Myanmar: ‘All I Can See In My Crystal Ball Is Blood’ || The Gist

0:01 India Pakistan was taken to the UN in 1948. The Israel Palestine question was taken to the UN in I think 1947 or 1948 as well. I mean both were taken in either 47 or 48. So almost 80 years later we've not had any resolution. The International Criminal Court only punishes third world countries who most people couldn't even spot on a world map. [Music] You're watching the chest on stat news global. I'm Ramanandha San Gupta. [Music] Our very very special guest today is Mr.

0:47 Nirant Nirutan, the executive director of the Center for Law and Security Studies and one of the finest geopolitical analysts I've ever come across. Thank you so much for joining us today and I know that you're very eager to start on this particular topic today because I think all of us are interested in that. Yes. First of all, thank you for thank you for having me and it's good to see you too. Yes, thank you. So today we're going to be discussing Myanmar which has been in the news of late because of reports that India had sort of you know uh conducted some strikes along the border and some say actually within Myanmar's borders on insurgents like the Ulfa and the NCIN. Now you know

1:34 could you just tell us a little bit about who are these guys? I mean I know that in India we call them insurgents and sometimes we even call them terrorists but um who are these guys? I mean there's Ulfa I which is Ulfa independent and then there's an you know NCIN which is national something something of Nagaland K. Who are these guys? Yeah. So, so these guys are the uh uh the nationalist socialist uh convention of Nagaland. So and what's interesting is that both in terms of uh Alpha I that you pointed out and the uh uh NEK or whatever they are both offshoot

2:20 organizations where the mother organization is actually a lot more interested in negotiating a lasting peace with India whereas some of these younger uh offshoot groups are not interested in peace. and they are far more interested in carrying on the struggle so to speak rather than going in for some kind of agreement understanding however we want to phrase it with New Delhi. So the first thing to keep in mind is that both of these guys are offshoots they are not members of the original mother group so to speak ideological divergence there. Now the second interesting point for us to note here is that

3:08 from from what they themselves have said from the joint camp or whatever that's been hit. This was an operation allegedly involving over 150 drones or something like that. Right? So this this was a synchronized attack by some suspicious uh adversary who had the resources and the coordination to pull off something like that. And you must of course remember that the Indian government's position and the state of Assam's position is that they had nothing to do with this. So, so, so, so right now obviously it's all speculation, but it was clearly a very competent uh adversary who pulled this off. And if we were to go with the

3:56 hypothetical that let's say India did in fact do it, let's go with that hypothetical for just uh for just a moment. This would also be one of those cases where it is strategically beneficial for a nation to not play that card. So instance, if you look at some of the previous uh crossber strikes into Myanmar and all that, because they were specific retaliations against insurgent massacres on Indian soldiers and all that, there was some kind of value in making that a part of the strategic narrative. Whereas something like this, which is an ongoing

4:41 uh conflict so to speak. So even about a month ago there were reports that there were border clashes between the Indian army and some of these uh insurgent groups and all that. So if and once again there's a big if if India was responsible for this it would not be strategically advisable for India to gain any publicity out of it so to speak. So there's a strategic silence perhaps at play here. And the final final observation about these guys in general is there's also a huge question about how much public support these offshoot organizations have because obviously the original alpha was created in 1979. The

5:27 original socialist convention was created in 1980. These are organizations that regardless of what we think of them have put in a lot of uh miles on the clock so to speak. whereas these offshoot organizations perhaps might not enjoy that same level of recognition or credibility with the local population there which makes them easier targets as well. So that which brings me to the question that you know if they are operating out of Myanmar territory does that mean the Myanmar government is complicit in giving them sort of that kind of shelter or does that mean that you know they it's just some bad lands where they operate within I mean look the problem is the Myanmari

