(MENAFN- Asia Times)
In the closing weeks of 2023, the sweeping advances of an alliance of ethnic forces across Myanmar's northeastern Shan state were often described as a watershed in a slow-grinding war, a telling sign that a military Regime long held to be too big to fail could after all be defeated and ultimately overwhelmed.
Eight months on, following the late June collapse of a shaky Chinese-brokered ceasefire, a return to full-scale war and the military's signal loss of the north Shan city of Lashio mean the issue looming over Myanmar is now of an entirely different order.
It turns simply on whether, beyond the watershed, the second phase of the 1027 campaign initiated by the Brotherhood alliance on October 27 last year has triggered a landslide of accelerating and potentially terminal reverses for the State Administration Council (SAC) coup regime; or whether, propped up by another Chinese-sponsored ceasefire, the military, or Tatmadaw, can stabilize an increasingly desperate situation.
In three fundamental respects, the latest hostilities in northern Myanmar have wrought a sea change in the conflict. Importantly, all three underscore the rapidity with which events are assuming a momentum of their own beyond the control of any of the main actors, domestic or external, but with striking geopolitical implications that will impact them all.
The decisive shift of hostilities into the national heartland spearheaded by ethnic Bamar People's Defense Forces (PDFs), militarily capable and largely loyal to the opposition's National Unity Government (NUG), has been the first and perhaps biggest game-changer.
Launched on June 25, 1027 Phase Two was planned and executed across three organizationally and logistically distinct fronts.
One, best described as the“highway front”, required seizing control of the towns of Nawnghkio, Kyaukme and Hsipaw strung out along the national highway between the regional capital of Lashio and Mandalay in central Myanmar.
That task has fallen mainly to the ethnic Palaung Ta'ang National Liberation Front (TNLA), a force of around 11,000 troops based in the tea-growing hill country in the northwest of the state.
TNLA rebels of the Three Brotherhood Alliance raise their flag. Image: TNLA
Focused on Lashio itself, operations on the second front were undertaken by the TNLA's Brotherhood ally, the Kokang Chinese Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).
A city with a pre-1027 population of some 200,000 and an army garrison estimated in late June at around 6,000 troops, Lashio constitutes the strategic lynchpin of northern Shan state and, until it finally fell on August 3, was the headquarters of the Tatmadaw's Northeast Regional military command (RMC).
From late June through July, fighting on both Shan fronts was bitter as Brotherhood forces, hammered by unrelenting airstrikes, assaulted and overran a score of well-defended battalion bases screening all four urban centers.
By the beginning of August, the two Brotherhood allies had basically secured their key objectives, albeit at a high human cost. Neither side has even hinted at its losses, but given the scope and intensity of the fighting, it is probably safe to assume a toll of at least 5,000 killed and wounded on both sides.
The critical new element of 1027 Phase Two, however, has been a third western front driving into the national heartland along the Ayeyarwady Valley. Fighting in this zone spread from the ruby-mining center of Mogok south to the outskirts of the country's second-largest city, Mandalay, with Bamar PDFs spearheading the advance.
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