Myanmar outlook: Fighting is set to intensify in the center of the country

✓ ACLED is the world’s most trusted source of conflict information >

The military pushes into its lost territory and focuses on fragmenting resistance groups  

Although the Myanmar military announced a plan for 100-day peace talks in April, the conflict has hardly abated, and armed clashes remain lethal (see graph below). In the first half of 2026, the military launched new operations to penetrate Chin, Kachin, Kayin, and Rakhine states, where powerful ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) control large areas and border crossings with Bangladesh, China, India, and Thailand. These offensives targeted strategic roads and towns linking border-connected ethnic-controlled territories to central Myanmar, where the military’s main bases and logistics hubs and routes are located, as are stretches of major investment corridors. These operations often intensified after military leaders engaged representatives from China, India, or Russia, which have economic projects in conflict zones. For example, on 24 June, military leadership pledged to eliminate resistance groups operating near strategic corridors linked to Russian-backed projects in the Dawei Special Economic Zone of Tanintharyi region days after a delegation to St. Petersburg signed a memorandum to build a power plant in Dawei. Since then, a column of approximately 700 soldiers has been advancing into relevant surrounding areas, raiding villages and killing civilians. 

In addition to military operations targeting border links and economic zones, conflict more broadly is being increasingly defined by competition over natural resources. After more than five years of intense and widespread armed conflict following the 2021 coup, both the military and resistance groups opposing its rule are increasingly relying on extractive industries to finance their operations. This fuels violence around remote and central mining sites and trade routes. In Kachin state, where control of mining areas remains a key source of political and military leverage, conflict from competition over resource revenues is likely to intensify. If the military regains access to Hpakant’s jade extraction zone and Pangwa’s rare earth mining sites, it could disrupt the Kachin Independence Army’s (KIA) revenue streams. In Shan state, ceasefire signatory EAOs like the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Ta’ang National Liberation Army have ramped up mining activities to cover the military costs incurred since Operation 1027 and to strengthen their strategic leverage. One such expansion was associated with a high-profile accidental detonation on 31 May that caused dozens of civilian casualties, the first highly lethal mining-related incident affecting civilians since the coup reignited armed conflict. 

Up to July this year, the military recaptured approximately 27 towns and critical trade corridors — including the Mandalay-Lashio and Myawaddy-Kawkayeik roads — disrupting the economic and logistical capacity of many resistance groups (see map below). While the military has yet to fully restore its own regime administration in these areas, the victories have effectively hindered resistance coordination. Resistance groups’ lengthening list of losses to the military is precipitating their shift away from large-scale coordinated offensives to defensive guerrilla warfare. The Myanmar military’s pressure is being complemented by familiar forms of limited political action: Former military coup leader Min Aung Hlaing continues to invite entrenched EAOs to peace talks while demanding that the post-coup People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) surrender. These efforts, bolstered by external interventions and bilateral ceasefires, are designed to deepen the fragmentation of resistance to military rule in the country.

Outlook: The military is poised to capitalize on weakened resistance in central Myanmar, but a decisive victory is unlikely in the near term

For the next six months, conflict is set to intensify within central Myanmar — specifically in Sagaing, Magway, and Mandalay — the heartland of numerous independently operating resistance forces — as the military ramps up its focus on those regions. The military has been reassigning battalions from former conflict zones that have come under its control following ceasefires with EAOs. When more armed groups in the ethnic states retreat or suspend fighting — whether because of military pressure or bilateral ceasefires — the junta will be able to redeploy more troops to the center (see map below). This will increase its capacity to launch large-scale operations across the densely populated plains, where civilians already suffer from a unique pattern of violence including frequent paramotor and gyrocopter attacks. 

While competition for resource control is likely to continue in mining areas in the country's peripheries, central Myanmar — a nexus of crude oil sites, gold and copper mines, Myanmar military bases, and defense factories — is also likely to experience more extractive industry-related violence. The region has experienced deadly resistance infighting; such as a struggle for control over a Myaing crude oil production site. The military has been advancing to the strategic Pauk and Myaing townships in its campaigns for both Chin state and Sagaing region, which also have oil wells. Large-scale military operations to control these resources, in combination with other drivers of violence such as the Arakan Army’s push to target weapons facilities, would lead to unprecedented civilian displacement and severe economic disruption. They would also risk further severing remaining trade and transportation arteries, prompting cascading consequences for agricultural output, food security, and local markets. Consequently, the humanitarian situation in central Myanmar would deteriorate further, with effects reverberating well beyond the immediate conflict zone.

Near-term prospects for a comprehensive peace resolving Myanmar’s decades-long political and military crisis remain slim. The military’s preference for peace talks with EAOs is a transparent attempt to institutionalize fragmentation rather than seek a more meaningful and wide-ranging political settlement that includes post-coup resistance groups. On 31 July, at the expiration of the 100-day peace plan, Min Aung Hlaing announced that 13 EAOs had joined the peace talks; none of them are currently fighting the military. Members of the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union such as the KIA maintain their position that any meaningful dialogue must include resistance groups aligned with or led by the parallel National Unity Government (NUG), which claims to draw its legitimacy from the 2020 election results. The military refuses to recognize the NUG as a legitimate political actor, significantly reducing the prospects for a durable settlement. Given that hundreds of resistance groups operate under NUG command structures or maintain varying degrees of alignment with the NUG, any peace process that excludes these actors is unlikely to produce meaningful dialogue, let alone a wider peace, under military rule or otherwise.

In the coming months, Myanmar faces a protracted war of attrition where multiple powerful resistance forces will continue to oppose military rule. The safety and economic well-being of civilians, particularly the younger generations, are unlikely to improve in the near term. Expanding surveillance, stricter social controls, and conscription-related arrests continue to incentivize outward migration as many young people seek economic opportunities abroad or simply attempt to avoid military service. This exodus risks accelerating the erosion of Myanmar’s workforce and human capital, further weakening an already fragile national economy. In the short term, the military is likely to maintain its overall ascendancy. However, emigration is constraining the military’s war-fighting capacity, which limits its ability to definitively curtail post-coup armed resistance. As the pool of potential recruits and the economic base shrink, the junta’s capacity to sustain high-cost military operations — dependent on imported fuel and weapons — will be increasingly strained. Continued nationwide conflict with mounting humanitarian costs, but few decisive military victories, remains likely.

Table 1: State/region ranked according to the largest share of recorded political violence events (June 2025 - July 2026)