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Myanmar: Civil–Military Relations in a Tutelary Regime
Marco Bünte, Institute of Political Science, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1887
Published online: 28 June 2021
Summary
Myanmar has had one of the longest ruling military regimes in the world. Ruling directly
or indirectly for more than five decades, Myanmar’s armed forces have been able to
permeate the country’s main political institutions, its economy, and its society. Myanmar
is a highly revealing case study for examining the trajectory of civil–military relations
over the past seven decades. Myanmar ended direct military rule only in 2011 after the
military had become the most powerful institution in society, weakened the political party
opposition severely, coopted several ethnic armed groups, and built up a business empire
that allowed it to remain financially independent. The new tutelary regime—established
in 2011 after proclaiming a roadmap to “discipline flourishing democracy” in 2003,
promulgating a new constitution in 2008, and holding (heavily scripted) elections in 2010
—allowed a degree of power-sharing between elected civilian politicians and the military
for a decade. Although policymaking in economic, financial, and social arenas was
transferred to the elected government, the military remained in firm control of external
and internal security and continued to be completely autonomous in the management of
its own affairs. As a veto power, the military was also able to protect its prerogatives from
a position of strength. Despite this dominant position in the government, civil–military
relations were hostile and led to a coup in February 2021. The military felt increasingly
threatened and humiliated as civilians destroyed the guardrails it had put in place to
protect its core interests within the tutelary regime. The military also felt increasingly
alienated as the party the military had established repeatedly failed to perform in the
elections.
Keywords: Myanmar, military, civil–military relations, tutelary regime, coup, military in politics
Subjects: Contentious Politics and Political Violence, Governance/Political Change, Political
Institutions
The Coup in February 2021 and the Breakdown of Civil–Military Relations
In the early morning hours of February 1, 2021, military officers detained State Counsellor
Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other senior leaders of the National League for
Democracy (NLD). They cut off phones and the internet and arrested some of the most active
Marco Bünte, Institute of Political Science, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg
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members of civil society. Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing seized state power, made
General Myint Swe the new president, and declared a 1-year state of emergency. The move
came just 1 day before the newly elected parliament was about to convene for the first time
following the November 2020 elections in which the NLD had won an overwhelming majority,
as it had 5 years previously in the 2015 elections.
The coup ended a decade of power-sharing between the military and elected civilian
politicians. It took the military more than two decades to craft this form of power-sharing, to
write the 2008 constitution, to adopt it in a referendum, and to convince both the civilian
opposition and the international community to support it. With the relatively free elections in
2015, the country seemed on the path toward gradual democratization and national
reconciliation, though the military guarded the process from a position of strength (Bünte,
2014; Callahan, 2012; Egreteau, 2016). This form of “tutelary regime” allowed the military to
protect its core interests in the country but to step back from the daily business of
policymaking (Bünte, 2021; Stokke & Aung, 2020). The democratic opening enabled Myanmar
to engage much more with the outside world, since most Western countries had lifted their
economic sanctions in 2016. Nevertheless, some targeted sanctions were reintroduced after
the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people in 2017. The country experienced significant
growth rates in the decade leading up to 2021 and attained lower middle-income status in
2015. Before 2011, the Myanmar armed forces (Tatmadaw) had ruled the country directly for
nearly five decades, with devastating consequences for the economy and the social
infrastructure of the country. Under the previous half century of military rule, Myanmar had
become Southeast Asia’s poorest country. The question consequently is: Why did the military
end a decade of civil–military cooperation and choose to return to direct military rule,
although it had profited obviously from a decade of a power-sharing arrangement?
The article tries to answer this question by examining the trajectory of civil–military relations
in Myanmar over the past seven decades. This trajectory has been shaped by several critical
junctures, which have not only brought about a military dominance in politics (and the
economy), but also affected the military mindset and its willingness to share power and
resources with civilian leaders. The article analyzes these critical junctures, which are
understood as “short, time-defined periods, where antecedent conditions allow contingent
choices that set a specific trajectory of institutional modification that is difficult to
reverse” (Page, 2006, p. 8). From this perspective, it looks at the diverse push and pull factors
that have led to military intervention. It begins by defining the key terms of civilian control
and tutelary interference. It then depicts the critical junctures that led to the establishment of
Myanmar’s tutelary regime and assesses the factors that led to the coup in February 2021.
Civil–Military Relations and Tutelary Interference
Civil–military relations have often been conceptualized as a dichotomy between civilian
control and overt military intervention. They have also often been referred to as a mere
absence of coups. However, Aurel Croissant and colleagues have correctly demonstrated that
the coup variable is becoming less and less adequate for an analysis of civil–military relations,
particularly when the military uses a number of avenues to influence politics behind the
scenes and does not directly threaten to take over power (Croissant et al., 2010). The
experiences of many young democracies show that the military may still have to give up
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political power after the formal democratization of the political system. In order to grasp the
full range of civil–military relations, it is more useful to conceive of military interference along
a continuum of civil–military relations, with the polar ends of “civilian supremacy and civilian
control” at one end and “military rule” at the other, and a graduation of degrees of military
interference in between.
