Overconfidence, missteps, and tragedy: dynamics of Myanmar’s international relations and the genocide of the Rohingya

Abstract

This paper makes a novel contribution by examining the puzzle of one Southeast Asian nation, Myanmar, and its dramatic shift of ‘fortune’ in its international status and the domestic consequences of that shift during the decade of 2010–2020. It highlights how the country’s changing international relations affected its domestic political decision-making process. It puts forth the argument that the amount of international attention the country received since 2011 as the target of competitive courtship between China, United States, and the West in general, and the consequent feeling of being valued as a geostrategic asset, created strong conditions for overconfidence on part of Myanmar’s government and military. This favorable international environment also coincided with perceived progress in democratization domestically. Similar to its past patterns of behavior toward ethnic minorities, the Myanmar military and the government overestimated their likelihood of success in dealing with the Rohingya minority while underestimating the likelihood of punishment by the international community.

Keywords:

• Myanmar
• Rohingya
• overconfidence
• great power competition
• political psychology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The country changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, so this paper uses Myanmar overall but refers to the country’s name as Burma for the period before 1989.

2 Arakan is the colonial name for the Rakhine State.

3 The testimony can be accessed at http://web.jhu.edu/administration/gca/_archive/legacy-assets/MyanmartestimonyApril2012.pdf