As Myanmar enters its fourth year of post-coup civil war, claims of imminent insurgent victory abound.
The Arakan Army (AA) and Kachin Independence Army (KIA) have made historic battlefield gains in Rakhine and Kachin states, respectively. Those followed the August seizure of the Northern Shan state capital of Lashio by the Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BA). In various ethnic hinterlands, the junta’s State Administration Council’s (SAC) forces are clearly in retreat.
Now, into the convoluted conflict reporting field comes the one-year “Military Progress Report” from the exiled, anti-junta National Unity Government’s (NUG) Ministry of Defense (MoD). At first glance, the January 4 report is a crisp chronicle of a protracted conflict, one arguably being won against the coup-installed regime.
However, at multiple turns, the NUG’s tallying of 2024 military gains requires critical contextualization on how these figures are generated and what they mean for the future of armed resistance and the potential fall of the SAC.
The NUG claims their three major achievements since forming in 2021 are: 1) the creation of multiple People’s Defense Forces (PDF); 2) “establishment of controlled and liberated territories”; and 3) the overturning of the military regime’s administrative structure and “formation of people’s governance systems.”
Despite confusing the distinct difference between “control” and “governance”, there is truth to all of these claims. The report claims that the NUG derive legitimacy from two sources: “(1) De Jure: Authority granted by the people’s mandate; (2) De Facto: Authority stemming from territorial control and popular support.”
It’s not clear if the MoD fully understands both those terms, but it assumes more widespread support on the ground than it likely has.
The report’s disputable data centers on the dramatic territorial gains achieved. “(T)he PDF and EROs (ethnic revolutionary organizations) control a total of 144 townships (out of 330 in all of Myanmar). Among these, 95 towns (48 townships) are fully “liberated” and under revolutionary governance. Revolutionary battles continue in an additional 79 townships, according to the report.
“The junta’s control has diminished to only 107 townships. In percentage, revolutionary forces and ethnic revolutionary forces control 44% of the country’s townships. Active conflict zones make up 24%. The junta retains control over only 32%, revealing its inability to maintain governance over most of Myanmar,” the NUG MOD’s report says.
However, this nationwide breakdown suggests the MoD may be cooking the books. The primary issue is the conflation of revolutionary actors into a unified front. The report routinely conflates the PDFs and ‘EROs’, a rebranding of the more standard ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) as “revolutionary forces.”
These are never mentioned by name in the report, but they include the AA, KIA, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and many others. Many of these long-standing ethnic insurgencies have a tenuous, at best, alliance with the NUG and certainly don’t take literal marching orders from the NUG’s MoD.
Further down in the report, the MoD breaks down the divisions of labor by clarifying that the NUG/PDF controls just eight out of those 95 liberated towns. Eleven border trading towns “were freed from junta control” along the borders with China, Bangladesh, India and Thailand: the NUG PDFs took none of them. A claimed 741 SAC bases were overrun during 2024, with PDF’s taking 162 of them in Sagaing, Magwe, Mandalay, Bago and Tanintharyi regions.
173 “HQ bases” were captured, including two Regional Military Commands in Rakhine and northern Shan state. EAOs and their allies achieved the vast majority of these military gains. The NUG is thus engaging in a form of stolen valor by claiming military gains that it had nothing, or very little, to do with.
The report’s death count section is also problematic. It claims 14,093 SAC forces were killed and 7,363 injured in 2024. Quite apart from the dubious nature of these figures compared to the standard 3:1 casualty ratio in most conflicts, the report fails to detail how these figures were compiled and what sources were used. Many EAOs are usually circumspect about conflict data like this and refuse to release enemy combatant kill figures.
So how did the NUG compile these exact numbers? Meanwhile, revolutionary-side casualty lists are a glaring omission.
