Myanmar’s ‘peace talks’ offer is a trap

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.

This is not a collapsed peace process. It is a successful strategy.

Since the 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military has faced an unprecedented level of resistance. What began as urban protest has evolved into a nationwide armed struggle, with ethnic armed organizations and prodemocracy forces coordinating in ways the generals had long sought to prevent. The emergence of the national unity government has given this resistance a degree of political coherence, while battlefield losses have steadily eroded the military’s territorial control.

In that context, the junta’s call for talks is often interpreted as a sign of weakness, an attempt to de-escalate an unwinnable conflict. But that reading misunderstands both the structure of the offer and the incentives behind it.

Because these are not negotiations in any meaningful sense. They are demands for submission dressed up as dialogue.

Any credible peace process requires, at minimum, two conditions: mutual recognition and a shared framework for political compromise. The junta offers neither. It does not recognize its opponents as legitimate political actors, only as insurgents to be reintegrated. And it has made no concession on the central issue driving the conflict — the military’s role in politics.

For the resistance, the war is not about tactical gains or local autonomy. It is about dismantling a system in which the military reserves for itself a permanent veto over democratic outcomes. Accepting talks on the junta’s terms would mean accepting that system. It would mean, in effect, legitimizing the very authority they are fighting to overturn.

Under those conditions, rejection is not only predictable but inevitable.

And that is precisely the point.

The junta does not need talks to succeed. It needs them to be seen to have been offered. Once resistance groups refuse, the narrative shifts. The military can present itself, both domestically and internationally, as a reasonable actor that is open to dialogue, is willing to compromise and is seeking stability. The opposition, by contrast, is cast as intransigent, even extremist, choosing conflict over peace.

This is narrative warfare and it is being executed with increasing sophistication.

The benefits are tangible. At home, it provides justification for continued offensives, reframing them as necessary responses to the opposition’s unwillingness to negotiate. Internationally, it creates ambiguity. For governments reluctant to take a harder line, whether through sanctions, diplomatic isolation or recognition of alternative authorities, the appearance of a peace process offers an excuse for caution.

No one wants to escalate pressure on a regime that is, ostensibly, trying to talk. This is how the strategy works. It lowers the political cost of inaction.

The overall effect is to buy time — time the military desperately needs to stabilize its position.

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

It also exploits a deeper problem in how conflicts like Myanmar’s are framed. The language of neutrality, so central to international reporting and diplomacy, can produce a false equivalence. “Rebels reject peace talks” suggests a symmetry that does not exist. One side controls the state, the air force and the prison system. The other is a fragmented resistance born out of a coup that overturned a democratic mandate.

To describe both as simply parties to a conflict obscures the asymmetry at its core.

This matters because language shapes policy. If the war is seen as a conventional civil conflict between two stubborn sides, the logical response is to encourage compromise. If it is understood as a postcoup resistance against military rule, the implications are different. The question becomes not how to split the difference but how to address the underlying illegitimacy of the regime itself.

The junta’s “peace” initiative is designed to blur that distinction.

There is a broader strategic dimension as well. Even failed talks can serve to fracture the opposition. Different groups face different pressures, territorial, ethnic and political. By opening the door to selective engagement, the junta can test for divisions, offering incentives to some while isolating others. It is a classic counterinsurgency tactic, updated for a more fragmented battlefield.

At the same time, the mere existence of a diplomatic track complicates efforts to build a unified international response. Recognition of the national unity government, for example, becomes harder to justify if the official government is perceived to be engaging in dialogue. Sanctions become more contested. The overall effect is to buy time — time the military desperately needs to stabilize its position.

And time, in this conflict, is not neutral. It is measured in destroyed villages, displaced populations and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

There is a temptation, particularly outside the region, to view Myanmar as a stalemate, a tragic but contained conflict with no clear resolution. The junta’s approach to “peace” reinforces that perception. It signals movement without substance, process without progress.

But the reality is more dynamic. The military is not winning decisively on the battlefield but nor is it collapsing. Its survival depends as much on shaping perceptions as on holding territory. Every headline that frames the opposition as rejecting peace contributes, however unintentionally, to that effort.

None of this is to argue against negotiations in principle. A political settlement will ultimately be necessary to end the conflict. But not all talks are created equal. When one side uses the language of peace to entrench its own dominance, engagement without clarity risks doing more harm than good.

The international community, and the media that informs it, needs to be more precise. The question is not whether talks have been offered but on what terms and to what end.

In Myanmar today, the answer is clear. The junta’s peace initiative is not an off-ramp from conflict. It is an extension of it, pursued by other means.

Until that is understood, the risk is not just that the war continues. It is that it does so under the cover of a narrative that makes resolution even harder to achieve.

• Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is the director of special initiatives at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington. X: @AzeemIbrahim