Authoritarian power can seize territory; it cannot manufacture legitimacy.
Four years after the military coup in Myanmar, the junta is still betting that occupation and fear will be enough. They won’t.
The real future is being built in places where the junta’s grip has weakened, where its orders reach less than its violence, and where citizens are stitching together services, rules, and accountability that the generals’ compounds can never provide.
This is why calls to bring the junta into a so-called “inclusive dialogue” distort reality: they are perpetrators of the crisis, not credible partners in solving it.
The real issue is not who gets invited to peace talks abroad, but who is able to win the trust of communities within Myanmar.
Force can silence people; it cannot run schools, courts, or everyday life without their buy-in.
Regional diplomacy that treats the junta as lesser evil, risks legitimizing their violence and sidelining those who have earned trust on the ground.
The smarter path is to align diplomacy with legitimacy: backing governance and humanitarian delivery where society is holding together, while tightening the screws on the war economy that sustains predation.
Peace without justice entrenches dictatorship; peace anchored in legitimate authority opens a path to democracy.
