Despite heavy losses on the battlefield in 2023 and 2024, major territorial gains by Myanmar’s military in the past few months have signalled a recent shift in the military’s favour. With elections scheduled for December 2025, the junta’s ongoing offensive to secure strategic towns and transport arteries is increasingly intertwined with efforts to secure a measure of political legitimacy, writes Shannon Lorimer.
In recent months, Myanmar’s military has made significant gains against the country’s rebel groups, recapturing territory it had lost to the Three Brotherhood Alliance and other groups since October 2023. With the military concentrating its efforts along important trade routes and in towns where it hopes to hold the December 2025 elections, advances have been reported in the Shan State, Karen State, Kachin State, Sagaing region, and Mandalay region. Notably, in October 2025, military forces recaptured the towns of Kyaukme and Hsipaw, Shan State, restoring junta control over the road to China’s border. But on a broader scale, with the junta reclaiming towns, border posts, mines and key transport arteries that connect Myanmar with China and Thailand, a significant change in the trajectory of Myanmar’s civil conflict has emerged.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance (TBA), formed in 2019, comprises a coalition of ethnic rebel groups, including the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA). The TBA launched a coordinated offensive against the military in October 2023, known as Operation 1027, seizing territory across Shan and Rakhine states, including key border crossings and trade routes with China and Bangladesh. The operation inspired a series of offensives by other groups across the country in 2024, with the military losing vast swathes of territory and numerous strategically situated towns and villages to armed militias.
With the junta reclaiming towns, border posts, mines and key transport arteries that connect Myanmar with China and Thailand, a significant change in the trajectory of Myanmar’s civil conflict has emerged."
Prior to these latest advances, the military struggled with insufficient resources and high numbers of desertions, suffering major losses on the battlefield in 2023 and 2024. However, new policies and technology on the battlefield, facilitated by an increase in support from China, have changed these dynamics. In February 2024, for example, the military introduced a conscription policy in response to its series of heavy losses, drafting all men and women between the ages of 18 and 35 for two years of military service. While the conscription campaign pushed some to defect, flee the country, or join rebel groups, it was nevertheless an overall success. With around 17 new units enlisted by November 2025, each with 4,000 to 5,000 recruits, the draft vastly improved the military’s capabilities. Newly acquired military technology has also made a difference; in 2025, the junta has increasingly used aircraft, paragliders and drones – many recently sourced through China and Russia – for attacks, surveillance and transporting troops. Conversely, Myanmar’s rebel groups remain highly fragmentated and subject to internal rivalries, while aid cuts have compounded shortages of ammunition and medical supplies, factors significantly hampering their ability to sustain protracted offensives or occupy towns.
China has played a critical role in the junta’s turn-around, providing military equipment, USD 3 billion in financial aid, and brokering several ceasefire agreements with individual rebel groups to return strategic towns to junta control, including the economic hub of Lashio in the Shan State. By increasing support for Myanmar’s military, China is likely seeking to stabilise security along their shared border, ensure access to oil and natural gas pipelines, and re-open trade routes through Myanmar to the Indian Ocean.
Alongside China, other countries in the region have also increased their engagement with Myanmar’s military regime. India, for example, has increased its bilateral relationship with Myanmar, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting Senior General – and de facto leader of Myanmar – Min Aung Hlaing in person during a regional cooperation summit in Bangkok in April 2025. A similar shift has taken place within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose member states – particularly those that share borders with Myanmar – have largely suspended policies of diplomatic isolation against the junta, and now maintain relationships with both the military and rebel groups. Thailand, for example, has allowed an influx of Myanmar refugees and opposition groups, while also providing financial support to the military regime through investments in Myanmar’s oil and gas sector.
Recent shifts in international policy and advances on the battlefield come as the military-led government prepares to hold elections in December 2025. The polls are unlikely to be considered free and fair; the administration lacks the requisite resources, even on a logistical scale, and opposition groups are either banned or intending to boycott the event, making the election of a government that is heavily skewed towards the military a near-certainty. However, the election will nevertheless provide the establishment with a degree of legitimacy that will open the door to increased international engagement in the year to come. In the meantime, Myanmar’s civil war will persist; the county’s strengthened military is positioned to prevent further rebel advances on the scale of those achieved by the TBA in 2023 and 2024, but militia groups, though weakened and fragmented, will continue to fight for territorial control across large parts of the country.