be expected that journalists and other commentators will focus most of their attention on the politicians and patriots, rebels and racketeers who currently hold centre stage in contemporary Myanmar. The bitter civil war that has raged since the 2021 coup has resulted in at least 5,350 civilians killed and more than three million displaced. Over half the population is living below the poverty line due to the conflict and the economy is in ruins. This is a tragedy that shows no sign of ending soon. However, it is worth remembering that all these developments are taking place against a backdrop of the country’s location, physical geography, climate and demography. Such factors are important too and will influence developments long after the current cast of actors has been replaced.

Eventually, the people and issues that are capturing the world’s headlines will become part of history, but Myanmar’s unique geography is enduring.

Andrew Selth is an Adjunct Professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. His latest book is “Myanmar: The Making of an Intelligence State” (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, forthcoming)

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