Part I: Misreading a Still-Contested Struggle
How narratives of decline, peace and junta normalization obscure the continuing strength and resilience of Myanmar’s revolution
Guest contributor
Igor Blazevic
A Protracted War, but Not a Defeated Revolution
Myanmar’s Spring Revolution — its liberation struggle against military dictatorship — is in a period of setback and prolonged struggle because of the regime’s partial revival and outside interference. The revolution is now in a situation of protracted war.
The revolutionary forces will not topple the regime any time soon. The regime has re-entrenched itself, for the time being, in the centre and is reaffirming itself as the state-controlling actor — but only partially.
The resistance remains, for the time being, largely on the periphery — but it is a very large periphery — and outsiders still tend to see it as a multitude of non-state actors.
The regime controls the capital, major cities, the formal state apparatus, the central bank, passport issuance, much of the lowlands, main roads, ports and airfields. The resistance is strongest in rural areas and liberated ethnic areas.
The revolution cannot win at this moment or in the foreseeable future — certainly not in the next 12 months. But it cannot and will not be defeated any time soon either.
The regime’s partial revival has not brought a fundamental change in the balance of power. It has brought a change in perceptions and political positioning. That distinction is important.
False narratives are winning over reality
If we ask what the main trajectories in Myanmar are at the end of summer 2026, we need to be extra careful not to be misled by the power of narratives that have little in common with the reality on the ground.
For eight to ten months, outside Myanmar there has been significant media coverage and diplomatic talk about the junta’s staged “elections”, the formation of a “new civilian, military-backed government”, “China-imposed ceasefires”, the junta’s military offensives, and the supposed necessity and opportunity for “peace”.
Meanwhile, the cruel reality of ongoing war, escalating junta atrocities and destruction has been overlooked and ignored.
There has been no meaningful change in Naypyidaw. The regime is the same one led by Min Aung Hlaing, and its intentions and behaviour have not changed. It is continuing the war and planning more war.
Let me give just a few illustrations of the junta’s deliberately manipulative false narratives that have nevertheless managed to creep into media and diplomatic discourse, thinking and decision-making.
The regime says: “We are an elected, civilian government.” In reality, the same military junta remains in power in Naypyidaw, with authority concentrated around coup leader Min Aung Hlaing.
It says: “We can provide stability.” In reality, the regime remains the main source of conflict and destruction. It says it is pursuing peace, while escalating the war and pursuing it primarily through terror and atrocities against the civilian population.
It claims that Aung San Suu Kyi is being treated properly, while she and tens of thousands of others remain in prison amid serious concerns and evidence of mistreatment and neglect.
It says it is fighting transnational crime, while scam centres and criminal economies continue to operate in a system in which the regime is deeply implicated.
It claims to cooperate on humanitarian issues, while systematically blocking and weaponizing aid and using the denial of food, fuel, communications, trade, medicine and assistance as a tool of war.
The regime also projects the message that those smart enough to engage now are already capturing economic benefits. Yet it cannot deliver on many of the economic projects and deals it signs.
Above all, it wants others to believe that it is stabilizing control over Myanmar, that it is here to stay and that it controls the future.
Behind the smokescreen of these narratives, however, the regime remains highly vulnerable. It is rigid and stubborn, uncompromising and brutal — but vulnerable.
No Peace Process: The Junta Is Fighting for Total Victory
Myanmar is in a state of ongoing and escalating war. This needs to be said clearly because outside perceptions have been distorted by the idea that the regime is reconsolidating control, somehow becoming “new” and ready to be more constructive, while the revolution is exhausted, critically short of resources, gradually waning and crumbling, and a peace process is becoming possible.
The “peace narrative” — despite there being no realistic prospect of peace in the foreseeable future — has done more than hide the reality of ongoing war from diplomatic and policy-making discourse. It also has a more subversive effect.
Recently, there has been so much talk about prospects for peace, combined with outside pressure and incentives aimed at producing some form of settlement, that parts of the revolutionary movement may be starting to internalize the idea that some kind of “tactical peace” is becoming inevitable.