6:14 government is unable to even stop the rebels after their own throats. So we can't really expect the Myanmari state machinery to have the capacity to take out insurgent groups that have other priorities. The Myanmari government uh to be quite fair has much bigger problems at the moment. A number of different insurgent groups uh banded up uh uh against them. If you remember the last conversation we had or maybe the one before that uh Myanmar was really on the verge of collapse. But since then there's been a lot of intervention from China. Not military intervention, there's been a lot of political intervention from China where China's essentially made it clear to both the

6:59 state and non-state actors that uh you guys can kill each other if you want to, but Chinese investments and Chinese assets must not be harmed in any way. And there's a sort of acrosstheboard consensus on this. Both the both Myanmari state actors and the non-state actors there the insurgents there both sides know that antagonizing the Chinese will just shoot themselves it it would be akin to shooting themselves in the foot so to speak. So the Myanmari government has many many problems of its own and they are both unwilling and more importantly unable to help India in this

7:44 matter. Incidentally, recently as you know, India has made certain overtures to the Myanmari government and there are discussions on what we can do over uh you know critical minerals and stuff like that. But that relationship is still a far far cryway from the ironclad hold that China has over both the government and the insurgent group. So depending on the Myanmar even blaming the Myanmari state for something like this would be quite futile. Mhm. You mentioned China but of late you know somebody else was telling me that the Russian we're also trying to make a play in that country. Yeah. See the thing is both Russia and the United States are exter external

8:32 factors heavily interested in Myanmar over the last few years because it's only been over the last few years that the whole critical minerals rare earth minerals conversation is now a very popular uh topic. Right? 10 years ago we weren't really having these discussions. But what's happened is that because China has a neo monopoly of rare earths and all that, it's kind of become one of those things where everybody knows that Myanmar is a gold mine in this sense. Not that there's actual gold there, but there's a lot of rare earths there. So there's one classification called heavy

9:18 rare earths. And Myanmar right now has something like 50% of the known mines for these records right globally. globally. Of course, new minds might open up in the future which would then reduce uh Myanmar's share. But right now Myanmar is about 50% if I'm not mistaken of the heavy rare earth category and uh uh China essentially h China is holding the world hostage almost using Myanmar because if you've noticed even during the last round of tariff back and forths with the US even the United States had to take a step back and pause when China threatened to weaponize the

10:05 rare earth industry against western consumers. Right. And incidentally, since you brought up Russia, Russia is the second highest importer of rare earth minerals to Europe even after the sanctions. The Europeans have discovered that they can't rely on China. That China has too much power over this critical industry. And what Russia does is Russia sells it to a few of these other minor countries in the Central Asian region and the West then buys from them. So yes, and I mean just think about it, right? Everything from Loheed Martin's F-35

10:50 to Elon Musk's electronic vehicles to Steve Jobs's smartphones to I don't know Greta Thunberg's wind turbines. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, uh rare earths are a very fundamental critical part of that manufacturing process. And uh the west has essentially over the last 30 years allowed China to build up a monopoly because of their own hypocrisies. And now China, the United States, Russia, everybody now realizes the strategic importance of Myanmar as a uh rare earth source so to speak. And right now, China is using one of their local actors. So

11:38 there's a province called the W province which is backed by China and almost an independent state for all practical purposes. They have their own army and their own administration and all that. The Myanmari government recognizes it as a self-governing area. And right now the Chinese are using uh the war army to now operate through many parts of Myanmar looking for rare earth mines so that they can sort of looking for areas where they can set up rare earth mines so that they can then set it up and ramp up uh production even more. And if I'm not mistaken, about a month or two ago, the Chinese government also passed a law

12:25 making it legal for Chinese mercenaries, private security firms to operate in Myanmar as well. So, China's been very active on this energy front there. But let's take a step back since we started with India. I think India's interest could go beyond just rare earths as far as Myanmar is concerned. Yes. Yes. Yes. Could you just list some of those things out from the way you see it? Sure. Sure. So the first is the bilateral India Myanmar question as well. Right now regardless of what one might think about Myanmar uh or if we were to use the word Burma, it is a civilizational power. It it might not be a civilizational power with any kind of