Civilian supremacy is defined as the ability of a civilian government “to conduct general policy
without interferences from the military, to define the goals and general organization of
national defense, to formulate and conduct defense policy, and to monitor the implementation
of military policy” (Aguero, 1995, p. 15). Civilian supremacy is even stronger than civilian
control, which can be defined as civilian governments and their agencies having the authority
to determine the organization, resources, and purpose of the armed forces without the threat
of military interference. It requires that the military is fully subordinate and accountable to
elected officials as well as to the general rule of law. Military rule, at the other end of the
spectrum, can be defined as a “system of government by the military” (Perlmutter, 1980). The
military rules and serving or retired military officers occupy key positions within an
(unelected) government.
Between these poles lie different hybrid forms of military intervention such as tutelary
interference and military control. In tutelary regimes, the armed forces enjoy a high degree of
autonomy from the political control of civilian politicians. Depending on their position in the
political system, they act as rulers or decision makers, as necessary partners in government,
and as possible veto players (Bünte, 2021). But at what point do militaries withdraw from the
political arena? Scholars of civil–military relations have pointed to both internal military
variables and external variables. Sundhaussen (1985) argues that a withdrawal from politics
is the outcome of two interdependent, concurrent factors: the internal dynamics within the
military itself and the political, cultural, economic, and external environment, which
influences the military’s actions. Endogenous factors shape the military’s disposition and
ability to intervene or withdraw, and extraneous factors create favorable or unfavorable
opportunity structures for the military’s intervention or withdrawal. These factors act as
“pull” or “push” factors (Bünte, 2014; Croissant, 2004). By looking at the most important
critical junctures of Myanmar’s development, the following sections seek to show how these
push and pull factors have played out over time.
Myanmar’s Military: From State-Builder to Ruler (1942–1962)
The Burmese armed forces (Tatmadaw) have been deeply embedded in the political realm
since the country’s independence from Great Britain in 1948. Because the foundation of the
Tatmadaw in 1942 even preceded national independence and the officer corps was politicized
as a liberating force during the anti-colonial struggle, the army could, retrospectively, assume
the role of guardian of the Burmese state and the bulwark of national independence
(Callahan, 2003). The fight for independence prepared the ground for a political role of the
army. Founded in 1941 by Aung San and a group of young nationalists, the Burmese
Independence Army (BIA) was involved in supporting the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942
but turned their back on their sponsors and fought a guerrilla war against Tokyo (Callahan,
2001). After the return of the British, the BIA was integrated into the Burma Army under
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British control. Aung San, who was able to control a huge number of loyal soldiers and armed
volunteers, was able to exercise pressure on the British colonial administration, which finally
ceded and granted Burma its independence in 1948.
The increased assertiveness of the Burmese military following independence can be traced
back to the immediate postindependence period: The outbreak of ethnic and communist
rebellions after the departure of the British triggered the institutional modernization of the
armed forces, which had initially not kept pace with the institutional capacity of the civilian
state. The rebellions of the Arakanese Mujahidin, the Karen, and the communist groups
caught the army unprepared and led to the near collapse of the young state. In the end,
however, the imminent state collapse was prevented; the union government was able to
gradually expand its territorial control beyond Rangoon and strengthen its command
structure under the leadership of General Ne Win. Although the military accepted the
supremacy of the U Nu government and the 1947 constitution—which enshrined civilian
control in the fields of security, internal promotion procedures, and military expenditures—the
weak state became increasingly dependent on the army (Callahan, 2001, p. 414).
Furthermore, the crises infused soldiers with a praetorian ethos and led to the increasing
centralization of power and capital in the military realm. However, unlike its Thai or
Indonesian counterparts, at this point of time the Burmese army had not developed its own
business network (Bünte, 2017, p. 97).
The external threat posed by Kuomintang troops invading from China triggered a further
modernization of the army. Civilian control gave way to what Janowitz calls a civil–military
coalition (Janowitz, 1964). The military increasingly took over administrative and civilian
functions and received a significant part of the national budget for internal security. The
political role of the military expanded gradually until 1958, when the civil–military coalition
broke down. Increasing factionalism within the ruling Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League
(AFPFL) led to growing parliamentary instability and a first temporary transfer of power into
military hands in 1958. Although General Ne Win’s “caretaker government” returned power
back to U Nu’s newly elected government after elections in 1960 and the military returned to
the barracks, Ne Win staged a coup in March 1962, which brought the army leaders back into
power and “eliminated their civilian counterparts once and for all” (Callahan, 2001, p. 422).
