Looking for an expert on Burmese small arms in this time of crisis?

Check out Miles Vining, a former US Marine and current member of the Free Burma Rangers, who spent his teenage years in Yangon, where he saw a very different side of Myanmar than most tourists and expats see.

Check out his story on the Insight Myanmar podcast, Locked and Loaded here: https://insightmyanmar.org/complete-shows/2023/7/10/episode-178-locked-and-loaded

Miles attended the elite International School of Yangon. His classmates ranged from children of diplomats and aid workers, to military cronies and illicit traders. He notes the odd juxtaposition of his adolescent years within the context of an oppressive society. “I was just a teenager going through a really rough time, against the very crazy geopolitical backdrop of a military dictatorship going on! So it was kind of like, ‘Oh, man, this is a military dictatorship, but alright, what am I going to wear for prom?’”

Many of his peers had little awareness—and little interest—in the political and social reality beyond the walls of their school and home, and if anything, took advantage of the prevailing lawlessness.

Miles ended up experiencing the Saffron Revolution in 2007 and Cyclone Nargis the following year brought the political reality of the country crashing down at least in some small way; school was cancelled for extended periods in both years—although for many of his classmates, these were like little more than snow days in a New England winter.

Through his interest in video games and “digital weapons” he eventually ended up chasing down information and the details of weapons in the real world.

By the time he was 16 years old, Miles had amassed a huge database chronicling specific information on the Burmese military’s collection of small arms, which far surpassed the published work of any professional military analyst up to that point. That year, he happened to meet the editor of Small Arms Review, who, amazingly, suggested that he submit an essay on his findings to the magazine. Adapting the pseudonym “V. Kenneth,” the article immediately put him on the radar of scholars and journalists, and continues to be cited to this day.

Miles continues to keep an eye on small arms, pointing to the many answers that can still be found there. “Diving into small arms research in Burma, you can go down some of the most amazing and fantastic rabbit holes and relationships and geopolitics and then who double crossed who and backtrack to where things are getting made and what secret deals were going on. It's all there, right? All these crazy things happening! And also developments in small arms use, like, there's designs that will blow your mind away, like, wow, this happened!” Miles says in closing. “It's all there. The whole shebang is there! But it's untouched, and nobody's interested in it, because it's the dark hole that Burma is, so it’s no surprise there. It's like the world doesn't care about Burma yet again! The field of small arms research in Burma is just as bleak as the field of everything else to study when it comes to Burmese anything. And that's the unpleasant truth that I think epitomizes it.”

Check out his story on the Insight Myanmar podcast here:

https://insightmyanmar.org/complete-shows/2023/7/10/episode-178-locked-and-loaded