13:10 economic or political might at the moment. But if we were to turn the clock back 200 or 300 years, as you know, entities like Bangladesh and Pakistan and all that would not even figure into those calculations. There would be Afghanistan, there would be India, there would be where I'm from, Sri Lanka, there would be what we call Burma, blah blah blah. So historically, civilizationally, there's just something about the big picture there which makes it a part of the vested regional interest. The second as we just discussed is that there are many many insurgent groups who have operated from Myanmar for many many

13:56 decades. I mean from the 70s and the 80s onwards. So there's that uh essential uh uh you know security threat that comes from them as well because Myanmar as you know has always suffered from very weak governance particularly in the border areas and that's always been a big threat to you know New Delhi's regional calculations and New Delhi's allies also very frequently get affected by it. I mean look at Shikh Hzina right? One of the main sources of political opposition was uh Shikh Khazena's refusal to play ball with some of these insurgent groups and Sheikh Azina was very actively dismantling many of these anti-India insurgent groups that was trying to use

14:42 Bangladesh as a safe haven. Uh I mean Bhutan has acted against uh the uh alpha groups before. So uh alpha itself is a group that has clashed with many different governments in the region and India being the big regional power so to speak has to pay attention to that and also I mean let's face it if we were to look at the larger chessboard just as how the strait of Mala is a major choke point for India to exert some kind of leverage against China, the more influence India has in Myanmar also gives New Delhi a certain level of

15:28 leverage because as you know Myanmar is very critical for the Chinese to reach the Indian Ocean for them to have some kind of alternative to the straight of Mala. They would have to go through Myanmar. I mean I I heard there are uh sort of Chinese experts who are looking at uh building a pathway across that Thai peninsula where Myanmar and Thailand have a lot of territory in that Chinese strip that the Chinese apparently want to go through that. I mean so ultimately geographically, economically, civilizationally and security wise uh India is a very direct stakeholder in Myanmar's fate. Mhm. I mean it would also be of importance to India's act east policy because you know to reach Southeast Asia

16:15 you have to go through Myanmar Bangladesh and then Myanmar so now country is being in a mess I think India's entire act policy is sort of blocked absolutely and and with the actis policy itself as you rightly pointed out the uh Myanmar is a key for the actis policy it's also a huge PR key because in terms of public relations I mean uh there's a big difference between look east and act east and for the neighborhood to be convinced that India has transitioned from a look east policy to an act east policy it's very important for India to have some kind of proactive position right now India's I would say India's uh

17:03 position regarding the Myanmari government is quite ambiguous where India seems to be maintaining some kind of equidistance if we could use that phrase uh and they've not actively the Indians have not actively taken a side so to speak but as this boils over more and more uh my assessment is that New Delhi will have to pick a side at some point of time uh one of the you know Indian security experts who was on our show recently said that locally in Myanmar domestically there is a possibility that you know they'll try and divide it into a sphere of sort of Indian and Chinese influence. Is that a possibility? I mean so so as you know I am a big

17:50 believer in civilizational identities and I believe that countries might come and go every 100 years or 200 years but civilizations will last even if there's some kind of plan to bifurcate countries like that the Burmese civilization and many of the tribal identities that go along with it in a very weirdly cohesive way I don't think We can just wipe that out like that. So for instance, you can wipe out you can bifurcate Afghanistan into 10 different pieces but that pashon identity will still stay despite a lot of tribal variation even among the pashtoons. So similarly here, yes, I think it would be tempting if we were to

18:35 look at the region as a chessboard. It would be tempting for these two big nuclear powers to carve up Myanmar based on uh how they want it. But as I said, because of these new factors like critical minerals and all that, I don't see China or the international community allowing for some clean bifurcation to happen. It would have to be through a major major war that kills millions of people. It's not going to happen smoothly if it does. Mhm. But how much influence does let's say the United States wield in Myanmar? See, there's a lot of conspiracy theories. I've not seen any hard evidence, but you would be surprised by the number of conspiracy theories that