According to the official army rhetoric, U Nu’s decision to make Buddhism the state religion,
along with the ethnic groups’ call for greater autonomy and secession from the union, set the
stage for military intervention. The coup of 1962 saw the beginning of military control, which
was to last for nearly five decades. This period can be divided into two phases: the Ne Win era
from 1962 to 1988 and the junta period from 1988 to 2011.
The Tatmadaw as Rulers: The Ne Win Period (1962–1988)
After the 1962 coup, General Ne Win and the 17-man Revolutionary Council of senior military
officers ruled the country by fiat until 1974. They abolished the 1947 constitution, dissolved
parliament, banned all political parties, and barred civil society (with the exception of
religious organizations). Under the banner of the “Burmese Way to Socialism,” the military
nationalized the economy and expropriated private industries and businesses. It set up its own
Leninist party, the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), which ran the country
unchallenged for over 25 years. The military became the backbone of a socialist one-party
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state and permeated both party and civil bureaucracy. Active or retired military officers
dominated the BSPP Central Executive Committee from 1971 to 1988 (Nakanishi, 2013, p.
167). For instance, Ne Win was both chairman of the BSPP and president of Burma. Based on
his personal influence in the army and the party, he kept his subordinates divided and
controlled all potential rivals through regular purges. Although the party formally controlled
the army, Ne Win maintained power over both the party and the military by providing retired
military officers with positions in the BSPP or civilian ministries. In this way the party and the
civilian bureaucracy extended the career paths of retired military officers, thus easing
generational pressures within the army and laying the foundation for its extraordinary
stability (Nakanishi, 2013).
Nevertheless, away from the capital, the harsh economic and political measures introduced by
the Ne Win regime in the 1960s further exacerbated ethnic conflicts. While the Tatmadaw was
able to reassert some control over the heartland, communist and ethnic insurgencies spread
rapidly in the rest of the country. The army fought relentless counterinsurgency campaigns,
which were often brutally effective, and drove ethnic rebel groups closer to the border regions
(Smith, 1999, p. 261). However, in the 1970s and 1980s, much of the border region continued
to be controlled by ethnic armies, since this terrain often proved inaccessible for the
Tatmadaw. The army’s offensive campaigns came to a stalemate and, as a consequence, the
army leadership developed the perception that the Tatmadaw had insufficient resources to
fight these insurgencies. For the top generals, the army was insufficiently equipped,
inadequately trained, and poorly funded (Callahan, 2003, p. 210).
In 1987–1988, General Ne Win’s military-backed socialist one-party regime crumbled from
within when the country was faced with a severe economic crisis. Economic mismanagement
led to massive student demonstrations, which forced Ne Win to resign as party chairman in
July 1988. The protests escalated into a broad-based countrywide movement that continued
until September 1988, when the military reorganized itself, staged a coup, and brutally
cracked down on the movement, killing several thousand demonstrators (Lintner, 1990;
Steinberg, 2001, p. 3).
The Tatmadaw as Rulers: The SLORC and SPDC Era (1988–2011)
The coup carried out by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) re-established
direct military rule. Under the leadership of Saw Maung, the military revoked the 1974
constitution, dissolved parliament, and concentrated all executive, legislative, and judicial
powers in the hands of the SLORC. When it seized power, the junta had promised to hand over
control to an elected government after holding new multiparty elections. Although elections
were held in May 1990, the military council failed to acknowledge the results, which had
ended in a landslide victory for the opposition, the National League for Democracy (NLD).
Acting in the manner of a caretaker government, the military argued that the country lacked a
constitution to transfer power to a new civilian government. The junta, led after 1992 by the
new strongman, Senior General Than Shwe, was renamed the State Peace and Development
Council (SPDC) in 1997. It remained in power until 2011.
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The SLORC–SPDC military junta consisted of 19–21 members and balanced the interests of
both military officers in the center (War Office) and powerful commanders in the regions
(Selth, 2002, pp. 51–59). The leading figures were Senior General Than Shwe, General Maung
Aye, and, until 2004, Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt. This triumvirate placed its followers in
the military councils and the cabinets, which were purely administrative bodies (Min, 2008, p.
1025). Both the SLORC and the SPDC were obsessed with security, as articulated in state
propaganda with its promotion of the “three national causes” (nondisintegration of the union,
nondisintegration of national solidarity, and perpetuation of national sovereignty). Feeling
threatened by an urban democracy movement that it argued might collaborate with ethnic
insurgent groups and foreign powers, the military junta consistently claimed that the country
was on the verge of disintegration. The junta’s main strategy in the 1990s was guided both by
its own corporate interest in securing its future dominance and also the need to accelerate its
modernization. Hence, it attempted “to take whatever measures were required to recover and
consolidate its grip on government” (Selth, 2002, p. 33). The consequence was an increasing
militarization of society and the establishment of a “garrison state” in which military norms
regarding security and violence became dominant.
