To complement the existing discussions, I reiterate that in Myanmar’s protracted and complex civil war, armed revolutionary organizations with shifting alliances and interests can find it challenging to signal their credible commitment to sustainable peace, particularly concerning security-related decisions. In the absence of credible third-party involvement—whether it be other countries or international organizations such as the UN— armed revolutionary groups in Myanmar must balance the pursuit of peace with maintaining trust in their strategic alliances to ensure their survival. As a result, security-related decisions, such as demilitarization and withdrawal of forces from contested areas, pose significant challenges. This commitment problem for broader peace is caused by two insecurities or fears. They are 1) fear of being cheated and 2) fear of undermining strategic alliances’ trust. 

What is a credible commitment problem?

Before analyzing the challenges, I will briefly discuss what a credible commitment problem is. The credible commitment problem is primarily connected to the realist theory of conflict termination. According to this theory, building confidence among warring parties for lasting peace—particularly regarding the security sector—proves challenging because parties can backtrack on agreements due to incentives for total victory. Kydd (2000) stated that the optimal solution to this issue is for parties to mutually raise their costs should they cheat on the agreement, ensuring cooperation. In this manner, they can reassure other parties of their commitment to peace. Scholars such as Fearon (1995) and Walter (1997) proposed using third-party guarantees from credible international or regional stakeholders to reduce the insecurity of warring parties while simultaneously enforcing their commitments to peace. In simple terms, a credible commitment problem in armed conflict is a scenario where warring parties do not trust one another to uphold their commitments, given the presence of incentives to cheat. Therefore, parties must express credible signals that can be significantly costly, such as withdrawing forces from contested areas or delivering speeches by political leaders, to enhance each party’s commitment. Scholars also advocate for the involvement of credible third-party enforcers to alleviate the insecurity of warring parties and address the commitment problem.

Two Insecurities/Fears Of Credible Commitment In Myanmar

Fear of Being Cheated

This first fear is a classic challenge of armed actors’ inability to maintain a credible commitment to peace not only in Myanmar’s civil war but also in other countries. In Myanmar, the problem of credible commitment is exacerbated by frequent reneging on ceasefires by the Myanmar military, driven by incentives for total victory or the desire for greater concessions from armed revolutionary organizations. Consequently, mistrust of ceasefires becomes a common theme in Myanmar as ceasefires seldom involve genuine peacemaking and credible third parties’ involvement to ensure the security of the warring parties during peacemaking. Instead, they have become projects to primarily empower the central government, which historically is the Myanmar military. 

Historical conflict incidents have revealed why the mistrust is prevalent and, subsequently, poses challenges to credible commitment to peace. One such instance was when the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) broke the ceasefire and staged offensive attacks against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in June 2011 when the latter refused to transform into a border guard force under the command of the military junta. Moreover, even during a relatively peaceful period when the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) was in motion from 2015 to 2021, the Myanmar military behaved in ways that hindered the ceasefire, such as fighting between the military and ceasefire signatories or increased militarization in civilian and contested areas of the NCA signatories to consolidate the military’s position. Although institutions like the Joint Monitoring Committee monitor the ceasefire implementation, the lack of action guidelines weakened its effectiveness. Similarly, the Myanmar military’s breaking of the third-party China-brokered ceasefire with the Three Brotherhood Alliance at the beginning of 2024 followed the same pattern as the perceived benefit of fighting the war (winning their demoralized supporters’ applause and, if fortunate, territories) was higher than the cost of cheating, which was non-existent. 

Violation of ceasefires is a common theme in Myanmar’s civil war. The Myanmar military’s repeated record of breaking ceasefires, staging military coups, and committing violence against civilians has undermined the trust of key stakeholders in Myanmar military-led peacebuilding and state-building projects. Consequently, the ceasefire agreements were widely criticized by scholars as a Myanmar military project of strengthening its apparatus and position without experiencing significant costs from cheating. The lack of credible third-party security guarantees to ensure the security of all sides and the lack of enabling conditions to express credible signals for peace, lock Myanmar in an armed conflict trap where ceasefires are continuously violated to achieve total victories or greater concessions. Similarly, ethnic armed revolutionary groups walked back from ceasefires to continue their struggle for self-determination due to a lack of trust in the political settlements. NCA signatories, such as the Karen National Union (KNU), Chin National Front (CNF), and All Burma Students’ Democratic Front (ABSDF), reneged from the NCA, claiming that the coup had nullified the basic principles of the NCA. Moreover, the Arakan Army reneged from their one-year-long ceasefire and re-ignited their fight in western Myanmar a few weeks after their allies in the Three Brotherhood Alliance kicked off the 1027 operation against the military to strive for full self-determination. These ceasefire violations, both from the military and from the ethnic armed revolutionary organizations, lead us to the second type of credible commitment problem in Myanmar.