19:21 uh the US wants to deploy troops uh private mercenaries into Myanmari territory to help uh the rebels. There are conspiracy theories that one of the reasons the United States orchestrated Shik Hzina's fall is because Shik Hazena refused to cooperate with Washington's attempts to ramp up uh some kind of proxy war against the Myanmari government. uh you have conspiracy theories that the US Navy wanted to implement a no-fly zone over Vietnam and that there would be US naval assets in the Bay of Bengal to ensure that and all that but once again as I said I don't see any hard evidence for that and I

20:07 don't see the Indian Navy just allowing the American Navy to simply march into the Bay of Bengal like that and start uh implementing no-fly zones and all that without New Delhi's uh uh green light. We are far from the 1971 days where where the US Navy could just send an aircraft carrier to intimidate the region and all that. But as I said, because I look at this primarily as a resource battleground, one cannot dismiss the ambitions of the Americans either. So I wouldn't be surprised if they're looking at that very very keenly. But they need to understand that both the rebels and the

20:54 government receive Chinese patronage at this point. Simply coming in and helping the rebels overthrow the Myanmari government is not going to create a pro- US government or anything like that. The the Chinese are are patronizing both sides there. So a proxy war per se will not help. You you're saying the Chinese are too well entrenched there. Absolutely too well entrenched with both sides. So for instance the Russians were very well entrenched in some senses in Syria but they were well entrenched with one side and therefore when that regime collapsed Russian interests in Syria simply collapsed. But that's not going to happen to China where it's it's not

21:42 just the regime uh receiving Chinese patronage. It's the rebels as well. Mhm. But you know if you were to gaze into sort of your crystal ball I mean given all these conflicting interests at play in Myanmar what is the actual domestic situation? You have a bunch of rebels who seem to be attacked bunch trying to overthrow the government. The government in turn you know is a military government which is not very popular with the people itself hence the rebels. Do you see some kind of you know understanding happening between them? I mean well as cynical as this might unfortunately sound uh the only thing that I see in my crystal ball is blood and uh I don't see any resolution right

22:28 now because once again these are very tribal civilizational identities and questions and promises at play here and if I could just give you one example just to maybe capture what's going on in Myanmar right now guess where most of the Myanmar refugees of war are. They are not in internationally protected refugee camps and all that. They are all camped out near Chinese pipelines and Chinese factories and Chinese assets because they know that neither the uh Myanmari army, the honta or the rebel groups will attack those places. So right now the Chinese uh uh

23:14 areas of construction so to speak these are the places where even the refugees are flocking because they know that these are the only places with peace and all that. You know some provinces like the war province that I just mentioned there's relative peace there. I mean it's not like it's a prospering economy or whatever but uh daily life is more or less uh uninterrupted in uh the Chinese controlled uh province. So there are some areas where there is normaly but in most of the country unfortunately uh you know things are very bad with with no real end or resolution in sight other than through violence. What about other neighbors? I mean India is one neighbor. Bangladesh is another. What about Thailand? That's another

24:00 country which faces you know spillover of refugees and stuff. Absolutely. If we if we if we were to look at the ASEAN, Southeast Asian nations in general, they are also now in a very confused state of mind because some of them like Thailand do want uh ASEAN members to take a more proactive approach to this whereas there are other ASEAN members who feel that this is an internal matter for Myanmar and that there's no reason for them to get involved. I mean, what you're saying is they're scared of the Chinese. You know, they're scared of the Chinese, right? They're scared of the Chinese and they are also scared of perhaps their own vulnerabilities being exposed because

24:47 ASEAN is one of the few examples of regionalism still working in the world while most of the other regional bodies have collapsed. The lack of any major conflict or the lack of any major nuclear power dictating the shots to the others has ensured that ASEAN has somehow managed to steer the course and stay vibrant and active in some form and internal disscent like this would only expose the cracks when they don't really need to be exposed. But as you pointed out the the main reason is that China would not be too happy with such a move. you know this is such a fascinating conversation that I didn't realize that we're almost running out of time but let me just end with one last question in

