The Tatmadaw has held Myanmar by force for most of the country's post-independence history. It has outlasted insurgencies, sanctions, and the 2021 coup's brutal exposure of its true relationship with the civilian population it claimed to govern. What it has not outlasted is the combination of the People's Defence Forces — organised by the National Unity Government, trained in urban guerrilla tactics — and the ethnic armed organisations whose coordinated Operation 1027 in late 2023 changed the conflict permanently. The Arakan Army. The Ta'ang National Liberation Army. The Kachin Independence Army. Working together in a way they never had before.
As of April 2025, the resistance controls or contests an estimated 60 percent of Myanmar's land area. All of Chin State. Most of Sagaing and Magway. Significant portions of Shan and Kayah. The strategically critical Rakhine coastal corridor. The Tatmadaw holds Naypyidaw, most of Yangon, and the Irrawaddy delta — but its supply lines to besieged garrisons are severed in multiple locations, and its ability to reinforce by ground is largely gone. Air power is compensating. Air power is also running down.
The back-channel signals reaching ASEAN's Myanmar Special Envoy describe a military leadership split between hardliners pushing for a scorched-earth response and pragmatists who believe a negotiated transition — one that preserves some institutional military role — is better than a defeat that preserves nothing. The National Unity Government has stated publicly it will not negotiate while the junta controls Naypyidaw. International mediators are quietly testing whether that position has any give.
The humanitarian toll is severe. The UN estimates 3.4 million people currently displaced within Myanmar. Cross-border refugee populations in Thailand and India are growing faster than host governments are willing to manage.
"We did not start this war," said NUG Acting President Duwa Lashi La. "We will finish it on terms that our people can live with."