Mizzima Commentary
Size really does matter when assessing the strength of a country’s military force. This is very much the case when analysts dig deep trying to assess the size of the Myanmar junta leader’s Sit-Tat or military forces going head-to-head with the fighters of the Spring Revolution.
If careful assessments by military and security analysts are anything to go by, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing is likely now to be red-faced when confronted over the actual size of his forces as he desperately struggles to put a legitimate fig-leaf on his 2021 power grab.
Min Aung Hlaing seeks through brutality and threats to face down the vast array of People’s Defence Forces (PDF) and Ethnic Revolutionary Organization (ERO) fighters that may number in the lower hundreds of thousands.
But the actual number of Min Aung Hlaing’s Sit-Tat fighters actually operating on the ground may be a shadow of the strength that the junta leader would like to convey, though he does possess tanks, armoured vehicles, fighter jets and helicopter gunships that significantly tips the scales.
Analysts are questioning the size of the Myanmar junta fighting force, noting that size does matter as it could make or break the military’s increasingly desperate struggle to retain a certain level of control of Myanmar.
It is no secret that there have been questions over the total size of the Sit-Tat over the last couple of years in the wake of the coup.
From what we can assess, at least four well-informed analysts – one Burmese and the other three foreign – claim the true size of the force is significantly smaller than earlier thought.
Ye Myo Hein, writing for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) on 4 May in an article entitled, “Myanmar’s Military Is Smaller Than Commonly Thought — and Shrinking Fast” says that before the coup, the military headcount was widely thought to total 300,000-400,000.
Other estimates put the headcount as high as 500,000.
But these estimates rest primarily on undependable data – and wishful thinking or projections by the junta.
The true number is almost certainly no more than half the historical benchmark, according to Ye Myo Hein.
He says in his story that the alternative estimate he presents is based on extensive interviews with military deserters and defectors, analysis of internal military directives and meeting notes, historical records of troop movements and sizes, and casualty counts from primary conflict data and military hospital records.
“I conclude that the military currently has about 150,000 personnel,” he writes. “Roughly 70,000 are combat soldiers. At least 21,000 service members have been lost through casualties, desertion and defection since the coup. At this troop level, the Sit-Tat is barely able to sustain itself as a fighting force, much less a government,” Ye Myo Hein claims.
A core figure here is the estimate of the number of combat soldiers, given they are the main forces fighting on the ground against the fighters of the Spring Revolution resistance.
Ye Myo Hein’s estimate of 70,000 is important. It is close to an estimate by a British security analyst of 80,000, and not so far off other estimates.
Writer and military analyst Andrew Selth says: “The key element here is not the total number of men and women in uniform, but the number of combat soldiers that the junta can put into the field. Most estimates cite 100,000-120,000.”
Anders Kirstein Moeller in a story entitled “The International Community Needs to Prepare for a Post-Tatmadaw Myanmar” written in 2022 puts the estimate at 100,000.
Military analyst Selth says the Sit-Tat’s actual size is one of its great “known unknowns.”
Ye Myo Hein writes that the Sit-Tat is an opaque institution, shrouded in secrecy, with the question of its actual size a major mystery. But, as he notes, analysts who lack reliable evidence tend to make estimates of military manpower that are far too high.
Myanmar’s military is stretched, operating in units that are numerous but small. Ye Myo Hein says that the post-coup rebellion is exacerbating the shortfall in combat forces. According to internal military documents possessed by him, the army currently consists of 522 ground-troop battalions (217 infantry and 305 light infantry) almost all of which compromise fewer than 200 combat troops and many fewer than 150.
Ye Myo Hein writes that along with lagging recruitment, defections and desertions are weakening the military. Several sources estimate that 3,000 military personnel and 7,000 police have gone over to the resistance. An official of the National Unity Government (NUG) claims 3,236 military and 9,091 police personnel had defected as of February 2023. Thousands more Sit-Tat soldiers have simply walked away. Even before the coup, desertion high rates were high — 4,701 deserters in 2005, for example. Although current data cannot support a high-confidence estimate, the current assessment is that at least 8,000 soldiers have defected or deserted since the 2021 coup.
Casualties have also taken a toll. The NUG estimates that roughly 20,000 junta combat troops have been killed since the coup. Some analysts estimate that “battlefield losses, killed and badly wounded, would be somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 in two years.”
Dominic Faulder of Nikkei Asia wrote in a recent report that the Sit-Tat has been losing up to 15 combat troops on average each day. That would equate to almost 5,500 in a year or 11,000 since the coup, he said. Ye Myo Hein’s daily analysis put the figure as 13,000 battlefield deaths in the two years since the coup.
Dwindling size can also be glimpsed in the trouble the junta is having to gain new recruits, falsification of military records, and the dragooning of auxiliary and support corps, such as the air force, navy, and retired veterans for frontline duty.
While it is important not to count the Sit-Tat out just yet, Ye Myo Hein claims that what we are looking at is a mirage of a rapidly disintegrating fighting force in the face of a resilient, multi-front resistance and unprecedented public hatred.
Why size matters in this case is important. When it comes to the Sit-Tat’s strength, clearly the emperor has no clothes, and it is proving harder to hide their inadequacies. Therefore, the international community should be recalibrating their approach to the Myanmar conflict.
Ye Myo Hein’s important point is that it is no longer reasonable to assume that this enfeebled military will overcome the resistance movement and consolidate its praetorian rule. Therefore, he says, the international community should stop engaging with the junta as if it is bound to win and the only relevant player in achieving stability.
Clearly, that approach only bolsters Min Aung Hlaing’s delusion that he and his generals will defeat the resistance and delays the time until the junta eventually comes to the negotiating table.
Reporting: Mizzima and excerpts from: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) article entitled, “Myanmar’s Military Is Smaller Than Commonly Thought — and Shrinking Fast.”
