Myanmar revolution must outthink, not just outfight, the generals

Myanmar’s Spring Revolution is entering its fifth year, making it the most sustained and geographically widespread popular uprising in the country’s modern history.

The junta is battered, controlling only a fraction of the nation’s territory while ruling the rest through air power and terror. The genie of federal democracy is out of the bottle and no amount of violence can push it back in.

Yet, despite these gains, the revolution risks stalling. The battlefield is shifting in our favor, but our political evolution lags dangerously behind.

The hard questions our friends are asking

Diplomats and potential allies in Washington, Brussels and across ASEAN frequently ask a damning question:“If the resistance controls the majority of the land, why have you not formed a unified parallel government?”

They look at the map and see a patchwork of liberated zones—some run by the National Unity Government (NUG), others by ethnic revolutionary organizations (EROs), others by local defense forces—but they see no single address, no unified chain of command and no coherent administration they can formally recognize. They see a movement that can take territory but struggles to govern it as a state.

This fragmentation is our greatest strategic vulnerability. It allows the international community to hedge its bets, treating the junta as thede factostate because the opposition appears to be a chaotic array of armies.

To fix this, we must move beyond loose coordination to ahybrid federal structure: a system in which the NUG and ethnic authorities agree on a shared federal executive for foreign affairs and defense, while respecting the autonomy of local administrations in education, health and policing.

We do not need a centralized “super-government”—that fearsome model has failed Myanmar for 70 years. We need a functionalfederal democratic unionwhere coordination is institutionalized, not ad hoc.

From icons to institutions

A difficult truth must be spoken: Some “old school” resistance elements are still fighting to restore the past. They hope the international community will intervene to reinstall the National League for Democracy (NLD) government exactly as it was before February 1, 2021.

This is a dangerous fantasy. The world has moved on and so has Myanmar’s electorate. The 2008 Constitution is dead, and the pre-coup political order cannot be resurrected.

The international community will not intervene to restore a ghost government; they will support a future government that proves it can stabilize the countrynow.

Furthermore, the ethnic Bamar majority must accept that the era of relying on a single iconic leader—Aung San Suu Kyi (ASSK)—to hold the nation together is over. While we honor her sacrifice and demand her release, we must recognize that modern nation-building cannot rest on the shoulders of one person, no matter how revered.

We must transition from “Great Leader” politics toeffective group leadership, and from narrowethno-nationalismto a broadcivic nationalism.

For too long, “being Myanmar” meant being Bamar and Buddhist. The revolution has forged a new identity in the fire of shared suffering, where young Bamar activists now fight alongside Karen, Kachin and Chin comrades.

We must institutionalize this shift, building a nation defined not by race, but by shared democratic values and a common future.

What the revolution got right

Despite these challenges, we have achieved what many thought impossible. The nationwide rejection of the coup—through mass protests, civil disobedience and refusal to participate in the junta’s sham elections—denied the generals political legitimacy.

Crucially, the rapid formation of theCommittee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH)and theNUG in the earliest days of the coup was a masterstroke. It created an immediate political counter-pole that blocked the junta’s plan to “normalize” its seizure of power.

Resistance actors built unprecedented cooperation between Bamar-majority forces and ethnic organizations. The “Spring Revolution” has done more to heal the Bamar-ethnic divide in five years than the previous transition achieved in ten.

This alignment has blocked the junta’s plan to legitimate its rule through staged elections, which Beijing and some neighbors are eager to endorse as an “exit strategy.”

Yet, the “tribal mindset” persists. Too many actors cling to narrow factional loyalties, treating liberated areas as personal fiefdoms.

Fundraising often bypasses accountability, with money flowing to “brand-name” commanders who treat the revolution as a personal enterprise, while disciplined community units starve for supplies.

Many leaders in the NUG and CRPH still display authoritarian bureaucratic habits inherited from the old system: they are slow to decide, defensive about criticism and poor at communicating with the public.

While there have been recent moves to investigate corruption, these reforms must go deeper. We cannot build a democracy using the mental tools of a dictatorship.

However, criticism must not be confused with destruction. We mustsupport and reform the NUG, not dismantle it.

Calls to tear down our central institutions often come from those who feel left out of power or from junta propagandists seeking to sow chaos. Destroying the NUG now would cost us valuable time and momentum that we cannot afford to lose. The goal is to upgrade our vehicle, not crash it.

Three fronts and seven C’s

To break this stalemate, we must fight on three fronts simultaneously:

1.Battlefield:Deny the junta territory and protect civilians.

2. Diplomatic:Present the world with a unified political front—a hybrid federal government—that makes recognition a viable option for foreign powers.

3.Economic:Build clean, accountable financial channels so that donor money strengthens institutions, not warlords.

Success requires us to master theseven Cs, namely cooperation, coordination, collaboration, communication, compromise, compassion and critical thinking.

We must encourage, inspire and enable our people—and our leaders—to think critically. For decades, the military suppressed education to create obedient subjects.

We must not replicate that. We need citizens who attack problems not people, who distinguish evidence from rumor, and who understand thatcompromiseis not weakness, but the foundation of federalism.

The international community is watching. They see that the junta is failing, but they are waiting to see if we are ready to succeed. We must answer their skepticism not with pleas for pity, but with proof of governance.

We must show that we have moved beyond the cult of personality and the tribal warlordism of the past, and that we are building a federal union that actually works.

The junta is fighting for a dead past. We are fighting for a living future—but we have to be smart enough to build it together.

James Shwe is a semi-retired professional engineer and independent advocate for Myanmar democracy. He writes on infrastructure, sovereignty and regional geopolitics.