Despite continuing intra-military tensions, the military regime remained extraordinarily stable
(Hlaing, 2009; Min, 2008). The junta ruled with an iron fist and exercised a high degree of
repression; it successfully limited political and social spaces and crushed any form of dissent
—for instance, the peaceful protest demonstrations of Buddhist monks in September 2007.
Political parties were allowed to form in the years after SLORC came to power in 1988, but of
those parties that registered to compete in the 1990 elections, only 10 survived the harsh
deregistration campaign and remained legal after 1993. During this repressive period, the
NLD had little chance to organize. NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained largely under
house arrest until her release in 2010. Other party members or elected parliamentarians were
imprisoned or had to flee abroad. The military also brought the Buddhist order (sangha) under
its control—an important move due to the activism of Buddhist monks (Bünte, 2018).
To achieve its self-proclaimed goals of nondisintegration of the union, nonintegration of
national solidarity, and perpetuation of national sovereignty, the junta embarked on a massive
state-building program, which included both the expansion of the armed forces from 186,000
to 370,000 soldiers and the modernization of the repressive apparatus (Callahan, 2003; Selth,
2002). To fund these initiatives, the SLORC–SPDC opened up the economy and started to build
a business empire. It discarded the socialist economy of the Ne Win era and adopted a market
economy model, setting the stage for a transition from state-run socialism to state-mediated
capitalism (Jones, 2014). However, the liberalization of the economy remained modest, partly
as a consequence of Western sanctions and partly due to a lack of access to capital through
the banking sector. Additionally, conservative generals, ministers, and high-ranking officials
blocked liberalization, fearing the loss of access to rents and revenues. A new form of “crony
capitalism” evolved around the top military generals and their families. To take advantage of
liberalization, the private sector required access to military leaders; consequently, a few
cronies of top military generals were able to secure monopolies and contracts to expand their
wealth (Ford et al., 2016; Jones, 2014).
Moreover, the military began establishing the most important conglomerates: The largest of
the two is the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL), a military-managed
business set up to support the regime’s welfare organizations, veteran organizations, and
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retired military personnel. The second, the Myanmar Economic Cooperation (MEC), was given
business licenses in construction, tourism, transport, gems and jade extraction, and
agriculture (Bünte, 2017; McCarthy, 2019). In addition to these core activities, the military
was involved in a wide range of decentralized commercial interests and enterprises. Economic
opportunities had opened up particularly at the local level due to the evolving ceasefire
economies. Consequently, many regional officers who engaged in these businesses became
unusually rich. Such extralegal activities and abuses of power damaged the military’s
reputation, as people began to see these commercial activities as being above the law (Prager-
Nyein, 2012, p. 40).
During the 1990s, a series of ceasefires negotiated between the military and ethnic insurgent
groups significantly reduced the internal armed threat to the Tatmadaw. Lieutenant General
Khin Nyunt, a member of the SPDC and head of military intelligence, signed ceasefires with
17 armed groups in order to short circuit any collusion between the ethnic ceasefire groups
involved and the pro-democracy movement (Callahan, 2007; Zaw & Min, 2007). The ethnic
armed groups were allowed to retain their weapons and exercise control over their own
territories. This control included the right to trade, which often involved bartering for illicit
commodities such as weapons and narcotics. Woods (2011) pointed out that the military
engaged in private–military partnerships with ethnic elites and traditional businessmen and
managed to achieve significant progress in state-building. Though these ceasefires were not
formalized—they were merely “gentlemen’s agreements” between Lieutenant General Khin
Nyunt and leaders of the ethnic groups—they allowed for increasing territorial presence by
the Tatmadaw in some parts of the country. In these areas, military commanders and relevant
state agencies awarded licenses to extract the region’s natural resources (Callahan, 2007;
Jones, 2014). Altogether, these ceasefires were fundamental to coopting ethnic groups, as they
gave political actors in the regions some breathing space, which they used to promote local
economic development (Jones, 2014, p. 792). For example, since the early years of this
century, there has been a boom in investments in palm oil, rubber, and agricultural products.
In addition to providing possibilities for rent-seeking, the ceasefires established in some areas
freed up resources for the military to continue its war against insurgencies in other areas. The
Tatmadaw renewed its war against groups that had continued with their armed struggle, such
as the Karen National Liberation Army or the Shan State Army South.
All in all, Myanmar’s politics became increasingly militarized throughout the 1990s and early
2000s. The Tatmadaw developed into a state within a state and built what Laswell called a
“garrison state” (Camroux & Egreteau, 2010; Laswell, 1941). This was also symbolized by the
construction of the new capital in Naypyidaw in 2006. The capital was built in secrecy and is
said to have cost US$4–5 billion. With the specialists on violence ruling, Myanmar was
characterized by a high degree of repression against any form of dissent, ongoing wars
against ethnic armed organizations, and an attempt to build up a nation around the core of
ethnic Bamar supremacy.
