A no-fly zone will not fly in Myanmar
Author: Andrew Selth, Griffith Asia Institute
Since the February 2021 coup, resistance to the junta in Myanmar has shifted from protest rallies and civil disobedience campaigns to a nationwide civil war which encompasses terrorist-type attacks in urban centers and guerrilla campaigns in rural districts. The military regime has responded to these challenges, in part, by exploiting its air command.
This in turn led to louder and more frequent calls for the imposition of a no-fly zone on Myanmar, controlled by foreign powers under the aegis of the United Nations (UN). These appeals, however, are likely to be in vain. An effective, internationally enforced no-fly zone over Myanmar is an idea that, for several reasons, will not work.
Anti-junta groups began calling for the imposition of a no-fly zone soon after the coup. Last April, for example, Representative of Myanmar to the UN (who was appointed by the former government) called for a no-fly zone “to avoid further bloodshed caused by military airstrikes on civilian areas”. At the time, the Myanmar Air Force (MAF) was hardly present and its request attracted little attention.
However, as the civil war spread and the Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) began to support the resistance movement, the MAF was increasingly used by the junta to gather intelligence, move troops, provide support logistics and conduct ground strikes. Attacks were carried out by rotary and fixed wing aircraft, mainly against guerrilla groups in rural areas, but also against towns and other concentrations of non-combatants.
Recently, calls for a no-fly zone have become more strident. A chief of the EAO said he was confident the resistance would win if there was a no-fly zone to keep the MAF on their backs. Another leader of the resistance advocated for UN action to prevent MAF from attacking both armed groups and civilians. A senior opposition leader even claimed that “we have the upper hand on the pitch”. We just have to worry about their air force”.
The idea of a no-fly zone has its foreign supporters. In November 2021, for example, the Australian Senator David Fawcett called for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Myanmar. He said Australia should “work urgently to advocate with ASEAN and others for a no-fly zone…to be authorized by the UN Security Council.” Failing that, he called for an embargo on the sale of aviation fuel to Myanmar, to keep the MAF grounded.
A no-fly zone would seem to offer obvious advantages to the armed resistance forces and the civilian population. Such measures have proven reasonably effective in places like Kosovo and Iraq. However, as these examples have shown, no-fly zones must be considered in light of the circumstances prevailing at the time. Moreover, they raise a number of difficult political, economic and practical questions.
As long as the Burmese junta enjoys the support of Russia and China, there is little chance that the UN Security Council will approve such military action. Without the support of the international community, it is difficult to see a country, or a coalition of countries, adopting such a measure, which would amount to declaring war on Myanmar.
It is also hard to imagine a state willing to devote the massive resources needed to impose a no-fly zone over Myanmar, for any period of time. The United States, for example, showed no enthusiasm for involvement in another foreign conflict. Despite its reservations about the junta, Myanmar’s regional neighbors would not go to war with another ASEAN member.
For a no-fly zone to be effective, a neighboring country would need to provide basic facilities and some logistical support for the fighters, surveillance aircraft and tankers involved. It should also allow foreign aircraft it hosted to conduct combat operations from its territory. Given their long-term strategic interests, none of Myanmar’s five immediate neighbors is likely to agree to such an arrangement.
A no-fly zone over Myanmar could eventually be enforced by carrier-based aircraft, operating from international waters. However, for the reasons mentioned above, none of the eight countries who operate appropriate aircraft carriers are likely to support such a proposal.
Furthermore, should a no-fly zone be imposed, it can be expected that Myanmar’s intensely nationalist armed forces (or Tatmadaw) will staunchly resist any incursion into its territory. It would use its ground and air defense assets to attack any foreign aircraft seeking to deny it unrestricted use of its own airspace. The Tatmadaw has little experience in conventional warfare, but that wouldn’t stop it from using all the weapon systems at its disposal to resist.
Over the past decades, the Tatmadaw has acquired a wide range of radars, surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns, mainly from China, Russia, Belarus and North Korea. These systems are likely vulnerable to modern countermeasures, but they would still pose a threat to any foreign aircraft attempting to enforce a no-fly zone over Myanmar.
If a MAF aircraft were shot down by foreign forces or if ground defense installations in Tatmadaw were attacked, the political and military stakes would rise rapidly, with consequences unknown. Indeed, the imposition of a no-fly zone could turn the current civil war into an international conflict, making its resolution even more difficult.
Air command gives the junta a significant advantage over the disparate ground forces that oppose it. However, it is not the game changer that it is sometimes held as such. Moreover, even if it could be implemented, a no-fly zone is not the key to ending the fierce fighting in Myanmar. the strategic image is much more complex and demanding than that suggested by some members of the opposition movement.
Andrew Selth is Adjunct Professor at the Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. His latest book is ‘Myanmar (Burma) since the 1988 Uprising: A Select Bibliography’ (Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2022).