Fear of Undermining Strategic Alliances’ Trust

This second fear or credible commitment problem is closely linked to the fear of being cheated. Due to the history of breaking ceasefires and militarization by the military and the continued absence of a sustainable and credible political process, armed revolutionary groups can find it challenging to agree to demilitarization and broader security sector decisions without suffering irreversible risks to their survival. 

One thing that tends to be overlooked and/or taken for granted in the analyses of Myanmar’s civil war is how the armed revolutionary organizations’ security-related decisions are intertwined in their politics, military dynamics, logistics, and territories. The complexity of conflict dynamics produced by decades-long war has ensured that even if an armed revolutionary group wants to signal its peace commitment by agreeing to a costly security-related agreement with the central government’s military, it may not be able to do so easily due to their fear of undermining their allies’ trust. This is because of the interdependence among each other for resources and greater political bargaining in groups against the military than bargaining alone. Therefore, maintaining alliances or crafting new alliances to respond to the emerging political realities has become integral to maintaining their organizational structures to continue their struggle for self-determination.

Armed groups have created formal and informal coalitions at different times to ensure inclusive decision-making. The formation of political and military alliances such as the Northern Alliance between KIA, MNDAA, TNLA, and MNDAA and the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) outside of NCA in the last decade, as well as current loose political alliances such as K3C (KNU, KNPP, KIA, and CNF), reflect their collective efforts to overcome the risks of undermining the alliances’ strategic positions.

One notable incident before the coup that reflects this dynamic was the KIA’s request to meet with all members of the Northern Alliance for political talks during a separate meeting with the government peace representatives. Moreover, since the coup it is widely known that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) trains the Kachin People’s Defense Force (KPDF), People’s Defense Force (PDF), and the members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, and also lets them base military camps in KIA territories and fight under the KIA leadership for battlefield experience. That also means, hypothetically speaking, if the KIA agrees to express costly signals for a ceasefire, such as agreeing to withdraw forces from contested areas, that might undermine the strategic position of their alliances. These allies rely on mutual trust, reliability, and interdependence with the KIA for political and military objectives of either overthrowing or removing the Myanmar military from politics or achieving self-determination through federalism or confederation arrangements. The same applies to strong ethnic revolutionary organizations, such as the KNU and members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, who have trained or supported many different armed revolutionary groups during Myanmar’s Spring Revolution.

Another recent instance of this second credible commitment problem was the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army’s (MNDAA) September 2024 statement, that emphasized governance in its territories, such as Lashio and the entire Kokang Region, while halting offensive attacks and distancing from the National Unity Government (NUG). This marked a shift in the cooperation of the Three Brotherhood Alliance with the newly formed armed revolutionary organizations within the NUG or with the organizations that fought under the NUG banner during Operation 1027. By committing to future non-cooperation with the NUG and refraining from joint offensive attacks into the heartlands of Myanmar, the MNDAA and TNLA effectively signaled a freeze of their offensive operations in exchange for maintaining control of the newly captured areas and reducing China’s growing pressure. This move sparked criticism among Myanmar netizens and political commentators. Understandably, the statement also frustrated the NUG due to potential challenges for future cooperation with the MNDAA. 