Direct military rule ended in March 2011 when the SPDC was formally dissolved and both
Senior General Than Shwe and General Maung Aye went into retirement. This step followed a
decade of reforms that had institutionalized the military’s political role and created power-
sharing institutions between elected civilians and the military (Bünte, 2014). The transition to
quasi-civilian rule was therefore institutionalized from a position of strength. Having
consolidated its position internally and severely weakened the NLD, the military announced a
roadmap to “discipline-flourishing democracy” in 2003. The most important steps taken by the
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military were the drafting of a new constitution by the National Convention (1993–1996,
2003–2007), the holding of a referendum to validate the new constitution (2008), the creation
of the regime-sponsored Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), and the carrying
out of (heavily scripted) elections in November 2010. Boycotted by the NLD, these were won
by the USDP in a landslide (Egreteau, 2016). This new form of power-sharing arrangement
allowed the military leadership (Senior General Than Shwe and General Maung Aye) to retire
and make room for a new generation of military leaders to occupy key positions within the
new tutelary regime. To safeguard his own personal, family and commercial interests after
stepping down, the strongman of the military junta, Senior General Than Shwe, handpicked
key people for the new administration himself (Callahan, 2012, p. 122; Hlaing, 2012). Thein
Sein, a loyal and long-time member of the junta who had chaired the National Convention to
draft the constitution and served as prime minister of the junta since 2007, became the first
“civilian” president in 2011. Four-star General Thura Shwe Mann, former joint chief of staff of
the military and the third highest member of the military hierarchy, was made speaker of the
lower house. Both were placed at the helm of the USDP, the military proxy party. Than Shwe
also chose Min Aung Hlaing as commander-in-chief. All in all, this selection of former
members of the military regime was supposed to prevent a concentration of power within the
new regime and provide a balance between rival factions.
Myanmar’s Tutelary Regime (2011–2021)
The 2008 constitution established a tutelary regime and laid the foundation for a power-
sharing agreement between the military and elected representatives (Bünte, 2021). Moreover,
it gave the military a “leading role” in the national leadership of the state. As such, the 2008
constitution was an “insurance policy for the military elite to foresee loss of power” (David &
Holliday, 2018, p. 52) and a “key part of the establishment and maintenance of the military
state” (Crouch, 2019, p. 3). It both established the preconditions for and set the boundaries of
the political liberalization that ensued under President Thein Sein (2011–2015) and,
subsequently, the NLD government, which was voted into office with a landslide victory in
2015. This “protracted” yet ultimately constrained democratization process allowed a fragile
reconciliation between the military and Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD, on the one hand, and the
military and the ethnic groups, on the other (Bünte, 2016). In this respect, the 2008
constitution established firm guardrails to hinder a deviation from what the military called
“discipline-flourishing democracy.” Seeing itself as being above politics, the military aimed at
overseeing a “discipline-flourishing democracy, guiding civilian politicians and ultimately
‘caretaking democratization’” (Egreteau, 2016).
Within the tutelary regime, the military has had an important position as ruler, as
indispensable partner in government, and as veto actor. Under President Thein Sein, 29 of the
36 cabinet members were former military officers (Hlaing, 2012). While after the NLD
landslide in 2015, the military invited the NLD to form the government, it retained the three
ministries of Border Affairs, Defense, and Home Affairs, which were constitutionally reserved
for the Tatmadaw. The heads of these ministries were appointed by Commander-in-Chief Min
Aung Hlaing. He also appointed one of the vice presidents and one-quarter of the country’s
MPs. Although it took a backseat in most policy areas, the military maintained its exclusive
control in the fields of security and defense. It also remained completely in control of the
management of its own affairs. Although Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing repeatedly
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asserted that the Tatmadaw acted “under the president,” decisions in the security sphere
were made solely by him. According to the 2008 constitution, the commander-in-chief was
“responsible for all the armed forces of the Union,” thus placing the army, navy, and air force,
the police, militias, and other paramilitary forces under his control. In addition, all
intelligence agencies were placed under his control (Selth, 2018, p. 140).
Furthermore, the Tatmadaw was solely responsible for defense issues. It published its very
first “Defense White Paper” in February 2016, shortly before the elected civilian government
took office, in order to proclaim that it remained the core institution for drafting and
implementing defense and security policies (Myoe, 2018, p. 205). Although regular
discussions took place within both houses of parliament, parliamentary control of the defense
budget was superficial in light of the hidden budgets for the security forces and off-budgetary
financing (Egreteau, 2017). Since 2015 and the election of a NLD government, the defense
budget was kept at a high 13%–14% of the total budget and significantly higher than
allocations in fields such as health or education. This has been described by a keen observer
as a payoff for military officers for taking a backseat in policymaking (Selth, 2015, p. 11).
