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The Road to Burma
So, if you've been paying attention to speculation around recently, you'll have seen an interesting question being bandied about. Which is, should we, we being the UN, the west, or any convenient bunch of allies you care to name, invade Burma and replace her government?
It's an interesting question, and it's also a perfectly safe question, because it's entirely academic. In case you haven't noticed (and some people haven't), our army is mostly busy in a place called Iraq, and some in another place called Afghanistan. With the troops there, and the formations rebuilding their strength back home, we would have a hard time massing the military manpower needed to invade Puerto Rico, not to mention a dense jungle nation half again as large as Iraq in the middle of the tropics. And since the Chinese have no interest in doing so, the British are as busy as we are, and the French are having troubles of their own in Africa, nobody has the ability to invade Burma/Myanmar, so you can sit back and discuss the question to your heart's content, completely liberated from the awful responsibility of knowing that somebody might take your ideas and turn them into action, and then you'll have to accept some blame for the consequences.
It's interesting because there's no clear cut answer:
There is a series of strong arguments both for and against. On one hand, Burma is a nothing, an economic void, not in anyone's interest and, as the saying goes, never anyone's "strategically". It's hard to think of a more useless country than Burma in Asia, and events of the past fifty years have mostly borne that out. It's close to China, who would not take meddling lightly, it is an unknown quantity, because we know so little about it. Moreover, like it or not, it is a sovereign country. We've tried to occupy a sovereign country before for what we termed their own good, and look how that's turning out.
On the other hand, Burma is in desperate straits, and the military junta is desperately trying to keep people from being saved from them. It is less a nation then a disaster waiting to happen. We, as the big kids on the block, have a responsibility, according to the Uncle Ben School of Morality, to save innocent lives, even if that might mean saving them from their own government. And it may be within our interests. Certainly an open Burma is much more valuable to the world economy than the black hole it is now, and a closed Burma will only continue to breed instability, first at home, and then in her neighbors. In the very long term, the more stable, profitable nations there are in the world, the better things tend to be, and the only way Burma will ever get there involves getting rid of the junta.
Honestly, I think that we've already lost our chance. We should have supported the stillborn Saffron Revolution a lot more vociferously than we did, and backed those words with action instead of letting the Bush Doctrine die a lonely, unmourned death. That was the time; now is not the time. If anything, I would advocate straddling the middle of the road (a tactic that often means I have two different sets of tire tracks on my corpse), and propose that the UN declare temporary jurisdiction over Rangoon, using it as a base in the country to disperse aid and deal with the inevitable problems. That same group would have to be prepared to take advantage of any shift in the country caused by the breaking of its government's power in the largest city, but that would have to plaid by ear.
But ultimately this is a question of to what degree a nation's right to sovereign independence trumps our need to preserve the human rights of her citizens. I believe that, in the long time, adhering to a morally guided foreign policy will produce a stable and productive world, and that we should hew to our moral lights. But in this case I cannot state for certain whether we should intervene, or whether that would push things too far.
What do you think?
It's an interesting question, and it's also a perfectly safe question, because it's entirely academic. In case you haven't noticed (and some people haven't), our army is mostly busy in a place called Iraq, and some in another place called Afghanistan. With the troops there, and the formations rebuilding their strength back home, we would have a hard time massing the military manpower needed to invade Puerto Rico, not to mention a dense jungle nation half again as large as Iraq in the middle of the tropics. And since the Chinese have no interest in doing so, the British are as busy as we are, and the French are having troubles of their own in Africa, nobody has the ability to invade Burma/Myanmar, so you can sit back and discuss the question to your heart's content, completely liberated from the awful responsibility of knowing that somebody might take your ideas and turn them into action, and then you'll have to accept some blame for the consequences.
It's interesting because there's no clear cut answer:
There is a series of strong arguments both for and against. On one hand, Burma is a nothing, an economic void, not in anyone's interest and, as the saying goes, never anyone's "strategically". It's hard to think of a more useless country than Burma in Asia, and events of the past fifty years have mostly borne that out. It's close to China, who would not take meddling lightly, it is an unknown quantity, because we know so little about it. Moreover, like it or not, it is a sovereign country. We've tried to occupy a sovereign country before for what we termed their own good, and look how that's turning out.
