While the fog of war demands analytical caution, Operation 1027 carries important implications for the future of Myanmar. First, the Myanmar military is increasingly overstretched despite its airpower and artillery advantages. Second, the Three Brotherhood Alliance potentially aligning itself more openly with the pro-democracy movement — at least militarily — highlights the resistance’s determination and coalition-building efforts. Third, China’s turn toward the junta has proven a poor bet.
However, Operation 1027 represents perhaps the most significant battlefield victory thus far in the renewed civil war. Taking the town of Hsenwi in particular cuts the primary road to China through the border at Chinshwehaw, which the Three Brotherhood Alliance also captured. Almost $300 million in trade passed through it from April to July 2023, according to a junta mouthpiece. Resistance forces are now attempting to surround other strategic towns such as Laukkai and Nawngkhio and seize other locations along the border On a strategic level, the loss of these routes cuts off the junta from one of the larger border crossings to its most important international backer, Beijing. Spurred by the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s success in Shan State, People’s Defense Forces units assaulted and seized Kawlin, a district-level town in Sagaing Region in a first for them, as well as Khampat near the Indian border. Fighting this past week in Chin, Kayah, and Rakhine States further herald that the junta is increasingly tottering.the Myanmar military has fought an expanding coalition of longstanding ethnic armed organizations, the pro-democracy parallel National Unity Government, and a variety of People’s Defense Forces. Facing a fluid and complex battlefield situation, the Myanmar military junta has largely held onto the cities and towns while suffering substantial losses to guerrilla fighters operating in rural areas.
Deeply unpopular, brutal to civilians, and performing poorly at the tactical level, the Myanmar military relies upon airpower and heavy artillery to prevent the resistance from taking and consolidating its hold over populated areas. For example, the Karen National Union and several local People’s Defense Forces units launched an offensive in October 2022 to take Kawkareik near the Thai border. Initially successful, the military pulled back before junta forces retaliated with airstrikes and heavy artillery, ultimately dispersing resistance units into the countryside.
as an aside
https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/myanmar ... an-border/
Anti-regime armed groups have seized control of Khampat, a town in western Sagaing Region located near the border with India, according to Myanmar’s civilian National Unity Government (NUG).
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Importantly, this is becoming increasingly difficult. Junta convoys and supply lines are increasingly subject to ambushes. Its sudden loss of control of outposts throughout Shan State exposes the critical weakness inherent to the military’s overstretch: The military redeployed 3,000 troops out of Shan State to other parts of Myanmar earlier this year. It appears unlikely that they have the reserves to launch a concerted counter-offensive, and their air force is increasingly overtasked. Combined with the National Unity Government’s revenue denial strategy, Myanmar’s continued economic tailspin, and the increasingly tight U.S., U.K., and E.U. sanctions, the junta bleeds from a thousand cuts. The junta itself admitted earlier this year that it lacks control over almost half of the country.
Myanmar is home to hundreds of armed actors, and a pan-ethnic coalition was always the military’s greatest post-coup threat. However, forging such an alliance is an immense task given the deep divides existing between the Bamar majority and the numerous historically oppressed ethnic minority groups. Initiatives like the National Unity Consultative Council aim to address these challenges by bringing a diverse range of actors together to talk, but it remains slow going.
Buying off or isolating rival factions and groups is the military’s historical playbook in dealing with opponents to its authority. For example, the military convinced a faction within the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army to revolt in 2009, which proceeded to split and form the now regime-aligned Kokang Border Guards Force. More recently, the Arakan Army agreed to an informal ceasefire with the junta in Rakhine State in 2022, allowing the junta to focus elsewhere. In the current fighting, the Myanmar military employs an airpower compellence strategy against opposing ethnic armed organizations and “Four Cuts” operations targeting civilians and villages with indiscriminate violence to intimidate the population. The junta’s objective is to drag out the war, exhaust the population, split the ethnic minorities along the periphery from the Bamar of the interior, and then pick them off one by one over time.
Fighting has also reportedly surged in the Chin State, Magwe, and Sagaing Regions. The capture of Kawlin represents a serious advance in the People’s Defense Forces’ ability to take towns. If Loikaw falls to resistance forces, it will be the first state capital taken.
China’s mediation efforts specifically targeted the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which it has long backed publicly and privately. Indeed, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army are ethnically Kokang Chinese and closely tied to China and authorities in Yunnan Province. Beijing has historically supported the border ethnic armed organizations and armed them via the United Wa State Army, the largest and best-equipped group. China often tries to play broker in peace talks.
However, China’s influence on the Three Brotherhood Alliance is apparently less than it once seemed. Although the United Wa State Army has cooperated with China in publicly cracking down on growing human trafficking and cybercrimes along the border, including by giving up high-ranking officials, the Three Brotherhood Alliance has evidently decided that the military in Myanmar has to go. For China, this is a clear setback and sign of diminished sway over these groups. Instability along the border is a problem given China’s strategic interests in Myanmar and the risk of refugees crossing into Yunnan. Indeed, Beijing confirmed Chinese nationals have been killed in the recent fighting, and a junta artillery shell struck the Chinese side of the border.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance’s statement indicates that it is hoping to secure Beijing’s backing. The three ethnic armed organizations announced that “our commitment extends to combatting the widespread online gambling fraud that has plagued Myanmar, particularly along the China-Myanmar border.” By taking an explicitly anti-crime stance and reportedly raiding criminal networks, the Three Brotherhood Alliance is directly appealing to Beijing’s interests. During fighting outside the border town of Laukkai, where many criminal networks operate, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army was careful to argue that the Myanmar junta was protecting local criminal leadership from China’s crackdowns. The Three Brotherhood Alliance hopes to draw a contrast with the Myanmar military junta, which has dragged its feet on cracking down on such a lucrative illicit funding source. Operation 1027 is also targeting the Kokang Border Guards Force, a militia aligned with the junta that is notorious for its ties to criminal networks.