One contestable section is the number of SAC defectors to the NUG. Under its “People’s Embrace” program, the NUG claims that 14,760 SAC personnel have switched sides, but of these, the majority are Myanmar Police Force (MPF). 3,872 military personnel have defected since 2021, with 567 joining the “Embrace” program in 2024.
This suggests a decline, even as several thousand troops have been captured, mostly by EAOs, during heavy fighting in multiple battles. And yet, despite the indisputable collapse of the military in so many locations, the SAC holds on.
The NUG report claims that “(t)he junta’s conscription campaigns have also largely failed”, after the Military Service Law was enacted in February. Yet several rounds of training have already been completed, with some 20,000 recruits.
The report, unfortunately, reflects some premature triumphalism that abounded over the past year and led to rash predictions that the major city of Mandalay was being encircled and poised to be “liberated.”
“Successful penetration of Mandalay through the Shan-Mann offensive and capture of Pinlebu town defensed by the almost 1,000 SAC troops are the notable achievements (sic). Currently, the frontline has reached the outskirts of Mandalay, the second largest city, while key defensive zones such as Naypyidaw, Yangon, Taungoo and Meiktila are under regular attacks.”
It is accurate to state that deploying NUG-aligned forces into upper Mandalay following the resumption of Operation 1027 in June of 2024 was an important development. But many of these gains, especially in Madaya township, had been reversed in the closing months of 2024, due to SAC airstrikes and the deployment of ground troops.
The major military town of Pyin U Lwin, close to Mandalay, did not fall to a combined force of PDFs and EAOs as touted in the middle of the year.
Mention of the seizure of Pinlebu also requires some necessary unpacking. The town in northern Sagaing region is 400 kilometers from the city of Mandalay: hardly a “frontline” target (although the nature of “frontlines” in Myanmar’s conflicts looks very different from region to region). The town was one of the first to stage an armed revolt against the Myanmar army after the coup.
There have been several attempts by a multitude of PDFs and the KIA to take complete control. This was finally achieved in October, after 53 days of heavy fighting, which the NUG claimed at the time included 670 air strikes and some 5,000 bombs dropped. Most of the town’s residents of more than 7,000 had long fled.
Pinlebu is just 50 kilometers from the town of Kawlin, which was captured by PDFs in late 2023 and retaken by the SAC after three months. The town was almost completely destroyed in the back-and-forth fighting.
The NUG report also fails to mention how much of Sagaing, and most of central Myanmar, has become an apocalyptic landscape. There are an estimated 1,258,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Sagaing alone, out of 3.5 million nationwide, according to the United Nations. The Myanmar monitoring group Data for Myanmar documents that 106,000 homes have been destroyed in (mostly) SAC arson attacks since the coup, 74,000 just in Sagaing.
Of the nine main transportation routes that the report claims the resistance now “dominate”, itself a bold claim, some of them are roadways infested by multiple predatory checkpoints from armed groups of indeterminate chain of command.
It’s unclear whether they are motivated by security or extraction of tolls and straight-up looting. Whilst NUG administrative structures have been established and have achieved solid results, in many places violent disorder prevails.
By any measure, the NUG MoD’s performance has been impressive, from its origins in 2021 to now being a national military organization. Yet reports such as this “Military Progress” privileges data bravado over humanitarian considerations.
For instance, the section on “liberating” towns fails to mention the dangerous and painstaking reality of landmine and booby trap clearance, unexploded ordnance (UXO), collecting of the dead, both civilians and combatants alike, rebuilding community relations and accommodating to what in many respects might be an “alien” new authority, such as the MNDAA in Lashio.
The report does have a snappy slogan, as the MoD’s strategic plan is “All Roads Lead to Naypyidaw.” However, these roads may part ways as the objectives of the EAOs and the exiled NUG start to diverge.
The NUG needs to prepare for this reality. It could partly do so by giving due credit to its fellow revolutionary organizations for both their military successes and recognizing the immense suffering of people in their operational areas.
David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarian and human rights issues on Myanmar
