Since 2011, Myanmar’s leaders have concentrated on ensuring the success of their overall political transition, given the expectations created after the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011-2012. Not surprisingly, designing a new national security policy was less a priority than achieving ‘peace’; national security was viewed as a matter of continuity rather than transition. Moreover, many of the reformist objectives of the political transition were not applied to the evolution of a new national security strategy or to the challenge of adjusting national security policies. Indeed, many historically unacceptable military practices — human rights abuses, targeting of civilian populations in insurgency areas and acting outside the law in confiscating land, labour and resources — continued. While this different approach to national security reflected ingrained sensitivity on the part of Myanmar’s leadership, reluctance to expose national security policy to scrutiny and determination to retain political control, they are not necessarily unreceptive to overseas experiences.

The “spring” that Myanmar is experiencing since 2012 has its own rationale and origins, but like democratic change elsewhere owes much of its principles and direction to Western ideas. Burmese reactions to the ‘ArabSpring’ have been mixed, with many Burmese disturbed by the unruly and violent nature of events in many parts of the Middle East. But even the problematic aspects of the ‘Arab Spring’ serve as a reminder to the Burmese authorities – as well as the Burmese people – that denying popular opinion is a high-risk strategy. Therefore, the ‘Arab Spring’ acts as a reinforcing underpinning for Myanmar’s own ongoing, and as yet unfinished, ‘democratization’ process.