The unilateral statement of the MNDAA and the halt of military operations by the MNDAA and TNLA were somewhat costly signals to express their credible commitment to the ceasefire, but not necessarily to peace, risking some of their allies’ trust and interdependence but not the essential ones. For example, the ceasefire caused the withdrawal of some forces of the allied groups from the territories of MNDAA and TNLA in northern Shan State to Myanmar’s dry zone to expand their fight deeper inside Myanmar. The withdrawal of allied forces left the MNDAA and TNLA vulnerable to attack from the Myanmar military while also undermining the reliability and interdependence between the MNDAA, TNLA, and the allied forces. In fact, the continuous Myanmar military one-sided bombing of Lashio City and offensive attacks against the TNLA by the Myanmar military, which resulted in the TNLA losing some of their military camps, indicated that the MNDAA and TNLA’s freezing of their military operations were not acknowledged by the Myanmar military, as the military had incentives to further pressure them for greater concessions without incurring any cost themselves for violating the ceasefire. 

Such unfolding of events put the MNDAA and TNLA in a tight spot. On the one hand, although the TNLA and MNDAA had captured a vast swath of territories from the Myanmar military control in northern Shan State through military means, they have yet to legitimize their administration domestically. The presence of reliable and interdependent domestic political and military allies is essential to obtain greater political bargaining leverage in the future to resolve the underlying causes of conflicts, legitimize their administration, and keep peace and stability. On the other hand, China’s pressure and uncertainty about continued support from the UWSA in the future (an essential ally of the Three Brotherhood Alliance) necessitated that the TNLA and MNDAA reprioritize the importance of maintaining their organizations’ survival by appeasing China and saving their alliance with the UWSA, even at the cost of the Myanmar military’s incursions and loss of human lives, over crafting broader alliances to resolve the root causes of the civil war and build peace. In short, maintaining the organizational structure at present by appeasing a strategic ally was more important, even at the risk of being taken advantage of by the military and long-term peace. As a result, conceding to the ceasefires to maintain strategic alliances has become integral to maintaining organizational structures to strive for self-determination in the long term instead of credibly committing to peace. This also implies that one-sided and heavy-handed pressure from Myanmar’s neighboring countries to broker a ceasefire without sufficient attention to resolving the underlying issues of insecurity of the armed revolutionary organizations can be counterproductive because it reinforces the credible commitment problem of the warring parties, thereby prolonging the war further.

What It Means for Future Peacebuilding in Myanmar

These risks do not make any future ceasefire or peace agreement impossible; they also do not imply that the alliances will stay the same in the future. They only underscore the challenge for armed revolutionary organizations in Myanmar to engage in security-related decisions for sustainable peace. But any agreement that maintains the status quo is possible. A more significant challenge lies in establishing trust and confidence to reach meaningful agreements on security-related decisions and commit to them for lasting peace by all parties. One lesson political and armed actors learned from the seventy-year civil war is that ceasefires and promises of reforms and peace are fragile due to prevalent mistrust. Consequently, they have become hardwired to organize among themselves to maximize their actions’ effectiveness and chances of survival to prepare for the worst or else undermine their own reliability and interdependence with the allies and risk being reneged on by the Myanmar military. This is often done by forming political and military alliances based on complex, deeply rooted networks of trust, reliance, and interdependence among them. Even if the Myanmar military is completely defeated, the gains and moments of euphoria of political transitions may fail to transcend the deep-rooted perceptions of insecurity and fear of betrayal among the armed revolutionary organizations.

Future peacebuilding efforts must acknowledge the existing insecurity of various armed revolutionary groups rooted in prolonged civil war. Understanding and unpacking the intricate nature of the balance armed revolutionary organizations must strike, between committing to peace while preserving strategic alliances for survival, is essential, given the armed revolutionary organizations’ shared history of interdependence. Moreover, such understanding is necessary to foster collective and cohesive support for peace. Lastly, future peacebuilding initiatives should consider including credible international or regional actors who have integrity and are highly recognized as trustworthy and neutral. Moreover, the third parties also need to have robust mandates and technical and operational capacities to be able to monitor the ceasefires and provide credible security guarantees to ensure the security of the warring parties and cessation of military hostilities, which are essential to fostering cooperation. 

Future peacebuilding efforts in Myanmar must avoid becoming mere temporary reprieves for civilians while armed organizations regroup for future conflicts. Therefore, Myanmar’s difficult path to lasting peace demands a fundamental shift. True, sustainable peace will only take hold when initiatives empower key actors to make genuine commitments to peace, with security, trust, and accountability as core priorities.