by By Shanan Farmer, Christina McDonnell, and Alex Roesler* —
Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons is a vital concern for the global community. Iran and North Korea’s illicit nuclear programs dominate the international system’s proliferation worries, but Burma may be copying their efforts. Although Burma has held parliamentary elections for the first time in decades, the military controls the majority of seats in the national bicameral legislatures, as well as all 14 provincial legislatures. The new government is merely another embodiment of military rule. Even if it loses the elected majority in future elections, under the new constitution, the Burmese military would maintain complete autonomy from the elected government and could pursue any policies it desires. Senior Burmese General Than Shwe – who has ruled the country for the past 18 years – is likely the strongest advocate for Burma’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. Isolated, sanctioned and denounced by the West for two decades, his regime appears to view nuclear weapons as a tool for standing up to international pressure and ensuring the military regime’s hold on power. Meanwhile, recent reports have implicated North Korea in providing conventional and possibly nuclear assistance to Burma. While the veracity of this claim has not been verified, questions regarding United States policy towards Burma emerge.
Although Burma is one of the most obscure countries in the international system, its location between China and India, as well as its membership in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), makes it geo-strategically significant. Ostensibly, a nuclear-armed Burma would have negative second and third order effects within the region and the international community as a whole. Past proliferation cases teach us that, to be effective, nonproliferation intervention must occur during the early stages of development, before the country possesses an advanced program. Despite the nascent status of the alleged nuclear weapons activity, now is the time to combat any aspirations that the Burmese military leadership have to pursue nuclear technology beyond peaceful uses.
Current United States policy towards Burma advocates “pragmatic engagement” with the regime. This is a reversal of prior policy and a good first step in the right direction. However, more needs to be done. Burma should not be viewed solely through a human rights lens, but should be considered by United States policymakers holistically. Globalization has made the technologies used to manufacture nuclear weapons more accessible. More emphasis must be placed on preventing countries from desiring nuclear weapons in the first place. When policymakers craft new foreign policies, they should consider whether it will create incentives for the state to acquire nuclear weapons.
As many countries in the region have come to realize, putting Burma in the “human rights violator” category limits their influence and largely pushes the regime closer to China. China views Burma as integral to its energy security strategy, and is extremely active in the country. India – formerly critical of Burma and its policies – has reversed course in an effort to counter growing Chinese influence. Thailand, while formerly hostile to the regime, also realizes the economic and geo-strategic value of maintaining good relations. No country in the region imposes any sanctions against the regime. Yet the United States continues to enforce harsh sanctions against Burma, which are ineffective at improving the regime’s behavior. Rather, United States policy may be influencing the regime’s behavior for the worse by stoking the military’s paranoia of hostile takeover – just the thing that nuclear weapons are good at deterring. As the military thrives financially in commerce with its neighbors, illegal transshipments by air, rail, and ship from North Korea have occurred. With billions of dollars in reserves, a perceived need to deter invasion, and a North Korean trade partner with nuclear technology to sell, conditions seem ripe for proliferation.
Hence, engagement with the regime – and with Burmese military leaders in particular – is paramount. But the efforts so far have been largely ineffective. Military-to-military engagement may perhaps be the most productive venue to better understand and reduce the threat perceptions of the Burmese military leadership. It is notable that members of the Burmese military are the most comfortable interacting with their military counterparts. Broadening our engagement efforts to include military-to-military interaction is the best mechanism for building trust and alleviating security concerns. Besides supporting nonproliferation objectives, establishing a degree of trust between our militaries will also help the United States accomplish its human rights objectives. A Burmese military that is not suspicious of United States intentions will not oppose disaster relief efforts, like it did after Cyclone Nargis hit in 2008. This military option provides a holistic approach to achieving United States policy goals and should be pursued immediately.
If Burma were to pursue a nuclear program independently, it could take decades. The timeline could be vastly sped up with North Korean assistance. The risk of waiting to act is too high. Now is the time to shape Burma’s principle decision-maker, General Than Shwe’s, perceptions of the value and utility that a nuclear weapons program can provide. Our military can play a key role.
*Shanan Farmer, Ph.D., Christina McDonnell, MSc, and Alex Roesler, Ph.D are National Security Fellows at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Image courtesy of AP
Wow you people don’t understand the situation in Burma very well at all if you think there’s some human rights situation thats worth just glossing over and ignoring in favor of some Nixonian type engagement. There’s civil war in that country, and some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet occurring daily.
So I can only conclude that the authors are amazingly and willfully ignorant of that situation, or have no ethics whatsoever. In any case I rather strongly disagree with this position, and especially so given the ignorance that’s flagrantly on display in this article.
Tim, thank you for reading our article. In constructing our research, we interviewed 30 individuals (including current and former Burma Embassy officials, academic experts, US Government Agencies, Intelligence analysts, etc) in order to form our conclusions on how to best proceed in Burma. This article was only a brief summary from a much longer paper that will be published this spring.
We are fully aware of the ongoing conflict within Burma, as well as the oppression and human rights violations that have been and continue to be committed by the Burmese military leadership. The United States’ strategic goals in Burma are: “that the United States supports a unified, peaceful, prosperous, and democratic Burma that respects the human rights of its citizens.” This is a noble pursuit and these ideals should by no means be abandoned. Engagement does not mean abandoning these ideals. We also do not consider our suggestions to be unethical. Reorienting U.S. policy towards Burma is not a zero-sum game where human rights interests are defeated or cast aside. In fact, we posit that our human rights interests in Burma can be better served by modifying our current policies. The primary driver behind the Burmese military leaders possibly wanting nuclear weapons – their intense security threat perceptions – is also a major bottleneck to U.S. efforts to provide humanitarian aid and assistance to the people in Burma who need it most. The Cyclone Nargis disaster bore full witness to this.
The argument that it is unethical to engage the Burmese military leadership, or make any other changes to current U.S. policy vis-à-vis Burma, is unfounded. Many ethics and moral arguments would conclude that the broad U.S. economic sanctions that have been enacted by the United States against Burma were not proportional and hence unjust. In attempting to address the behavior of the military leadership (a small fraction of 1% of the total population in Burma), sanctions were applied that impacted everyone in the country. Consider for example the fact that the textile trade in Burma before the imposition of U.S. sanctions was valued at $350M annually. With the low per-capita GDP in the country, this revenue equated to thousands of jobs. Cutting off all ties to the country and seeking to isolate it as much as possible is not necessarily the most ethical course of action to take. How ethical any policy is depends on the impact it makes on the lives of the Burmese citizens. We believe our considerations for new policy options account for the larger concern of human rights issues.
Regarding the “civil war in that country” – as of 2009, the Burmese military leaders have ceasefire agreements with many of the ethnic factions that had been seeking independence since the country gained independence in 1948. In fact, the Burmese military leaders appear to possess “greater state control than any previous government had ever achieved” according to Robert Taylor, one of the foremost experts on the country. This underscores that the U.S. policy of isolation has been ineffective. The Obama administration’s decision to try something different is spot on if we really want to see any changes for the better. We feel that even more should be done.
We welcome your constructive viewpoints, and if you have additional information/expertise that may enrich our research, we would be happy to meet with you.
Hello, I am very interested in finding more information about Burma’s trading with North Korea. I am writing my senior thesis and am trying to find direct evidence of transports and any evidence of technology being sold to third party countries.
Any information, document, or contacts would be greatly appreciated.
Student of John Jay Criminal Justice