Khaki Capital

Download or read book Khaki Capital written by Paul Chambers and published by Nias Studies in Asian Topics. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Although Southeast Asia has seen the emergence of civilian rule, the military continues to receive a large chunk of the national budget and, with significant assets and economic activities, often possesses enormous economic clout -- enhancing its political power while hindering democratization or civilian rule. The political economy of the military in less developed countries is thus a crucial subject area in terms of democratization. This study examines such "khaki capital" in seven Southeast Asian cases -- Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Each chapter analyses the historical evolution of khaki capital in the given country case; the role of internal and external factors (e.g. military unity and globalization) in this trajectory; and how the resulting equilibrium has affected civil-military relations. This work is important for understanding how and why military influence over parts of the economy in Southeast Asia has remained an impediment to achieving civilian control and democratization. Ultimately, this book tells the story of how militaries in Southeast Asia have benefited economically and the extent to which such gains have translated into the leveraging of political power." --

Download or read book MILITARY CAPITALISM IN MYANMAR written by Gerard McCarthy and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2019-03-06 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Military enterprises, ostensibly set up to feed and supply soldiers, were some of the earliest and largest Burmese commercial conglomerates, established in the 1950s. Union Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) and Myanmar Economic Corporation (MEC) are two profit-seeking military enterprises established by the military after the dissolution of the Burma Socialist Programme Party in 1988, which remain central players in Myanmar’s post-2011 economy. Military conglomerates are a major source of off-budget revenue for the military and a main employer of retired soldiers. Yet few veterans receive more than a small piece of the profits from UMEHL. The vast bulk of formal dividends instead disproportionately benefit higher ranking officers and institutions within the Tatmadaw. Military capitalism entrenches the autonomy of the Tatmadaw from civilian oversight. Despite this, obligatory or semi-coerced contributions from active-duty soldiers are a source of cash flow for UMEHL, effectively constituting a transfer from the government budget to the military’s off-budget entities. The most significant source of livelihoods support for most veterans is the service pension dispersed by the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MoPF). Despite delivering suboptimal welfare outcomes for most soldiers and veterans while eroding the legitimacy of ceasefires, successive governments since 1988, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) administration, have entrenched military capitalism by encouraging commercial activities of armed groups that enter into ceasefire agreements. Extending military pensions already paid by the Ministry of Planning and Finance to retired members of armed groups could deliver a far more consistent and tangible “peace dividend” than the commercial extraction of resources from ceasefire areas. More balanced civil–military relations, and fairer social outcomes for military personnel, will rely on civilian-led state institutions delivering effective and substantive welfare support beyond the commercially oriented welfare arrangements of military conglomerates.

Download or read book Building the Tatmadaw written by Maung Aung Myoe and published by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. This book was released on 2009-01-22 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since Myanmar regained her independence in January 1948, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Armed Forces) has been crucial in restoring and maintaining law and order. It is one of the most important institutions in Myanmar politics. Various aspects of the Tatmadaw have been studied. The most notable area of study has been the political role of the military. This study looks at the organizational development of the Myanmar armed forces. It analyses four different aspects of the Tatmadaw: military doctrine and strategy, organization and force structure, armament and force modernization, and military training and officer education. It sets out security perceptions and policies, charting developments in each phase against the situation at the time, and also notes the contributions of the leading actors in the process. Since early 1990s, the Tatmadaw has implemented a force modernization programme. This work studies rationales and strategy behind the force modernization programme and examines the military capabilities of the Tatmadaw. Drawing extensively from archival sources and existing literature, this empirically grounded research argues that, while the internal armed security threat to the state continues to play an important role, it is the external security threat that gives more weight to the expansion and modernization of the Tatmadaw since 1988. It also argues that, despite its imperfections, the Tatmadaw has transformed from a force essentially for counter-insurgency operations into a force capable of fighting in limited conventional warfare.

Download or read book The Military in Burma/Myanmar written by David I Steinberg and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Myanmar military has dominated that complex country for most of the period since independence in 1948. The fourth coup of 1 February 2021 was the latest by the military to control those aspects of society it deemed essential to its own interests, and its perception of state interests. The military’s institutional power was variously maintained by rule by decree, through political parties it founded and controlled, and through constitutional provisions it wrote that could not be amended without its approval. This fourth coup seems a product of personal demands for power between Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi, and the especially humiliating defeat of the military-backed party at the hands of the National League for Democracy in the November 2020 elections. The violent and bloody suppression of widespread demonstrations continues, compromise seems unlikely, and the previous diarchic governance will not return. Myanmar’s political and economic future is endangered and suppression will only result in future outbreaks of political frustration.

