Tatmadaw

Sanctions are obviously a, a governmental tool, and we did see the lifting of many sanctions during what, what I generally refer to as the, the pseudo democracy or the faux democracy with, um, you know, at first under Thein Sein but then under, uh, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Would that have been, hypothetically speaking, something that you think that Tatmadaw would've been interested in if the sanctions had continued to be lifted? Would they have been interested in acquiring, uh, US or, or sort of NATO standard arms, or would that have been something that they, they see as unacceptable because they're becoming subordinate to or, or militarily dependent on a power that they view with significantly more suspicion than they would view Russia?

Russia?Well, I think even if the civilian government had remained in power, there are two reasons why the military would, uh, not have pursued, uh, arms purchases from Western countries.

One was that Western arms are simply much more expensive-

I know they also have quite a few, um, artillery, uh, platforms from, from Russia.

The helicopters are one thing that interests me and, and has interested me for some time because of course they are playing such a pivotal role in the ongoing conflict.

The air superiority aspect of, uh, of the Tatmadaw is probably their largest advantage, followed by their sort of artillery bombardment capabilities.

However, we have heard reports, and I'm, I'm wondering whether there's any insight you can give into this, that the helicopters themselves, being helicopters, do fall apart.

Yes.

Specifically, we are seeing KIA and PDF resistance forces executing FPV drone strikes on Tatmadaw military columns in Shwegu Township.

They're also ambushing Junta vessels on the Ayawadi River, right?

Exactly.

Let's unpack the drone bomb factories for a second.

This represents a significant shift in asymmetric tactics against the ruling military junta, the Tatmadaw, does it not?

It represents a fundamental leveling of the playing field.

How so? Well, in asymmetric warfare, a rebel group doesn't need a multimillion dollar fighter jet if they can attach an explosive to a commercial drone costing a few hundred dollars.

If you know anything about Myanmar railways, you assume that it was probably all built by the British back in the 1800s.

But actually, the Tatmadaw, the military government, undertook this huge building effort in the 1990s, and it was all poorly built.

They were quickly abandoned, most of these lines, but they were all built with forced labor.

And so tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people were press ganged into building these railways under really atrocious conditions.