Guest contributor
Moe Gyo
The Spring Revolution in Myanmar has been propelled by the unwavering courage and relentless determination of countless activists, civil servants, ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), and frontline fighters risking everything to confront a brutal and ruthless regime.
While the EAOs have engaged the military with discipline, strategic skill, and undeniable effectiveness, the National Unity Government (NUG) has struggled to translate its political legitimacy into the decisive military power the revolution urgently demands.
As a result, the NUG faces increasing criticism for failing to address three major military shortcomings—deficiencies that go beyond tactical errors to threaten the very balance of power against the junta.
These vulnerabilities are not mere oversights; they pose an immediate risk of unraveling the revolution and hand the junta the advantage.
- There is no centralized or regional-based “Bamar Army”—a unified fighting force operating in the Bamar-majority heartland, including Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay, Yangon, Ayeyarwady, and Western Bago. Without this core force, the revolution remains structurally weak precisely where the junta draws its political and military strength. This leaves the military free to concentrate its forces elsewhere, particularly against EAOs, while also impeding efforts to establish coordinated resistance in major cities. Compounding the issue, many People’s Defense Forces/Local Defense Forces (PDFs/LDFs) in these areas have devolved into undisciplined or abusive militias, engaging in extortion and violence against civilians. This poses a major long-term obstacle to any future security sector reform, disarmament, and reintegration (SSR/DDR) processes once the junta is overthrown.
- The lack of organized underground urban cells essential for intelligence gathering, sabotage of military infrastructure and logistics, targeted operations against senior regime figures, and sustaining the broader resistance network through financial, medical, and logistical support. The failure to establish such clandestine structures, particularly in Yangon and Mandalay, undermines the resistance’s operational depth and its ability to strike at the regime’s critical nodes from within.
- The failure to develop a coherent counter-air strategy, including the creation of special operations units capable of degrading the military’s air capabilities by targeting aircraft, runways, airbases, fuel depots/supply chains, and pilots. This has left the junta’s air superiority effectively uncontested, enabling it to bomb resistance strongholds and civilian areas at will, especially in Bamar-majority and rural regions.
These shortcomings have already reshaped the battlefield and the broader struggle, limiting the resistance’s effectiveness and resilience. As the conflict drags on, addressing these strategic weaknesses is imperative for the NUG to assert meaningful leadership and turn the tide against the junta.
A critical weakness in the Spring Revolution is the failure to create a unified and effective “Bamar Army” in the Bamar-majority regions of Central Myanmar—Sagaing, Magway, Mandalay, Yangon, Ayeyarwady, and Western Bago.
These regions form the demographic and political heartland of the country and remain the junta’s primary power base. A strong, coordinated resistance presence in these areas is therefore essential to meaningfully contest the military’s control and erode its ability to project power nationwide.
Yet the resistance forces operating in these central regions remain highly fragmented. This fragmentation is intensified by the sheer number of armed groups across the country—estimated at roughly 1,000—with over 800, primarily PDFs/LDFs, concentrated in the Bamar heartland alone.
Despite this numerical strength, the NUG lacks the experienced military leadership, cohesive strategic vision, and tailored command infrastructure required to unify these groups into an operationally effective force. It has struggled to impose a disciplined, regionally based military command structure over these disparate actors.
As a result, resistance efforts in Central Myanmar have been unable to coordinate large-scale offensives, hold territory over time, or mount rapid responses to regime attacks.
This lack of cohesion has also led to widespread problems with discipline, legitimacy, and public trust. Credible reports indicate that some PDFs/LDFs in Central Myanmar have engaged in extortion, arbitrary violence, and abuses against civilians—behaviors that not only alienate the very populations they claim to defend but also feed directly into the junta’s “lawlessness” propaganda.
This further weakens the NUG’s moral authority and complicates efforts to build a post-conflict state rooted in the rule of law and democratic norms.
The absence of a unified command also poses serious long-term risks for future SSR/DDR efforts. Hundreds of loosely organized armed groups, operating without clear hierarchies or incentives to disarm, are unlikely to simply dissolve once the regime falls. Instead, they risk devolving into criminal networks, predatory militias, or warlord fiefdoms, undermining the prospects for a stable transition and sustainable peace.
Compounding the issue, large Bamar resistance groups, such as the Bamar People’s Liberation Army (BPLA), operate alongside the EAOs instead of developing independent operational capacities within the Bamar-majority areas.
While such coalition-building is vital for national unity, it has also delayed the emergence of a distinct, centralized Bamar military force capable of engaging decisively in the central heartland.
As a result, the military continues to exercise significant influence and control in these core regions—territory that should be strategically contested but remains, for now, dangerously unchallenged.
Furthermore, a viable network of clandestine urban cells is indispensable to sustaining a coherent resistance strategy in Central Myanmar. Urban underground cells act as exponential force multipliers for the resistance by knitting together intelligence, logistics, protection, and political reach in ways that PDFs/LDFs and EAOs cannot.
Properly organized cells in the cities supply intelligence about troop movements, military supply routes, and regime vulnerabilities. This intelligence is also used to predict air and ground operations, sabotage critical logistics’ chokepoints, communications hubs, and fuel lines, and carry out targeted actions that raise the costs of regime operations and degrade their capacity to project force.
Some cells can carry out targeted operations against particularly abusive or high-ranking officers, viewing such actions as essential to weakening the junta’s chain of command and morale among its officers.