More importantly, the military had insulated itself from possible budget uncertainties and
scarcities by developing its own military enterprises, the Union of Myanmar Economic
Holding Limited (UMEHL) and the Myanmar Economic Cooperation (MEC). This form of
“khaki capital” has enabled the military to remain independent for decades (Bünte, 2017). The
conglomerates have provided important off-budget finances for military projects and income
for retired military officers. With the help of its conglomerates, the military has also profited
from the economic opening since 2011. In the 2011 and 2015 privatization rounds, the MEC
was among the main beneficiaries (Ford et al., 2016, p. 31). Through its ownership of a
significant amount of public land, the military also profited from the property boom in Yangon.
Since forming a civilian government, the NLD has avoided direct confrontation with the
military and its crony companies and shied away from placing any forms of civilian control
over military businesses.
Generally, the implementation of policies enacted by the elected government remained weak
at best. This reflects in the governance arrangements shaped by former military governments.
In ethnic minority regions, certain economic sectors are under the control of nonstate actors
(ethnic armed organizations, militias, or border forces). These are the result of ceasefire
agreements with former military governments or clientelistic-type relations with the military
(Woods, 2011). The lack of political control is particularly pronounced in ethnic minority
states, many of which have been marked by decades of armed conflict and resource grabbing,
often with the involvement of the military and its companies. Moreover, until January 2019,
the military had control over the General Administrative Department (GAD), which had built
the backbone of the country’s administration. Moreover, it has a coordinating role among the
government ministries, extending down to the 16,000 local districts with their 36,000 local
officials (Chit Saw & Arnold, 2014). Previously, for the civilian government elected in 2015,
this was a major obstacle in policymaking and implementation. By placing the GAD under the
Office of the Union Administration in January 2019, the NLD managed to lay the foundation
for improved governance and better policy coordination for the future (Arnold, 2019).
However, these reforms had only limited effects, since the GAD continued to be staffed with
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former military officers. Further reforms in this domain were modest and were not resisted by
the military, since “the generals deemed these matters not worth squabbling over” (Barany,
2018).
The NLD shied away from initiating more significant structural reforms which might have
limited the dominance of the military. To be fair, the constraints on the NLD were immense.
Constitutional changes to the military’s role require the consent of more than 75% of the
parliamentarians and, consequently, the support of the military itself. Once she became the de
facto head of the civilian government, Aung San Suu Kyi adopted the military’s position in the
peace process, though she had criticized it previously (Myoe, 2018). She also defended the
military’s atrocities both in Rakhine State and in other regions with ethnic conflict, as well as
appearing at the International Court of Justice to defend the military against accusations of
genocide against the Rohingya minority. In the eyes of the international community, this
strategy failed, leading to an immense reputational loss for the former human rights icon. She
fell from grace in the West and was stripped of many accolades due to her collusion with the
military. Inside the country, on the contrary, this led to an increase in both Aung San Suu Kyi’s
and the military’s popularity.
In short, the tutelary regime allowed the military not only to continue to rule in the areas of
defense and security, but also its strong position within that regime allowed it to
systematically straitjacket the civilian arm of government. Moreover, the military could also
protect its core economic and political interests while ostensibly remaining in the backseat.
The core dilemma of the tutelary regime was that it did not provide a proper channel for the
succession of the commander-in-chief. The military’s past practice of placing high-ranking
officers in the country’s cabinets had previously provided for strong informal rule, which has
been partly thwarted since 2015.
Disruptions in the Tutelary Regime: The Coup of February 2021
On February 1, 2021, the military seized power, announced a state of emergency, and
transferred all power to Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing. However, unlike in 1962 or
1988, the military did not abolish the 2008 constitution. Instead, referring to articles 417 and
418 (a) of the constitution, it claimed to be adhering to its mission of safeguarding a
“discipline-flourishing democracy” and attempted to justify its actions as a legitimate means
to uphold the rule of law (Crouch, 2021). In his first statement after the coup, Min Aung
Hlaing blamed the Union Election Commission for failing to conduct free and fair elections
and announced new multiparty elections after the end of the newly declared 1-year
emergency. He promised to transfer power to the winning party (Global New Light of
Myanmar, 2021). The coup can consequently be classified as a “promissory coup” in which
coup makers deposed an elected government in order to defend democracy and promised to
hold elections in order to restore it (Bermeo, 2016).
This disruption in Myanmar’s tutelary regime is the result of an interplay of personal and
corporate grievances within the military. The coup reflects the political ambitions and
personal motivations of Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who would
have reached retirement age in July 2021. He is said to have approached the NLD repeatedly
after the November 2020 elections and asked to be made president in a future government,
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since he felt too young to retire. At the same time, the NLD’s landslide victory and the dismal
performance of the military proxy party USDP meant that even with the 25% reserved for
military officers, the commander-in-chief had no chance of becoming president. Some analysts
have also highlighted the scenario that his retirement would have left him open to prosecution
in international courts in relation to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority (Simpson,
2021).
