Morgan Michaels
After suffering multiple defeats at the hands of opposition forces using low-cost, uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs), Myanmar’s army is now increasingly adopting a similar approach. It has been undertaking a buying spree of commercial and military UAVs, including from China and Russia.
While regime forces were initially slow to grasp the offensive value of UAVs and suffered numerous losses to UAV-equipped insurgents, they have now acquired large numbers of low-cost systems to supplement a far smaller number of larger UAVs. Operations with UAVs and counter-UAV tactics have also been integrated into the basic training curriculum provided to conscripts, according to sources close to the junta.
The opposition forces’ use of UAVs had jeopardised the military regime’s basic approach to counter-insurgency, which was largely based on the garrisoning of towns and occupation of remote areas where opposition forces operate. The regime, however, has been unable to deploy enough countermeasures to the thousands of outposts, bases, checkpoints, offices and the critical infrastructure now under threat.
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