In four years of civil war, Myanmar’s ruling junta has suffered a slew of humiliating military reversals. But this year it notched up a rare success. In the eastern state of Shan its battered forces managed to recapture a handful of enemy camps located near Tawung Hkam, a village overlooking the approach to Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city. It marked the first territorial gains against rebels in Shan by the Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are known, since 2023. Crucial for victory was the use of drones. Footage posted on Telegram, a messaging app, showed a handful of bulky quadcopter drones directing a devastating hail of artillery and mortar fire on rebel positions.
Drones are becoming key to the Tatmadaw’s war effort. Over the past year the tempo of its airstrikes has risen sharply (see chart). Rebel fighters say most of them are now carried out by drones instead of the forces’ overstretched and costly fleet of fighter jets. Drones are used either as spotters to direct artillery fire, such as at Tawung Hkam, or to drop munitions.
The junta is aping the tactics rebel groups once wielded against it. Soon after the coup, rebel groups used crowdsourced commercial drones to target junta officials. A sweeping offensive launched in October 2023 by the Brotherhood Alliance, a rebel coalition of three ethnic militias, dropped some 25,000 munitions using drones. The junta was caught “completely flatfooted”, says Zachary Abuza of the National War College in Washington, DC.
It served as a wake-up call. The junta has been uncharacteristically quick to adapt, say military experts. In early 2024 it bought between 2,000 and 3,000 agricultural drones from China and modified them to carry bombs. Russia has also supplied Orlan-10 reconnaissance drones, kamikaze drones and jamming devices. But some drones are home-made: the junta’s “Drone Force Directorate” recently unveiled a loitering munition that bears similarities to Iran’s Shahed-136s, reports Janes, a defence-intelligence company.
Meanwhile, the rebels’ drone programmes appear to be faltering. At the Tatmadaw’s request, China has tightened its export controls, choking off rebels’ supply of parts and off-the-shelf drones. The opposition also faces a shortage of ammunition, says Morgan Michaels of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think-tank. The rebels’ lack of jamming devices means that the junta has a fairly free rein in the skies. Drone strikes on schools, churches and homes have dented the opposition’s authority in areas where it has nominal control.
Even so, the Tatmadaw’s newfangled drones are unlikely to turn the tide of the war. “You can bomb from the air [and] you can punish civilians from the air,” notes Mr Abuza. “But unless you have boots on the ground, you cannot control territory.” Drones have provided some respite to the generals, but they may not save Myanmar’s rotten regime. ■
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