The Diplomat
In a crowded queue of global crises, Myanmar keeps getting pushed further back, no matter how loud the suffering gets.
How Myanmar’s Civil War Has Slipped Down the Global Crisis Hierarchy
Author: Dominic Oo
Myanmar’s civil war is not vanishing from view. International media, U.N. reports, and human-rights monitors continue to document its horrors, but the conflict keeps sliding down the list of global priorities.
In a world crowded with crises that threaten stock markets, alliances, and great-power interests, Myanmar’s tragedy, as devastating as it is, does not shake the international order. The swearing-in of Myanmar’s coup architect, Min Aung Hlaing, as president on April 10 has made that gap between awareness and action impossible to ignore.
As many analysts predicted, one of the causes of the 2021 coup was the army chief’s failure to become president. Min Aung Hlaing was sworn in as Myanmar’s president after a hand-picked parliament delivered him 429 of 584 votes. He had conveniently stepped down as commander-in-chief weeks earlier to satisfy constitutional requirements. No one was fooled by his change from military uniform to the traditional Myanmar taikpon.
Under Min Aung Hlaing’s command, airstrikes and drone attacks have become the military’s defining method for crushing the resistance.
Data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Myanmar Conflict Map show air and drone strikes rising from 134 incidents in the first year after the coup to more than 3,300 in 2025-2026, with nearly 9,400 recorded in total. Civilian deaths from airstrikes alone now exceed 3,800. What began as a form of isolated repression has evolved into a systematic aerial campaign against the people.
The pattern is consistent with earlier atrocities by the military against ethnic minorities since Ne Win’s time. Min Aung Hlaing was the architect of the 2017 “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, a campaign widely labelled as genocide that drove more than 700,000 people into Bangladesh and remains the clearest case of genocidal intent documented by the UN Fact-Finding Mission. Min Aung Hlaing’s new cabinet continuity is a monument to impunity. Htun Aung, the former air force chief who has led the air campaign, is now Defense Minister, while Nyunt Win Swe, linked to the brutal 2021 post-coup crackdowns in Yangon, is now Home Affairs Minister.
Despite this violence, Myanmar now sits near the bottom of the global crisis hierarchy, particularly Western governments’ crisis hierarchy. Conflicts that generate immediate energy shocks or escalation risks dominate the international agenda. The Russia-Ukraine war continues to reshape European security and global energy markets. The Israel-Hamas conflict and the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran command attention because they move markets, alter alliances, and directly affect major economies and their populations.
Even the high-priority crisis of Ukraine is feeling the squeeze. Earlier this month, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged that his country is “not the priority for today,” and warned that a prolonged crisis involving Iran could erode U.S. support. If a conflict as strategically central as Ukraine is losing attention, Myanmar, with far lower geopolitical weight, stands little chance of sustaining it.
Other protracted crises show the same pattern. Syria has drifted into a form of uneasy normalization despite its unresolved fragmentation. Sudan remains one of the world’s largest humanitarian disasters yet receives only intermittent attention.
Myanmar’s deprioritization also stems from the fact that it is a politically constrained arena for external actors. Regional and global responses are shaped not just by competing crises, but in part by structural limitations on what states are willing, or able, to do. ASEAN remains divided and cautious on Myanmar’s conflict, limited by its consensus principle and the risk of internal fragmentation.
Absent regional alignment, Western governments face limited leverage, while neighboring countries continue to hedge, balancing concerns about instability with strategic and economic ties to the junta. China’s role has been particularly important; its security interests along the border with Myanmar and preference for stability over political transformation place clear limits on how far regional initiatives can go.
In this context, the costs and risks of intervention, even short of direct involvement, narrow the range of viable policy options. The framing of the conflict as a civil war, rather than an act of aggression by the Myanmar armed forces, further reinforces the “internal affairs” narrative, reducing the political space for stronger international action despite politicians being aware that the military is the sole perpetrator.
The world has not forgotten about Myanmar. Sanctions remain in place, legislative efforts continue in the U.S. and Europe, statements and condemnations are issued, and atrocities periodically return the conflict to the headlines. The bombing of Pazigyi village, the destruction of a hospital in Mrauk-U, and natural disasters such as the 2025 Sagaing earthquake all prompted bursts of press coverage. International media teams, including CNN, were also inside the country to cover the military’s “sham elections” in December 2025 and January 2026.
