Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

The post-Second World War international order rests on a simple premise: governments govern, states exercise sovereignty over their territory and diplomacy is conducted between internationally recognized authorities. That assumption is becoming increasingly detached from reality.

Displacement is no longer an interruption between two stable lives. It has become a condition of its own and the institutions built to address it were never designed for that reality.

Myanmar’s brutal civil war might be entering a dangerous new phase. What began as a struggle between a military junta and pro-democracy resistance forces is increasingly becoming something else: a battle over critical minerals that power the modern global economy.

The headline writes itself: “Peace offered, rebels refuse.” It is clean, balanced and, on Myanmar, profoundly misleading. The latest call for talks by Min Aung Hlaing is not a genuine attempt to end the war. It is a political instrument designed to fail — and to fail in a very specific way.