Play as Β· WW3 2026 Β· L2 Mid-Power Β· RCC-aligned Β· Civil War
Myanmar - 2026
Active civil war since the 2021 coup. The State Administration Council junta controls the cities and major roads; the People's Defence Force and ethnic resistance organizations control significant rural territory and have demonstrated coordinated offensive capability since Operation 1027. Russian and Chinese arms keep the junta supplied; Western sanctions limit its diplomatic options. The southwestern flank of China's Belt and Road runs through territory whose status is contested in real time.
Starting position
The February 2021 coup ended a decade of partial civilian-led democracy and triggered immediate mass protests, a national civil disobedience movement, and the formation of the National Unity Government in exile. The People's Defence Force - the armed wing of NUG - has built operational capability from civilian recruits since 2021, increasingly coordinated with established ethnic armed organizations including the Kachin Independence Army, Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Karen National Liberation Army, and Ta'ang National Liberation Army.
Operation 1027 in late 2023 demonstrated that coordinated EAO and PDF operations could take significant territory from Tatmadaw control - northern Shan State towns and trade corridors fell rapidly, and the operational shock prompted unprecedented criticism of the junta from Beijing. The Tatmadaw remains supplied by Russia (mostly aviation and SAMs) and China (ground systems and small arms), and retains air superiority and superior heavy firepower. But its control of territory is shrinking, conscription was extended in 2024 to address recruitment failure, and the junta increasingly governs less than half the country effectively.
Strategic levers
The instruments - for whichever faction the player commands - are jungle and mountain terrain that historically defeats conventional doctrine, river-and-coastal geography that shapes movement, ASEAN diplomatic ambiguity (the bloc has refused to choose, leaving Myanmar's status as a structural problem), and proximity to four geopolitical neighbors with different interests (China wants stability, India wants the Northeast not destabilized, Bangladesh wants Rohingya repatriation, Thailand wants the eastern border manageable).
What turns the campaign
What the junta wants is survival in some form - preferably consolidated control, minimally a Russian-and-Chinese-backed continuation that the international system tolerates as a fait accompli. What the resistance wants is federation outcomes that institutionalize ethnic-state autonomy alongside democratic civilian governance, recognition of NUG as legitimate, and the dismantling of Tatmadaw economic and political dominance.
What every Myanmar political actor fears, in different ways, is uncontrolled state collapse - the scenario where neither side wins, central authority disintegrates entirely, and the country fragments into warlord-controlled regions with refugee flows that destabilize Bangladesh, Thailand, and India simultaneously. Chinese forced intervention, refugee crises, transnational crime networks (drugs, online scam centers, human trafficking) expanding into ungovernable territory.
Signature challenge
The territorial-control trajectory problem
The campaign turns on whether the resistance consolidates territorial control faster than the junta consolidates Russian and Chinese support. NationFall's territory and supply mechanics surface the question concretely: at what point does Beijing decide the junta cannot deliver Belt-and-Road infrastructure protection, and what does that decision look like - Chinese pressure for federation, direct Chinese basing, support for specific EAOs, or some combination none of the players currently expect?
Try the Myanmar campaign
Free demo. Pick WW3. Pick Myanmar. The map is contested every month.
Play Free DemoRegional siblings: China Β· India Β· Thailand Β· Bangladesh