Burma counterinsurgency strategy not working

Washington Post:

For a repressive police state, Burma has borders that are curiously porous.

Here along the eastern border with Thailand, legions of displaced farmers, smugglers and army deserters slip back and forth with little trouble and no paperwork.

Quite unlike the control exerted by North Korea, the zippered-up and ethnically homogeneous police state far to the northeast, dictatorship Burmese-style is a dog's breakfast of ethnic insurrection, cross-border criminality and massive refugee flight.

To halt peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations in Burmese cities in September, the generals who run this country had only to order soldiers to club, shoot and detain Buddhist monks. Taming the mountainous eastern frontier has not been so brutally simple.

The army periodically launches scorched-earth offensives, razing villages, enslaving farmers and raping women, according to human rights groups. Alternatively, it cuts lucrative deals with ethnic leaders, encouraging them to grow opium, manufacture methamphetamine and clear-cut teak forests.

Still, armed resistance boils on -- and the border continues to leak.

Consider Gen. Johnny, commander of the 7th brigade of the Karen National Liberation Army, military wing of the largest of the 20 ethnic groups that for more than half a century have intermittently fought insurgency wars against the government.

From a hut perched on bamboo stilts, he says, he commands about 1,000 guerrillas here in this tiny village on the west bank of the Moei River, a lazy waterway that separates Burma from Thailand.

In the past year, he said, the Burmese army has not mustered the resolve to force him to move.

"The order from headquarters is to attack us, but the battalion commander who is responsible in this area does not follow the order," said the general, who gives his name only as Johnny. "He doesn't want to fight."

The Burmese army is among the largest in Asia, with about 400,000 soldiers. But parts of it are a shambles, with poor morale, an officer corps that drinks to excess and an acute desertion problem, according to diplomats, human rights groups and the army itself.

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Diplomats and human rights officials also say the army's ability to deploy soldiers has been eroding. "On paper they have 400,000 soldiers, but in the field it is more like 250,000," said Shari Villarosa, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Burma.

To find soldiers, army recruiters often abduct or buy children as young as 10, according to a recent report by the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch. It said children are grabbed at train and bus stations and that some are beaten until they agree to volunteer.

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Historically, any army using 10 year olds is losing, badly. Couple this with a poor counterinsurgency strategy and you can see why they have been unsuccessful in the border area. This does not mean the insurgents are winning yet. But, they are not losing and that is bad news for the thugs in charge of Burma. Also bad news is the refusal of units to engage. In most armies this would be considered a mutiny or insubordination. That it is tolerated also tells you something about the condition of Burma's army. They can muster enough troops to beat up unarmed monks, but not armed opposition.