These personal motivations of the commander-in-chief were reinforced by a strong corporate
interest on the part of the military. Min Aung Hlaing’s successor would have been the first to
be selected by an elected NLD president in consultation with the National Defense and
Security Council (NDSC). This would have been unprecedented and illustrated the waning
power of the military. It would have allowed Aung San Suu Kyi to appoint a reformist army
general and would have opened the door for the NLD to reign in the Tatmadaw for the very
first time. The case of Myanmar thus echoes Finer’s argument that the military’s “anxiety to
preserve its autonomy provides one of the most widespread and powerful of the motives for
intervention” (Finer, 1976, p. 41).
While these personal and corporate grievances certainly played a decisive role, the military’s
dissatisfaction with the tutelary regime seems to have pulled the military into the political
arena. The military was proud of having established a “discipline-flourishing democracy,”
which provided a “leading role” for the armed forces and allowed for a degree of
reconciliation with the NLD. After the relatively free and fair elections of 2015, it invited the
NLD to take over the government and took on the role of guardian. After 5 years of power-
sharing, however, as both sides fought for leadership and supremacy, the military felt
humiliated and threatened by civilian politicians.
As a preliminary point, it needs to be stressed that the civil–military relations between the
NLD and the Tatmadaw were a marriage of inconvenience from the beginning, and military
leaders clashed with Aung San Suu Kyi repeatedly (Bünte, 2021). The personal relationship
between Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi has been described as toxic, and both sides
reportedly met for the last time in 2018. While Aung San Suu Kyi did not see Min Aung Hlaing
as a legitimate partner because he was unelected, he himself questioned her constitutional
position as state counsellor. Aung San Suu Kyi was never expected to lead the government:
Article 59(f) of the military-drafted constitution prevents citizens with immediate family
members who hold foreign citizenship from running for president. The NLD circumvented this
article by introducing the State Counsellor Law in 2016, which allowed Aung San Suu Kyi to
take up a position at the helm of the government as a de facto prime minister. When the NLD
pushed the law through parliament, military representatives furiously complained about
“bullying by the democratic majority,” though they eventually accepted the move (Myoe,
2018). The military was also furious that the NLD wanted to change the military-drafted
constitution and constrain the military’s power, though it managed to prevent these moves
with its constitutional veto power in both 2015 and 2020.
The communication lines between the civilian and military arms of the government broke
down earlier. According to the constitution, the National Defense and Security Council
(NDSC) was responsible for discussing security matters in the government. The military has a
majority in the 11-member body, which consists of the two vice presidents; the speaker of the
two houses of parliament; the commander-in-chef and his deputy; and the ministers of
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defense, home affairs, border affairs, and foreign affairs. The NDSC convened three times a
week during the Thein Sein government (Myoe, 2018). However, under the NLD government,
President Win Myint did not convene the NDSC even once in 5 years, although both the
military and the USDP repeatedly urged the government to convene a meeting. Arguably, the
NLD feared it would be forced to call a state of emergency (e.g., in Rakhine State), which
would have given the commander-in-chief the possibility of taking over wide-reaching powers.
Instead, the de facto head of government, Aung San Suu Kyi, appointed her own security
advisers. Looking back, this can be seen as a reassurance of the civilian government to
prevent a military takeover of the government.
The military also used the USDP and the military block in parliament to try to undermine the
legitimacy of the elected government by systematically highlighting Aung San Suu Kyi’s
ostensible lack of leadership qualities and the NLD administration’s failure to solve the
“national crisis.” It also entered into an alliance with the ethnonationalist movement led by
the ultranationalist Buddhist monk, Wirathu (Bünte, 2018). It repeatedly warned of the
dangers of foreign interference, including those of “mixed-blood people,” in the internal
affairs of the country (Myoe, 2018, p. 204). The USDP lobbied for a continued role for the
military and voted against the constitutional changes proposed by the NLD in July 2015 and
March 2020. It also mobilized its supporters in the streets in favor of military action in
Rakhine State. However, while the military proxy party has served as an extended arm of the
military in parliament after 2015, it failed to develop into a strong organization and performed
dismally in both the 2015 and the 2020 elections.
The final struggle, which ultimately triggered the coup, involved the Union Election
Commission’s (UEC) management of the 2020 election. There were early conflicts between the
UEC and the military, since the UEC made some controversial changes that the military
opposed. For instance, it ended the practice of establishing polling booths inside military
compounds for military personnel and their family members (Thant & Ross, 2020). Even
before the November 2020 elections had occurred, the USDP and a dozen parties close to the
military had petitioned the commander-in-chief to intervene if the UEC corrupted the election.
