The Golden Land Ablaze Coups, Insurgents and the State in Myanmar

For the first time since the 1970s, armed resistance is not confined to traditionally strife-torn frontier areas, where ethnic insurgents like the Karen National Union and Kachin Independence Army have been active for decades―it has spread to the majority-Burmese heartland, in the shape of the People's Defence Forces. But the anti-junta forces are insufficiently well-equipped to defeat the much more heavily armed Myanmar army, which itself is stretched too thin, on several fronts, to crush the resistance. And, despite foreign observers' assurances, there is no unity, common command or synchronised strategy among the various ethnic- minority and ethnic-Burmese resistance groups.
This is a war that neither side can win. Caught in the middle, and bound to suffer most, are civilians.