25:32 your view you know as you said let's assume that India for the sake of it that India was involved in these recent strikes what are India other options I mean so the other option would be something like uh a yuri where you have a publicly sort of narrativized uh operical stri strike and you sort of make a big public statement about that. So what how does that help? I mean what what purpose would that serve? So in the current context it would not help which is why which is why I'm sure they went for this strategic silence option instead. So many of the alternatives would require some kind of loud narrativized uh strategy whereas

26:21 this does not require any narrative. Here you essentially give the insurgents a taste of their own medicine. I mean what has India been facing? India has been facing many many crossber insurgent attacks over the last few decades where they have uh leveraged the value of lack of accountability and silence where everybody knows that they are the ones who did it but they deny responsibility. So this is in many ways uh you know giving them a taste of their own medicine and once again not to take up too much of your time but when we when we look at the other options as well some people would say hey why not diplomatic options why not legal options why not peaceful options well once again

27:08 if any of us could name a single international or regional organization that has demonstrated some competence in dispute resolution then of course we could discuss those but there are no international institutions like that I mean this year alone we've had two potentially nuclear conflicts India Pakistan Iran Israel India Pakistan was taken to the UN in 1948 the Israel Palestine question was taken to the UN in I think 1947 or 1948 as well I mean both were taken in either 47 or 48 so Almost 80 years later, we've not had any resolution. The International Criminal Court only punishes third world countries who most

27:55 people couldn't even spot on a world map. So unfortunately, the only option available to any practical state at the moment is unilateral action. Your two sub options between under that are a noisy narrativized option where you broadcast it to your population or something where you just get the job done and you deny responsibility. So hypothetically if India was responsible it's the silent option that uh they've gone with and it's clearly the better of the two options in today's uh you know uh chess board. You know last quick last question what about this civilizational connect that we were talking about earlier clearly you know there is a much

28:41 larger sort of a soft power influence of Indian cultural values in in Myanmar is do you think it's too late for India to leverage that against to get some leverage in the country? No, I don't think it's too late. I So, so once again, this might be because of my own worldview of placing a lot of emphasis on civilizational value because I see that playing out in the world. I don't think it's ever too late. I mean, Cambodia, Vietnam, the entire act east policy itself. I would like to see New Delhi leveraging more into the civilizational and cultural connect to make that materialize in some way. I mean, let's face it. No country can compete with China's paycheck. No

29:27 country can compete with China's ability to throw money at another nation and buy a friendship or an alliance. The only way to combat that should be stuff that money cannot buy. And India has a very very uh you know practical solution here where your civilizational and cultural connections. You could go to Cambodia. You could go to Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia. They would know what the Ramayana is. They would know what Indonesia, right? There are there are certain things that you can tap into. It might seem like a daunting task, but once you start making grounds, you will find that it gets a lot more traction than you would than you would think initially. Mhm. So what I'm hearing is

30:16 that apart from the sort of you know the kinetic option that appears to have happened here if India were to leverage its softer options there might be some ability to push back which other other countries might not have that leverage. Is that exactly exactly other countries do not have the luxury of a big picture long-term strategy. India has the luxury of a big picture long-term strategy. Exactly. That's that's good to hear. Maybe you know the powers that be I I just be listening to you in some way because that makes a big difference. I'm afraid you know we've run out of time but I look forward to having you again as always. It's always a delight talking to you and uh thank you so very much.

31:04 Likewise. I always love uh having conversations with you. So thank you that was Nirant as I explained one of the finest geopolitical minds that I have met and trust me I've met a whole lot of them in Korea talking to us about the situation in Myanmar with his own unique perspective which talks about civilizational connect and the options for India in a region which is become a sort of a chessboard for a global all the global players to get in. I do hope you enjoyed this particular edition of the gist and I look forward to seeing you again. This is Ramagandas and