Derek Mitchell served as the U.S. ambassador to Myanmar between 2012 and 2016, the first U.S. envoy since 1990. He is now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington D.C.
When I served as U.S. ambassador to Myanmar, the question I hated most was whether I was optimistic or pessimistic about the country's future. "Neither," I'd respond. "I'm realistic."
In foreign policy, it behooves one to avoid both euphoria and fatalism. That's particularly true with a place like Myanmar, a Southeast Asian nation of 54 million people situated precariously between China, India, Bangladesh and Thailand (and Laos). After 50 years of brutal military dictatorship, the country underwent a dramatic if fragile democratic opening during the 2010s.
Against expectations, over just a few years, the quasi-military government released scores of political prisoners, liberalized civil society, eased media restrictions and held landmark elections in 2015 that gave the party of iconic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi an absolute majority in the national parliament.
The United States and its partners applauded these developments and, with good reason, took pride in helping advance them. Myanmar became an early test of Barack Obama's inaugural vow that his administration would "extend the hand" to those countries that would "unclench [their] fist." He and Hillary Clinton, in an unlikely but productive partnership with Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and John McCain, took a substantial political risk to leverage American power to help this long-benighted country gain its democratic footing, realize its untapped potential and rejoin the ranks of responsible international actors.
What went wrong?
Yet things in Myanmar have gone drastically sideways in recent years. Myanmar's military perpetrated a genocide (of the Rohingya people) in 2016-17. Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, underwent a reputational transformation over her defense of the military's indefensible action. And most fatally, a military coup on Feb. 1, 2021, derailed reform entirely, leading to widespread and ongoing internal violence and humanitarian crisis.
Myanmar's recent trajectory begs the question of what went wrong and what Myanmar's course says about both American diplomacy and democracy worldwide. What lessons can we learn from this tragic saga?
Firstly, my experience in Myanmar and subsequent work on democracy worldwide induce caution against simple narratives of success or failure. All countries are complex and have complicated internal dynamics. Even as political and social restrictions eased during my time on the ground, for instance, Myanmar's structural foundations hadn't. The military remained in control of internal security and much of the national economy. Its corruption and violence, particularly against ethnic and religious minorities, remained entrenched in the society and culture. And if some political and social conditions had changed, the military-drafted national constitution hadn't, enabling the military to continue to control the country's future evolution through its 25% of reserved seats in the parliament.
One can hold an election or ease social restrictions, but Myanmar's severe underdevelopment, low bureaucratic capacity and degraded economic conditions, despite vast resource wealth and human potential, could not be remedied overnight. Nor could the deep layers of trauma and mutual mistrust that had built up over generations, particularly between the countless ethnic nationalities on the periphery of the country and the majority Bamar in the heartland. Myanmar has not enjoyed a moment of internal peace since independence from colonial rule in 1948. Or a single national identity.
Nonetheless, the promise of a better future beckoned between 2011 and 2021. After the 2015 elections, the Obama administration lifted all sanctions on Myanmar. This was a controversial move among some in Congress and the human rights community who were wedded to an ideology that equated sanctions with leverage for change. The Obama team recognized, however, that in order for a nascent democracy to take root and remain resilient against future attack, it had to produce tangible results — particularly economic results — since, as Madeleine Albright used to say, citizens want to "vote AND eat." Sanctions threatened to obstruct that goal.
We have seen just recently what happens when leaders fail to meet popular expectations for continued political and economic development. In Bangladesh, it led to massive street demonstrations that drove the country's longtime and increasingly autocratic leader into exile. In Thailand, it has led to national stagnation and widespread dissatisfaction with a revolving door of leaders who do not reflect the popular will.
And in Venezuela, years of mismanagement, populist demagoguery and a succession of stolen elections have only intensified anger and desperation in what was once one of Latin America's most advanced, resource-rich societies, leading to the exodus of more than a fifth of the population with millions more poised to follow.
Myanmar today has regressed severely, but the lesson isn't that U.S. policy failed. Ultimately, no country is responsible for the course or choices of another. It was the military junta, instead, who took the country on a different path.
U.S. Myanmar strategy during the 2010s was intended to help put wind in the sails of a long-suffering country's nascent reform process to both drive that process forward and make it increasingly difficult over time for regressive forces to reverse course. The massive popular revolt against the 2021 coup, particularly among young people who had thrived during the previous decade, demonstrates that that strategy in fact succeeded, if at enormous cost, as the Myanmar military appears incapable now of reasserting its control nationwide.
A further lesson is that while sanctions, particularly targeted sanctions, may be necessary to put pressure on bad actors and their resources, there is no substitute for taking the occasional diplomatic risk to promote progress, fortified by active, energetic and principled strategic engagement.
What needs to be done?
Ultimately, Myanmar's experience teaches us that we must become neither complacent nor fatalistic about democracy's future. Or Myanmar's. In the end, Myanmar's reform project did not fail, as some have asserted, but was brutally derailed. At the same time, I witnessed firsthand the positive impact third countries — including the United States — can have when they leverage their power to lend struggling nations a hand.
In Myanmar today, however, the international community has failed to apply the necessary creativity, courage, resources and vision to meet the moment. Neither ASEAN's Five Point Consensus, nor China's self-interested policy of coercive interference in Myanmar's affairs, nor other large powers' narrow tactical and geopolitical engagement will help Myanmar in its current time of need.
Given this, as before, the United States should assert its leadership to build a common, multilayered and coordinated international approach to Myanmar among like-minded countries to help shape its peaceful, just and democratic future. While the complexity of Myanmar's situation has only grown in recent years and does not lend itself to quick or easy solutions, the stakes for Asia are great. And Myanmar's remarkable and long-suffering people deserve better.
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