Myanmar’s military has so far been unable to reverse most of its territorial losses to the Arakan Army (AA), but recent developments point to a widening effort to prevent the United League of Arakan/Arakan Army (ULA/AA) from consolidating its military and political authority.

One of the defining challenges of nation-building in contemporary South Asia is balancing national unity with the recognition of the diverse ethnic identities that exist within a state's borders.

The junta appears to be combining selective political concessions, ceasefire initiatives and diplomatic engagement with continued military pressure.

Climate change is often understood through the dramatic images that dominate television screens, newspaper headlines and social media feeds. We see forests consumed by wildfires, communities devastated by floods, prolonged heatwaves breaking temperature records and droughts turning once-fertile land barren. These disasters are immediate, highly visible and impossible to ignore.

This military reality helps explain another increasingly prominent feature of the conflict: the growing reliance on air power.

From the writer's perspective, it is understandable that teachers carrying heavier workloads should receive greater compensation. Others, however, argue that such differences are unfair because teachers holding the same positions should receive equal remuneration.

This article examines each of these operational fronts, drawing upon frontline accounts, military sources and political analysts to assess the evolving balance of power along the Arakan Roma.

Recent developments illustrate how rapidly the humanitarian situation is deteriorating. Severe monsoon flooding has inundated large areas of the state, disease outbreaks are spreading in several communities, and the Myanmar military continues to carry out airstrikes against civilian-populated areas despite the worsening humanitarian conditions.

Rather than signaling a genuine breakthrough in Myanmar's peace process, the junta's engagement with FPNCC members appears aimed at reducing military pressure on multiple fronts and creating strategic space for a long and difficult conflict that shows little sign of ending.

Min Aung Hlaing’s China visit shows that the junta still seeks legitimacy through powerful neighbors. It also shows that China remains determined to protect its strategic interests in Myanmar, especially access to the Indian Ocean through Arakan.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public message following his meeting with Min Aung Hlaing was more than a diplomatic courtesy. It was a political signal to Myanmar, to India’s neighbours, to China, and to the wider international community.

Thunbawhla, a small village inhabited by the Daingnet (Thet-Kama) ethnic community in the border area of Taungpyo Letwae Subtownship, Maungdaw District, northern Arakan State, has endured storms, historical wounds, and hardship for generations.

Myanmar’s military regime is intensifying its reliance on airpower in Arakan State, marking a strategic shift with significant humanitarian and political consequences. 

The March 8, 2026 airstrike on a prisoner-of-war detention camp in the Darlatchaung area of Ann Township may come to be seen as one of the most revealing incidents of the Arakan war.

As unemployment and high prices converged, their savings gradually disappeared. Having spent nearly a decade as a schoolteacher and lacking other skills, U Mya Than worried deeply about his future.

Arakan State has 17 townships. The Arakan Army (AA) controls 14 of them. As a result, the military regime was able to conduct elections in only three townships, Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung and even there, voting was incomplete in Sittwe and Kyaukphyu.

In 2025, junta airstrikes fundamentally reshaped the conflict landscape in Arakan (Rakhine State). More than a battlefield tactic, aerial attacks became a central instrument of political control used to compensate for shrinking ground authority, disrupt civilian life, and silence independent information flows.

A former 88 Generation Arakan student leader concluded: “2026 will be a year of momentum toward the complete removal of the junta from Arakan. For the ULA/AA, it will be a decisive year not only of territorial control, but of emerging as a sovereign authority capable of international engagement and economic governance.”

The year 2025 did not deliver a decisive military breakthrough in Arakan (Rakhine) State, but it fundamentally reshaped the conflict's character. What emerged was a landscape defined less by rapid battlefield advances and more by territorial consolidation, prolonged sieges, junta airpower dominance, and a deepening humanitarian and governance crisis.