Frank Zappa once said that "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline-it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer ." The claim to statehood/self-determination by the ethnic minorities of northeastern Burma rests on much shakier ground-they haven't got a beer let alone an airline. What they do have is a good supply of opium, and a 1947 agreement promising them the option of autonomy. The king of the Shan, Royal Highness Hso Khan Fa is the sovereign in waiting for a large chunk of Northeastern Burma. The Shan are not the only ethnic or religious minority looking to get out from under Burma's misrule. The Shan's neighbors, the Karen have fought against the Burmese government since the late forties. As well as the Shan, the Karen, Chin, and Kokang have their own claims to sovereignty. During the colonial period the British employed a policy of "loose control and conciliation" in northeastern Burma rather than governing directly. While the independence movement of Burma worked hand in glove with the Japanese, the hill tribes aided the heroics of Merrill's Marauders. In 1947 the Panglong Conference established that Burma's minority groups would have the option of autonomy within a federal union. The Secretary of State for India and Burma, Lord Pethick-Lawrence averred that "to hand the Frontier Areas over to Burman administration would be a breach of faith to the peoples of the areas".

Therefore the sixty odd years of conflict within Burma is the backwash of the messy breakup of empire. Within Burma anti-imperialist doctrine gives license to the oppression of minorities by depicting all of their discontents as the result of the divide and conquer strategy of the colonialists. The fact that many in the northeast are Christians puts a further distance between them and the Burmese majority, who tend to equate the Burmese identity with Buddhism. Perhaps it is the case that Burma's troubled Northeast is small beer compared to the overall struggle for democracy in Burma. However, honoring the commitment to autonomy made in 1947 would only be fair. But yet, Aung Sung Sui Kyi's National League for Democracy has always been cool to Shan independence. One can only speculate as to how much different Burma would be today if her father, Aung San had not been assassinated in 1947. Certainly there is a JFK-like idealization of Aung San in that many, if not most of the ills of present day Burma tend to be ascribed to his assassination. The one thing he did achieve before his death was to organize the military known as the Tatmadaw.

The Burmese joke that Orwell wrote a trilogy about their nation; Burmese Days, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four. Certainly his experiences as a colonial policeman there left its mark on him. Obviously much has changed since his days in Burma; but the more things change the more they stay the same. "Orwellian" is definitely an accurate way to describe the regime. Over a million people have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in the northeast. Young men flee to avoid being pressed into the military. Young women flee to avoid sexual slavery. Thus the same regime that resents any interference in its internal affairs exports its troubles to its neighbors in the form of refugees.

So why does Burma's civil war seem so tenebrous when everyone from Mahmoud Abbas to Xanana Gusma get invited to all the best diplomatic clambakes? One reason is that Burma's civil war has long been associated with the opium trade. Now that opiates are passé, many of the same people have moved on to the methamphetamine trade. The 2007 death of warlord/opium merchant Khun Sa marked the beginning of a new chance for respectability and self-determination for Burma's minorities. The former leader of the United Shan Army had run an ostensible rebellion against the Burmese government since 1967. In fact Khun Sa acted with the connivance of Burmese generals and he passed away after a comfortable retirement in Rangoon.

The regime has indicated that it will hold elections on November 7. These will be the first since the ill fated elections of 1990, which ended with Aung Sung Suu Kyi being held in house arrest. The Junta hopes to make its official name of "State Peace and Development Council" more fitting by means of military democracy. However, word is that the SPDC has been studying the election fixing and kid-glove authoritarianism of their friends in Singapore. Thus neither Kyi's National League for Democracy nor the restive minorities have much confidence that the elections will be anything more than window dressing.

Recently Burma began to take delivery of fifty new K-8 Karakorum jets from China. Ostensibly an intermediate trainer, the K-8 is also very capable in a counterinsurgency role as it can wield rockets and cluster bombs. Speculation is that this procurement is preparation for a fall offensive by the Tatmadaw against the various ethnic insurgents. However the SPDC is likely to be thinking that even the prospect of a renewed offensive will make their opponents more conciliatory. The election is unlikely to have much impact/participation in rebel-controlled areas.

In the past Burma's civil war has been an off again, on-again, affair. Warlords like the now deceased Khun Sa seemed more concerned with the drug trade than war. The Tatmadaw has never been particularly well equipped and morale is a constant problem. The dozen MIG-29s the Tatmadaw possess are seldom seen actually flying, presumably because they can't keep such sophisticated aircraft in airworthy condition. Their helicopters are hardly more confidence inspiring. Burmese-made ammunition is so unreliable that insurgent forces have been known to turn up their noses at captured 5.56mm rounds. Thus the insurgents themselves fade into the jungle on the rare occasions they face a superior force, and the civilians are left behind to face the wrath of the Tatmadew. Even if the Tatmadew can improve their ground attack capability, the insurgents will still have the jungle for cover.

Since at least 2000 rumors have circulated that the regime has initiated a nuclear weapons development program with technical assistance from North Korea. Given that it is known that North Korea has supplied weapons systems to Burma in the past, this is quite plausible. The details are very sketchy, however. Russia has acknowledged supplying a research reactor intended for producing medical isotopes and a silicone doping system. The latter has its legitimate purpose in producing semiconductors, but could also be used to construct nuclear triggers. What is known is that the regime has constructed an elaborate system of bunkers and tunnels centered in the new capital of Naypyidaw. The nuclear weapons program has said to have been slowed by the general inefficiency that characterizes Burma. Given the lack of external threats against their nation, the regime's literal bunker mentality has to be seen as directed against its own citizens. Thus it may be only tropical indolence that has so far prevented Burma from becoming the first nation to develop nuclear weapons, mainly to intimidate its own nationals.