This is how the regime’s narrative first enters the thinking of neighbouring countries and regional actors and then, through them, begins to penetrate the thinking of the revolutionary side itself.
The deeply hated Min Aung Hlaing cannot persuade people in Myanmar to trust its sham elections and supposed peace offers.
But when similar proposals come from neighbouring countries and outside actors, packaged together with pressure, incentives and diplomatic engagement, they can begin to influence the thinking of some revolutionary actors.
This creates a dangerous asymmetry: the regime has strategic clarity about what it wants to achieve — total and final victory — while parts of the revolutionary movement risk becoming confused about their own strategic direction.
The regime has no “tactical peace” in mind. Its long-term objective remains full victory and the restoration of centralized military-backed control over territory, population and economic assets. It talks peace while concentrating on winning the war.
Min Aung Hlaing’s regime operates from a hardened mindset.
The lessons it has drawn from the previous period seem clear: the experiment with limited and controlled democracy failed; the peace experiment with ethnic armed organizations failed; do not repeat those mistakes; aim for full victory and pursue it with strategic patience and discipline.
Revolutionary forces should therefore not allow the language of “peace” to create strategic confusion on their side when the enemy retains strategic clarity.
The Danger of the “Forever War” Narrative
There is another narrative that should be resolutely challenged: the idea of Myanmar’s “forever war”.
Yes, the war of the dictatorial, military-dominated central state against EROs and ethnic nationalities has lasted for many decades.
But this does not mean that war is inevitable in Myanmar, that it is endless, or that the country’s divisions are so deep that no solution can be found.
And the present war should certainly not be reduced to just another continuation of that “forever war”.
The current war is the war of an illegitimate, criminal and deeply hated military regime against a nationwide resistance and against the Bama–ethnic alliance created after the February 2021 coup.
The “forever war” narrative has political consequences. It tells outsiders: do not get involved; this is too complex; this is a quagmire; nothing can really be solved; at the end of the day, centralized military control may be the only relatively stable solution.
That conclusion should be rejected. The current war is not unsolvable.
Myanmar’s neighbours and other regional actors bear significant responsibility for prolonging it when they bet on the military junta, provide it with political and diplomatic acceptance, and put additional resources, technology, trade and economic opportunities into its hands.
Far-away authoritarian regimes supplying the junta with military and other support play the same role. These outside actors are not merely observing or managing the conflict: they are helping to sustain the regime’s capacity to continue it.
The war can end. But it will be much harder to end for as long as neighbouring and regional countries continue to fuel the junta’s capacity to wage war against both ethnic nationalities and the Bama population.
They are prolonging a war of occupation and aggression that the military regime cannot win on its own.
The junta cannot win militarily — but it can win politically
For roughly a year and a half, a narrative has spread that the military regime is permanently on the offensive — militarily, politically, diplomatically and economically — while the revolutionary forces are in constant retreat and decline.
This is only partly true. It is also partly a distortion of reality: a widely circulated narrative that is increasingly becoming self-reinforcing.
A clearer description is this: Min Aung Hlaing’s regime cannot defeat the resistance militarily any time soon. It is causing enormous damage and destruction, but it cannot regain control over the country.
However, the regime can prevail politically by consolidating the image that it is the central government of Myanmar.
If the regime survives, it will not necessarily be because of battlefield victories. It may survive and prevail because it gains legitimacy and recognition.
If it is recognized internationally — even partially — it can regain access to financial resources, weapons, investment and the confidence of loyalists, businesses and opportunists.
If it becomes widely perceived as Myanmar’s durable central government, it can gradually move from weakness to renewed strength.
That is why the key battlefields are no longer only the military frontlines. Critical battles are taking place simultaneously on the political, diplomatic, information and psychological warfare fronts.
Understanding these interconnected battlefields is essential to understanding both how the junta is trying to recover — and what the revolutionary side needs to do to retake the initiative.
*To be continued with Part II: The Battle Beyond the Frontlines
Igor Blazevic is a senior adviser with the Prague Civil Society Centre. Between 2011 and 2016 he worked in Myanmar as head lecturer at the Educational Initiatives Program.
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