Beyond this, urban networks offer resilient channels for moving money, medicine, communications equipment, and other non-lethal supplies into contested areas, while also maintaining clandestine medical clinics, safe houses, and evacuation routes that reduce civilian casualties and preserve the lives of wounded fighters and activists.
The absence of such a coordinated urban network reflects a key shortcoming of NUG leadership: one that undermines both the strategic depth of the resistance and its ability to mount a credible challenge to the junta’s dominance in the country’s political heartland.
The military’s airpower has proven to be a game-changing element in its efforts to suppress resistance across Myanmar, especially in contested EAO areas. The junta employs a wide array of air assets, including helicopters, fighter jets, and increasingly sophisticated drones, to carry out airstrikes on villages, resistance positions, and supply routes.
This air superiority provides the military with unprecedented mobility, enabling rapid deployment of troops, surprise attacks, and the ability to strike deep into resistance-held territories with devastating effect.
The psychological impact of this air dominance on civilians and resistance fighters alike cannot be overstated. Airstrikes terrorize communities, cause mass displacement, and destroy infrastructure vital to sustaining the resistance.
The knowledge that the military can strike from above at any time also suppresses civilian willingness to cooperate openly with resistance forces, complicating recruitment, intelligence gathering, and logistics.
Meanwhile, the assured support of airpower boosts the morale and confidence of military ground troops, reinforcing the junta’s ability to project power and intimidate opposition.
Despite the critical nature of this threat, the NUG has not implemented a robust military or systematic strategy to counter the junta’s aerial advantages. There is the absence of specialized units or coordinated special operations designed to target key components of the junta’s air capabilities.
Few, if any, organized efforts by the NUG are aimed at ambushing or assassinating pilots, sabotaging aircraft on the ground at airbases, attacking the aircraft when they are vulnerable as they take off and land, disabling critical airfield facilities, or striking fuel logistics that sustain air operations.
The failure by the NUG to develop an effective counter-air strategy limits the resistance’s ability to escalate military operations or force the regime to divert resources toward protecting its air infrastructure.
In sum, the inability to challenge the military’s airpower significantly undermines the resistance’s strategic position. It perpetuates an imbalance of force that favors the regime, sustains civilian suffering, and constrains the revolution’s potential for territorial control and sustained military escalation.
Vietnam’s Viet Cong, Afghanistan’s Taliban, and Iranian proxy groups have been able to mount attacks against U.S. military facilities, including airfields, which were also heavily protected.
The NUG can no longer accept the excuse that the junta’s air assets are too heavily protected to be challenged. This mindset must shift from ‘can’t’ to ‘how’—developing innovative, realistic strategies to degrade the junta’s air dominance is essential for the revolution’s survival.
Strategic consequences
Together, these three failures—on the battlefield, in the cities, and in the skies—have compounded to create several strategic consequences that now threaten the viability of the revolution itself.
They have exposed structural weaknesses in the resistance that the junta can continue to exploit: lack of territorial depth, unreliable local defense forces, and the absence of internal disruption within regime-controlled areas.
Unless addressed urgently, these vulnerabilities will prolong the conflict, erode public trust, and reduce the likelihood of a decisive or sustainable victory.
Geopolitically, the failure to contest central Myanmar and to threaten the junta’s key capabilities weakens the NUG’s leverage with external actors, most notably regional powers with investments and security concerns in central regions.
As long as the junta can maintain control of vital infrastructure and demonstrate coercive capacity, outside states—especially China—have less incentive to shift support decisively toward the NUG.
In short, these interconnected failures—no centralized Bamar force, no effective urban underground, and no systematic counter-air approach—produce cascading operational, territorial, psychological, and moral harms.
If left unaddressed, they will prolong the conflict, deepen civilian suffering, and may ultimately jeopardize the revolution’s viability.
Reversing these trends will require the NUG to prioritize coordinated, disciplined, and technically informed measures: build clandestine urban capabilities, consolidate credible command structures in the Bamar heartland, and develop precise, sustainable means to raise the cost and risk of the junta’s air operations.
The Spring Revolution has survived because of the unshakable courage of Myanmar’s people—civil servants who walked off the job, activists who defied surveillance and repression, and resistance fighters who took up arms with little more than conviction.
At the forefront have been the EAOs, whose disciplined leadership, battlefield sacrifices, and territorial gains have carried the revolution through its most dangerous phases.
In contrast, the NUG has too often stood on the sidelines of the military struggle, offering rhetoric and legitimacy while avoiding the hard, costly work of organized resistance.
This asymmetry is no longer sustainable. The NUG cannot continue to rely on the blood and discipline of others while failing to build the structures and strategies that military success requires.
Its persistent failure to consolidate forces in the Bamar heartland, develop a viable urban underground, or contest the regime’s control of the skies has left the revolution exposed—and has raised real doubts about its willingness and capacity to lead.
If the NUG seeks to be more than a symbolic government in exile, it must now act like a wartime leadership: unify the fragmented Bamar forces under credible command, invest in clandestine resistance networks inside major cities, and develop operational capabilities to degrade the junta’s airpower.
Anything less risks forfeiting the revolution’s hard-won momentum—and betraying the very people whose lives have fueled it.
This is not merely a test of strategy; it is a test of political will and revolutionary integrity.
Victory will not come through statements, alliances, or international recognition alone. It will come when the NUG finally takes full ownership of the fight, matching the sacrifice of those already on the frontlines and leading not in name, but in action.
Moe Gyo is a political consultant and strategist working on the Thailand-Myanmar border.
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