Myanmar Spring Chronicle — November 9 Perspective
(MoeMaKa), November 10, 2026
Will the Revolution Succeed, and When Will It Succeed?
There have been many armed revolutions around the world aimed at overthrowing authoritarian systems—including military dictatorships, communist dictatorships, and other forms of authoritarian rule—through armed struggle. According to research by scholars who have studied armed revolutions and popular uprisings, the success rate of such movements is only between 25 and 28 percent.
According to the NAVCO Dataset, researchers studied 323 armed and nonviolent resistance campaigns around the world between 1900 and 2006. The study found that armed campaigns had a success rate of only about 26 percent, while more than 50 percent of nonviolent campaigns succeeded.
Another study, How Insurgencies End, published by the RAND Corporation in 2010, examined 89 modern armed conflicts. It found that governments won 28 of those conflicts, insurgent forces won 26, 19 ended with mixed results, and 16 were still unresolved at the time of the study. Therefore, the RAND study cannot be interpreted as showing that revolutionary forces had a 28 percent success rate; rather, it recorded 26 cases in which insurgent forces achieved victory.
The average duration of armed revolutions is said to be between 10 and 12 years. Research findings also indicate that some conflicts last between 20 and 30 years.
Based on these studies, if we look at the armed revolutions that have taken place in Myanmar, the civil war that began in 1948 and 1949, after the end of the Second World War, continued for roughly three years and, in some areas, six or seven years. Since neither side achieved a complete victory, the conflict continued as a lingering civil war.
After the 1962 coup, former Prime Minister U Nu organized forces to launch an armed struggle in the early 1970s. However, before a decade had passed, U Nu’s Patriotic Forces had also collapsed.
Later, following the 1988 nationwide uprising and the military coup that followed, student groups formed the ABSDF and joined forces with some ethnic armed organizations. That armed revolutionary movement also lost momentum before a decade had passed.
The Spring Revolution that emerged after the military coup in 2021 has now lasted nearly six years. In the early period of the Spring Revolution, the National Unity Government, which assumed a central political role, made statements suggesting that the revolution would be completed within one or two years. These statements led supporters of the Spring Revolution to place very high hopes in it.
The public who supported the Spring Revolution, along with civil servants who joined the Civil Disobedience Movement, contributed whatever property and financial resources they had. Some members of the NUG government and some leaders of the Spring Revolution made statements implying that victory would come within another six months or within a year. These premature assurances have contributed to public discouragement as the revolution has continued from one year to the next.
When we study the historical period surrounding the anti-fascist resistance of March 1945, as well as the years of struggle for independence from British colonial rule after the Second World War, we can see that General Aung San did not make careless promises or offer easy, emotionally uplifting assurances that victory would come quickly.
Encouraging the public and making overly optimistic promises may not be particularly damaging during peaceful periods or periods that are not marked by war. Apart from the possibility of losing public trust, such statements may simply make a leader appear to be someone who gives promises too easily. However, in wartime, people may make life-changing decisions based on such assurances.
Indeed, during this civil war and armed revolutionary period, we have seen people in our own communities decide not to attend school until the revolution succeeds, or decide not to send their children to school until the struggle is over.
There is also a question as to whether the leaders of the Spring Revolution themselves truly believed, during 2021 and 2022, that victory was imminent. Another possibility is that they understood the realities of the situation but spoke optimistically in order to encourage the public. Whatever the circumstances may have been, it must be said that either they lacked the political experience to anticipate the future realistically, or they committed the wrongdoing of misleading the public.
Recent reports quoted a statement from the SCEF delegation, which met with the Myanmar community in South Korea. According to a statement from the NUG representative office in South Korea, the delegation said that the Spring Revolution could succeed within two years if there was correct leadership and united participation by the people.
Since the armed struggle has now continued for six years, this raises the question: Has it lasted this long because of faulty leadership, or because the public has failed to remain united?
To speak frankly, it is difficult to say that the people could be more united than they already are. If that is the case, then another question arises: Is the problem poor leadership, or is it the existence of so many armed organizations with differing objectives and interests?
If we study the modern political history of Southeast Asian countries, we can see that the legacy of colonial rule, the drawing of national boundaries, ethnic diversity, and unequal power-sharing between central authorities and local forces have all contributed to the prolongation of internal conflicts.
Myanmar has faced the same historical problems. Since independence, the country has failed to resolve ethnic issues, the question of federalism, and the distribution of political power. The military has also seized political power repeatedly. As a result, the civil war has not been a conflict that erupted once and then disappeared. It has become a long-running historical problem carried from one generation to the next.
In addition, it is necessary to limit the use of Myanmar’s affairs for the strategic interests of foreign countries, as well as unjustified foreign influence and interference in the country’s domestic political decisions. Only when the future of the country is discussed and negotiated equally by its people, ethnic groups, and domestic political forces—and resolved by Myanmar’s own internal forces in accordance with the country’s own circumstances—will it be possible to establish lasting peace and truly end the cycle of civil war.