In the November 2020 elections, the NLD won 86% of the contested seats and the USDP only
7%—a second dismal performance. The military proxy party refused to acknowledge the
election results and again encouraged the military commander-in-chief to intervene. In
December 2020, the military allegedly found major irregularities in the voter lists and
repeatedly asked the UEC to disclose the lists. Both the UEC and the government rejected
these demands. In mid-January, Min Aung Hlaing even complained publicly about the voting
irregularities during the visit by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi (Tha, 2021). At the end of
January, a military spokesman, Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, read out another statement
on electoral misconduct, dishonesty, and inconsistency and demanded the dissolution of the
UEC and new elections. In the same interview, he also refused to rule out a military coup.
Despite these threats, the military could not produce evidence of systematic vote rigging by
the NLD. Both local and international election observers reported that, despite shortcomings,
the elections reflect the will of the people (IFES, 2020). Last-minute high-level meetings
between senior NLD officials and the military failed, since the government did not want to
give in and hold new elections. The military again felt deeply humiliated, and even insulted, by
the behavior of civilian politicians (McPherson, 2021).
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It can consequently be argued that both personal and corporate interests provided strong
incentives for the military’s intervention, while the perceived dysfunctions of the tutelary
regime pulled the military fully into the political arena. Having ruled for more than five
decades and having initiated a successful transition to “discipline-flourishing democracy,” the
military’s proclaimed mission as guardian provided a strong rationale for military action.
Furthermore, power-sharing in the tutelary regime was highly conflictive, as it brought
together two political and personal foes, each of whom aimed to obtain supremacy. Moreover,
the lack of a proper succession mechanism for the top position in the armed forces and the
previous habit of placing military officers in key government positions after their careers
provided the institutional background for these developments. Though the military rulers had
ceased to rule directly, they felt entitled to occupy the supreme position in the system.
Unaccustomed to “sitting in the backseat,” they felt deeply humiliated when civilian leaders
increasingly took charge.
Though the new junta, constituted as the State Administrative Council (SAC) chaired by Min
Aung Hlaing, has tried to move on to normalcy, the exploding protest movement, with its
massive demonstrations against the coup, and the evolving civil disobedience movement have
crippled the government. The Tatmadaw, which has tried to portray its takeover as both
constitutional and temporary, may be keen to avoid a violent crackdown but may not know
how else to deal with the civil disobedience movement. The effects of the protests on the
military are not clear at the time of this writing and it remains an open question whether the
disruptions in the tutelary regime will finally give way to a more permanent, direct military
regime or pave the way for a return to the power-sharing arrangement of 2011–2015 in which
the military had the upper hand. This would mean the continuation of the tutelary regime.
Conclusion
Having ruled directly or indirectly for more than five decades, Myanmar’s armed forces have
been able to permeate all of the country’s state institutions, the economy, and society. Since
independence, ethnic armed groups have been fighting for independence or for greater
autonomy. These tensions, initially in the immediate postindependence period, increasingly
pulled the military into the political arena, leading to the 1962 coup. The outcome was the
establishment of a military regime that has proven extremely resilient and adaptable. After a
first breakdown of the regime in 1988, the military felt threatened by an alliance of ethnic
armed groups and democracy activists. A new sequence of military rule and military
modernization followed; to finance these developments, the military began to build up its
business conglomerates. After governing the country directly from 1988 to 2011, the military
established a tutelary regime, which enabled the old guard around strongman Than Shwe to
retire. At the same time, a new generation of military leaders was positioned within the core
institutions of the tutelary regime. The new regime allowed the military to play the role of
guardian. It took over important tasks in governing, particularly in the fields of security and
defense. In a number of other fields, the military ruled jointly with civilian politicians.
However, given that there was no oversight over the military, it could straitjacket the civilian
government and veto constitutional changes. The military remained in control of its own
affairs and conglomerates; it also received a substantial 13%–14% of the state budget. Despite
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its control over significant segments of the government, the military withdrew its support for
the tutelary framework it had put in place and decided to intervene to take total control again
in February 2021.
This disruption in Myanmar’s tutelary regime was caused by an interplay of personal and
corporate grievances within the military, which pushed the military back into the political
arena. In particular, the looming retirement of the Tatmadaw’s Commander-in-Chief Senior
General Min Aung Hlaing and a possible loss of autonomy triggered the coup. At the same
time, the cohabitation between the military and civilians had not functioned well and the
military felt humiliated after 5 years of power-sharing. The personal relationship between
Aung San Suu Kyi and the commander-in-chief had become toxic at the same time as the NLD
had circumvented the core institutions (NDSC, the presidency) the military had established in
the 2008 constitution to ensure a buildup to guarantee its dominance.
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