Myanmar: The Blindspot in Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

 Keywords: Myanmar, U.S., Myanmar, Sanctions, China, India, ASEAN, Indo-Pacific

Date: 04 Oct, 2023

The tools in U.S. policy towards Myanmar is limited to supporting the democratic transition, on the one hand, and sanctioning the personnel or enterprises of Myanmar’s military (Tatmadaw), on the other. However, the approach is neither serving Washington’s geostrategic interests nor helping Myanmar find solution to the ongoing political crisis.

Geographically and historically, Myanmar stands as an important interface between South and Southeast Asia, and hence, occupies a significant but underrated place in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

While ASEAN centrality drives Washington’s plan to counteract China’s intransigence and aggression in the Indo-Pacific, the approach towards Myanmar, an ASEAN member country, is devoid of realpolitik. Moreover, the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy remains largely maritime oriented with a focus on freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) in the South China Sea.

In dealing with the developments in Myanmar, swinging from high optimism in 2011 to the dramatic military coup in the midst of a global pandemic in 2021, the U.S. policy has failed to grasp the complex realities on the ground, allowing the sway of China’s influence in a critical area of geopolitical competition.

The ordeal that a global icon like Aung San Suu Kyi has undergone, during her tenure as the State Counsellor and the spokesperson of the country abroad, defies the linear path to democratic reforms that Washington expects. Prior to occupying the official position in the government, she enjoyed unprecedented popularity and support in the West. However, her silence as the State Counsellor on issues of human rights violations and her refusal to speak up against the military, adversely affected her stature.

Back in 2011, the then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid an official visit to Myanmar and welcomed the winds of change. Clinton was only the second U.S. Secretary of State to visit Myanmar, after John Foster Dulles in 1955. Barack Obama became the first U.S. President to visit the country in 2012.

The optimism and the overall strategic shift expected from Myanmar’s political opening underwent a severe rift with the West in the wake of the Rohingya crisis. This resulted in mounting criticism over the inaction of the NLD and Suu Kyi, in particular. Following the 2021 military coup, the U.S. continued with the same policy toolkit.

However, the knee-jerk resort to sanctions as the primary tool of U.S. foreign policy in dealing with Myanmar reflects naivety, leading to strategic gains for proximate powers like China with a much more multipronged approach.

When Myanmar remained merely a strategic backwater for distant powers like the U.S., and even got overlooked by neighbours like India, Beijing has managed to build a grip over Myanmar that will be hard to compete.

While maintaining strong ties with the Tatmadaw, China has built a stronghold on many of the ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) in Myanmar, most particularly the United State Wa State Army (USWA). The USWA has received huge cache of arms and ammunition from China, and has been called “more or less an extension of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army” and “an effective bargaining chip” for Beijing “to put pressure on the Myanmar government not to stray too close to the West.”

Myanmar’s land proximity to both India and China, as well as its strategic location in the Indian Ocean opens huge opportunities and risks. This include a host of criss-crossing connectivity projects astride South and Southeast Asia and some major fallouts emanating from instability inside Myanmar affecting both state and non-state security dynamics.

The Burma Act introduced in the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), 2023 has authorised consultation to provide “technical support and non-lethal assistance for Burma’s Ethnic Armed Organizations, People’s Defense Forces, and prodemocracy movement organizations to strengthen communications and command and control, and coordination of international relief and other operations between and among such entities.”

However, if the U.S. is interested in weaning away Myanmar from China’s stranglehold, which it should, it needs to put much more skin in the game, which might mean going beyond merely supporting the newly formed the National Unity Government (NUG) of Myanmar fighting against the military regime.

Neither Washington’s targeted sanctions nor the call for broader sanctions on the military regime seem to be producing the desired outcome, which is restoring democracy and counteracting China’s dominance there. The U.S. has been practising a misguided oscillation towards Myanmar, reverting to supporting liberal democracy and sanctioning the military, despite failures.

Such an approach is steeped in an idealism that is blind to the ground realities. Can Washington turn a blind eye to the reality of power play in Myanmar and continue to put its eggs in one basket? In the U.S. policy circles, the intensity to broaden engagement with the EAOs is matched only by the push to further isolate and sanction the military regime or its affiliates.

While this may align with the idealism of American democracy promotion, it may be oblivious to the role of the military in Myanmar’s polity and the basic geopolitics of dealing with Chinese power.

It is high time that Washington reconsiders the efficacy of using sanctions as a default foreign policy tool, and assuming that it will bring tangible results, irrespective of where it is employed. The current strategy of completely ostracising the military rulers might leave the U.S. short of pragmatic choices in handling Myanmar as a crucial part of its larger strategic goals in the Indo-Pacific region.

An important partner of the United States in the Indo-Pacific, India has long porous border with Myanmar, and is equally wary of the internal political dynamics and China’s growing presence in the country. By dint of geography and history, India is one of the first countries in the region to be affected as a result of any political instability and deteriorating security situation in Myanmar.

Washington should wear a more pragmatic lens while dealing with Myanmar and align its perceptions with a country like India that might lack in resources to compete with China, but might offer a more holistic strategy to shape geopolitical outcomes in the region, which is undoubtedly a consequential subregion of the Indo-Pacific.  

Monish Tourangbam is the Honorary Director of the Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies (KIIPS) and a regular commentator on International Affairs and India’s Foreign Policy. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed above and the information available are those of the author/s and can therefore in no way be taken to reflect the position of Asian Confluence