Download or read book Fighting for Virtue written by Duncan McCargo and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-15 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fighting for Virtue investigates how Thailand's judges were tasked by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) in 2006 with helping to solve the country's intractable political problems—and what happened next. Across the last decade of Rama IX's rule, Duncan McCargo examines the world of Thai judges: how they were recruited, trained, and promoted, and how they were socialized into a conservative world view that emphasized the proximity between the judiciary and the monarchy. McCargo delves into three pivotal freedom of expression cases that illuminate Thai legal and cultural understandings of sedition and treason, before examining the ways in which accusations of disloyalty made against controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra came to occupy a central place in the political life of a deeply polarized nation. The author navigates the highly contentious role of the Constitutional Court as a key player in overseeing and regulating Thailand's political order before concluding with reflections on the significance of the Bhumibol era of "judicialization" in Thailand. In the end, posits McCargo, under a new king, who appears far less reluctant to assert his own power and authority, the Thai courts may now assume somewhat less significance as a tool of the monarchical network.

Download or read book How Generation Z Galvanized a Revolutionary Movement against Myanmar’s 2021 Military Coup written by Ingrid Jordt and published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This book was released on 2021-05-12 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 1 February 2021, under the command of General Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s military initiated a coup, apparently drawing to a close Myanmar’s ten-year experiment with democratic rule. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were arrested along with other elected officials. Mass protests against the coup ensued, led by Gen Z youths who shaped a values-based democratic revolutionary movement that in character is anti-military regime, anti-China influence, anti-authoritarian, anti-racist, and anti-sexist. Women and minorities have been at the forefront, organizing protests, shaping campaigns, and engaging sectors of society that in the past had been relegated to the periphery of national politics. The protests were broadcast to local and international audiences through social media. Simultaneously, a civil disobedience movement (CDM) arose in the shape of a massive strike mostly led by civil servants. CDM is non-violent and acephalous, a broad “society against the state” movement too large and diffuse for the military to target and dismantle. Semi-autonomous administrative zones in the name of Pa-a-pha or civil administrative organizations emerged out of spontaneously organized neighbourhood watches at the ward and village levels, effectively forming a parallel governance system to the military state. Anti-coup protests moved decisively away from calls for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected political leaders, or for a return to democracy under the 2008 constitution. Instead, it evolved towards greater inclusivity of all Myanmar peoples in pursuit of a more robust federal democracy. A group of fifteen elected parliamentarians, representing the ideals of Gen Z youths, formed a shadow government called the Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) on 5 February 2021. On 1 March the CRPH declared the military governing body, the State Administrative Council (SAC), a “terrorist group”, and on 31 March, it declared the military’s 2008 constitution abolished. Gen Z’s protests have accomplished what has been elusive to prior generations of anti-regime movements and uprisings. They have severed the Bamar Buddhist nationalist narrative that has gripped state society relations and the military’s ideological control over the political landscape, substituting for it an inclusive democratic ideology.

Download or read book The Jakarta Method written by Vincent Bevins and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2020-05-19 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2020 BY NPR, THE FINANCIAL TIMES, AND GQ The hidden story of the wanton slaughter -- in Indonesia, Latin America, and around the world -- backed by the United States. In 1965, the U.S. government helped the Indonesian military kill approximately one million innocent civilians. This was one of the most important turning points of the twentieth century, eliminating the largest communist party outside China and the Soviet Union and inspiring copycat terror programs in faraway countries like Brazil and Chile. But these events remain widely overlooked, precisely because the CIA's secret interventions were so successful. In this bold and comprehensive new history, Vincent Bevins builds on his incisive reporting for the Washington Post, using recently declassified documents, archival research and eye-witness testimony collected across twelve countries to reveal a shocking legacy that spans the globe. For decades, it's been believed that parts of the developing world passed peacefully into the U.S.-led capitalist system. The Jakarta Method demonstrates that the brutal extermination of unarmed leftists was a fundamental part of Washington's final triumph in the Cold War.