On the other hand, Burma is in desperate straits, and the military junta is desperately trying to keep people from being saved from them. It is less a nation then a disaster waiting to happen. We, as the big kids on the block, have a responsibility, according to the Uncle Ben School of Morality, to save innocent lives, even if that might mean saving them from their own government. And it may be within our interests. Certainly an open Burma is much more valuable to the world economy than the black hole it is now, and a closed Burma will only continue to breed instability, first at home, and then in her neighbors. In the very long term, the more stable, profitable nations there are in the world, the better things tend to be, and the only way Burma will ever get there involves getting rid of the junta.
Honestly, I think that we've already lost our chance. We should have supported the stillborn Saffron Revolution a lot more vociferously than we did, and backed those words with action instead of letting the Bush Doctrine die a lonely, unmourned death. That was the time; now is not the time. If anything, I would advocate straddling the middle of the road (a tactic that often means I have two different sets of tire tracks on my corpse), and propose that the UN declare temporary jurisdiction over Rangoon, using it as a base in the country to disperse aid and deal with the inevitable problems. That same group would have to be prepared to take advantage of any shift in the country caused by the breaking of its government's power in the largest city, but that would have to plaid by ear.
But ultimately this is a question of to what degree a nation's right to sovereign independence trumps our need to preserve the human rights of her citizens. I believe that, in the long time, adhering to a morally guided foreign policy will produce a stable and productive world, and that we should hew to our moral lights. But in this case I cannot state for certain whether we should intervene, or whether that would push things too far.
What do you think?
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It's disgusting and of course 'invade Burma' sounds like a well overdue course of action. But UN troops are too stretched at the moment. I like the suggestion David Cameron of the Conservative party has made - ignoring Burmese airspace rules to make food drops. It's not solution, but at least it would mean the Burmese people would get some needed outside help.
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That may actually not be feasible. Or make any sense.
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IMO, the trend of interference and protection, relative to possible defensive and offensive forces of the various countries really depends on what self-interests, short-term gains and eventual long-term benefits are being protected by each country for the 'greater good'. No doubt morality might play a part but on the global stage, its imagery tends to be more substantial than the substance itself.
To organise an invasion with any chance of success, you'd need an alliance of at least 2 superpowers plus at the very least, a promise of neutrality from most of the developed countries and the most influential countries in Asia, and then you'd have to deal with the prospect of China possibly backing up its neighbour as it also weighs the benefits and disadvantages of whatever actions it undertakes. In short, it's a diplomatic nightmare.
Whoever guides Burma to open its doors gradually will benefit from both its current state and future possibilities, but Asean's peace-loving, non-pressing hands are tied. China is in the best position to lead by example but for now, given Burma isn't depleted of its optimum usefulness on the fronts of natural fuel and precious gems yet, there's no need for China to rush to make them open up and share the current benefits. Given the Olympic torch incidents relative to the recent earthquake where PR is concerned, they've learnt very fast on how to gracefully refuse and do things their way (not forgetting that China has far more resources and better infrastructure than Burma).
A bloody revolution is tempting, but how it comes about is going to be the key, and assassination of the entire top and second tier might be one of the best methods involved (but then it would make one wonder about who takes over). Your middle-road tactic sounds nice, but the usefulness of the UN is in question, especially when the breaking of governmental power sounds unlikely due to the questionable validating process and underlying aims of the recent referendum, which will consolidate the power of the military in the political cabinet. It doesn't help that the citizens of Myanmar have been impoverished for so long plus experienced economic sanctions since 1996(?) but still survive somehow, which makes one question whether the approach is actually working.
So unless there's a change of heart, a great catastrophe or the people can somehow overthrow the ruling heads of the military themselves, Burma is likely to stay as it is for at least the next decade.
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