Media portrayal of Min Aung Hlaing as a “Mickey Mouse dictator” or a figure “without shame” may capture moral outrage but does little to change his strategic position. The Myanmar military has historically shown little sensitivity to reputational pressure, especially when it is not backed by tangible consequences such as enforced sanctions, restricted access to arms, or meaningful political isolation.
Accountability efforts continue. A new genocide and crimes against humanity complaint against Min Aung Hlaing was recently accepted in Indonesia under the universal jurisdiction provisions of its new penal code, the first case of its kind in Southeast Asia. He also faces the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice, potential legal proceedings in Timor-Leste for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and a pending arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. Yet none of these developments have shifted the military’s behavior.
Likewise, the existing sanctions are not harming the military enough. ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus remains stalled, weakened by internal divisions and possible moves toward normalization. External actors – apart from Russia and China, which continue to support the junta –lack sufficient leverage and, in many cases, the political appetite for deeper involvement.
On the opposition side, unification efforts have recently borne some fruit. On March 30, the National Unity Government (NUG), the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, and four major ethnic revolutionary organizations (EROs) – the Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, Chin National Front, and Kachin Independence Organization – announced the formation of the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF). Moreover, interim governance structures have also begun to emerge in resistance-held areas, as well as in central Myanmar.
The SCEF aims to coordinate political and military strategy under a more unified framework, addressing long-standing criticisms of fragmentation within the resistance. It represents a recognition that the revolution’s survival depends less on shifting the attention of a distracted international community and more on building internal cohesion capable of challenging the junta’s position.
Beyond a mere appeal for recognition, this is an attempt to present the resistance as a more coherent political and military actor. However, key players, including the Arakan Army and others within the broader Spring Revolutionary Alliance, remain outside the framework. Consolidation is still a work-in-progress.
At the same time, external dynamics will likely remain decisive. The junta continues to purchase weapons from China, Russia, and India, while pressure from Beijing has already shaped the behaviors of two EROs in Shan State, and one of them, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, has been heavily criticized for congratulating Min Aung Hlaing on his “election” to the presidency. Even a more unified resistance may struggle to decisively defeat the military without some degree of external support.
The central question is whether greater visibility, or even improved internal coordination, would meaningfully shift international policy toward Myanmar. More reporting and advocacy are vital to keep the country’s conflict on the agenda, but the world is already saturated with higher-stakes crises.
In a statement for the 2026 Myanmar Thingyan New Year, Marco Rubio said that “the United States remains committed to supporting an end to the crisis.” While this may appear supportive, it represents an apparent downgrade from last year’s statement, which explicitly referenced “supporting those working to restore Burma’s path to democracy.” The change raises questions about whether Washington’s priorities are evolving. With President Donald Trump’s “America First” focus, there is concern that the U.S. may now prefer a quick resolution to the crisis, even if it does not fully reflect the people’s will. For the NUG and SCEF, this implies a need for recalibration.
The risk for Myanmar is not outright abandonment but a gradual move toward engagement with Min Aung Hlaing’s new administration. After five years of war, and with a world preoccupied with more disruptive crises, that shift is becoming increasingly plausible.
Myanmar’s civil war is being politically sidelined because in the hierarchy of global emergencies, it does not immediately threaten the system that determines international priorities. Zelenskyy’s admission about Ukraine underscores the point that even major conflicts must compete for attention. The world already knows Myanmar is being bombed into oblivion, but such sanctions as exist remain inconsistently applied or politically constrained. This is not a counsel of despair but a call for a reframing of where pressure should be directed. The international community’s most credible leverage lies in making Myanmar’s instability costly to those who currently tolerate it.
In this context, the evolution of the SCEF, the emerging interim governance efforts, and the broader resistance coordination could become strategically significant. A more unified opposition may offer external actors, particularly China, India, and ASEAN, a tangible, more stable long-term alternative to a military regime that risks perpetuating cycles of coups and instability.
In the early days of the coup and the violence crackdown, a 23-year-old protester Nyi Nyi Aung Htet Naing, wrote “#How_Many_Dead_Bodies_UN_Need_To_Take_Action,” on Facebook. The military shot him dead. For now, how many dead bodies does Myanmar have to produce to keep itself relevant to the world?
Credits: TCA, LLC.