As much as Russia's invasion of Ukraine created a "before and after" reality in western politics, the Feb 1, 2021, coup has also created such a new reality for Myanmar. The coup was a massive miscalculation by the senior general of Myanmar. Almost two years into the conflict, it is clear that the military has lost control of much of the country, and it has lost much, if not all, of the international credibility it had the day before the coup was launched. The coup also triggered the emergence of new forms of resistance with the People's Defence Forces. But new forms of violence have also come to the fore, with retaliatory killings of individuals introducing new levels of fear.
The country is fragmenting into increasingly autonomous sub parts, and it is not clear how the state of Myanmar can ever be put back together again. While it could be argued that forms of governance can be found in the junta's State Administration Council (SAC) controlled areas and very much more so through the administrations of the ethnic armed organisations, more anarchic forms of governance are present in the centre of the country and in many of the urban centres. In the absence of acceptable and effective forms of central governance, communities are becoming increasingly dependent on unaccountable and rogue centres of power.
