Myanmar Junta Seizes Control While Resistance Collapses
Five years after the coup, Myanmar's military has achieved a stunning reversal on the battlefield, retaking key territories from resistance forces while consolidating political power—but the gains mask a grinding stalemate and humanitarian catastrophe.
The Myanmar military junta has engineered a tactical turnaround in its civil war that defies the pessimism that gripped analysts just eighteen months ago. Where the People's Defence Forces and ethnic armed groups once threatened regime strongholds, the Tatmadaw now controls the momentum, capturing towns, pushing resistance fighters into rural strongholds, and consolidating political legitimacy through elections that the military entirely orchestrated.
In the winter of 2024, the situation looked dire for Min Aung Hlaing and his military leadership. Resistance forces controlled large swaths of territory in northern Sagaing Region, Chin State, and Rakhine. The Karen National Union struck military airfields. The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) pressed deeper into junta-held zones. By early 2026, however, the picture had inverted. Analysts describe a complete reversal in the trajectory of the conflict. The military now has the initiative, and opposition forces—fractured, under-resourced, and increasingly isolated—are in serious trouble.
The Tatmadaw's comeback stems from three converging factors, all apparent in recent months. First, the military has deployed new tactics: intensive use of aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles, combined with waves of conscripted troops that tolerate severe attrition. Second, China has shifted its posture. Ethnic armed organizations historically linked to Beijing that once supplied weapons to local resistance fighters have cut off the spigot. Chinese support for the Tatmadaw, conversely, has solidified—most visibly when President Min Aung Hlaing met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in April 2026 to coordinate strategy. Third, the National Unity Government—the exiled civilian administration that claims to lead the resistance—has proven a poor partner. Many local PDFs arm themselves rather than rely on promises from the NUG, leaving them chronically under-equipped.
The territorial evidence is stark. In May 2026, junta forces recaptured Tonzang, a town on the crucial Tedim-Kale trade route in Chin State. The previous month, they took Falam, the second-largest city in Chin State, and now threaten Rihkawdar on the India-Myanmar border. These advances unwind years of resistance gains and reposition the military to project power into border regions that sheltered opposition fighters. In northern Sagaing, the Tatmadaw retook Banmauk in late March 2026 after intense fighting, closing a dangerous gap in its northern flank.
Yet the junta's military gains arrive accompanied by zero political legitimacy and accelerating humanitarian collapse. In December 2025 and January 2026, the military conducted elections that were political theater. The voting occurred in only 263 of 330 townships, confined to urban areas under regime control. Conflict zones were simply exempted. The main opposition National League for Democracy, which won landslide elections in 2020, was barred entirely. Turnout reached just 54 percent where voting occurred—a clear measure of public alienation. On April 3, 2026, parliament selected Min Aung Hlaing as president, completing a choreographed transition from military strongman to civilian president. It changed nothing about who actually rules.
In reality, the junta has consolidated control while adopting a civilian veneer. Min Aung Hlaing stepped down as commander-in-chief in late March and transferred the post to Ye Win Oo, a longtime intelligence operative and his trusted confidant. The appointment guarantees that real military power remains in Min Aung Hlaing's hands even as he assumes the presidency. A new Union Consultative Council—a five-member body that will oversee both military and civilian arms—will be appointed by and report to the president. Analysts view it as a mechanism to ensure the military remains aligned with Min Aung Hlaing's leadership. The junta has merely restructured its dominance.
Meanwhile, the cost to Myanmar's civilian population has become almost unfathomable. As of May 2026, approximately 4.5 million people are internally displaced, driven from their homes by fighting, airstrikes, or military raids. The United Nations projects that 16 million Burmese will require humanitarian assistance in 2026—nearly 30 percent of the population. Food security has collapsed. According to the World Food Programme, basic staple prices have risen 22 percent since the start of the Iran war disrupted supply chains through the Strait of Hormuz. Fertilizer imports have plummeted, threatening this year's rice harvest—Myanmar's main food crop and crucial export revenue source. Farmers in the western state of Rakhine, where the Arakan Army fights the military to a standstill, face impossible choices between planting next season's rice or paying to feed their families.
The military's airpower has become a tool of terror against civilian populations. Since January 2026 alone, documented airstrikes have killed displaced people sheltering in camps, civilians in marketplace gatherings, patients in hospitals, and students in schools. In one May 2026 strike, airstrikes on an opposition-run school in Sagaing Region killed 22 students and two teachers. In September 2025, bombs on two private boarding schools in Rakhine killed an estimated 23 students. The military uses cluster munitions—weapons internationally banned—and has domestically produced them since 2022. The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, established to document war crimes, has gathered evidence that the military's pattern of attacks constitutes crimes against humanity and systematic war crimes.
The resistance is fractured and losing ground, but not defeated. The People's Defence Forces continue to administer rural areas across Sagaing and control portions of Mandalay Region. The Karen National Union maintains strongholds in eastern Myanmar. The Arakan Army, the most formidable ethnic army, controls most of Rakhine State outside three urban redoubts. But these forces face mounting pressure, dwindling resources, and no clear political end-state. The junta refuses to negotiate. Its strategy combines relentless military pressure with selective surrender incentives—the February 2026 defection of resistance leader Bo Nagar and his Burma National Revolutionary Army exemplifies the pattern.
What emerges is a war at a critical hinge: the military has regained the initiative but cannot achieve total victory against a dispersed, ideologically committed enemy. The junta has consolidated political control behind a democratic facade but faces zero international legitimacy and massive humanitarian disaster. The resistance maintains territorial control over large areas and popular support but lacks the resources, unity, and external backing to overthrow the regime. The conflict has entered a grinding stalemate that will exact unimaginable costs on Myanmar's already devastated population.
I've covered insurgencies from Syria to Yemen, and Myanmar's trajectory mirrors a grim pattern: military technological advantage crushing grassroots resistance, not through strategic brilliance but through sheer brutality and attrition. Min Aung Hlaing has weaponized air power against civilians because he can't break the resistance militarily. China's pivot—cutting off the PDFs while supporting the junta—has tilted the battlefield decisively. If the trend holds, the junta wins militarily while the country starves. The West watches. ASEAN stays quiet. And 16 million Burmese pay the price for a conflict nobody in power is willing to solve.
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