The Burn Bag Newsletter: February 2nd
Coup in Myanmar (or was it Burma?) and Nuclear Disarmament.
Welcome to The Burn Bag Newsletter. This week, Biden makes an implicit diplomatic decision in response to a military coup in Myanmar while the world takes a leap towards nuclear disarmament.
Diplomacy
A Country by Any Other Name: Under Biden, Myanmar Likely to Remain Burma
In The Bag: In 1989, after a military coup, Burma became Myanmar. Since then, American policy has been to refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the un-democratic military government and its chosen name for the country. In recent years, that hardline policy softened as Myanmar took significant strides towards instituting democratic government. In light of yesterday’s coup, expect the United States to resist officially referring to “Myanmar'' any time soon.
Yesterday, the Myanmar military seized the government and detained de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other high ranking members of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) in an early morning coup. That same day, President Biden threatened sanctions against the country should its military continue to nullify the democratic progress the country had made over the last decade. In his statement, instead of “Myanmar,” Biden said “Burma.” Does the distinction still matter?
According to the AP Stylebook, it does. Note: For the purpose of this piece, I will heed its advice.
The history of the distinction is political. While the names Myanmar and Burma are often used interchangeably by the Myanmar people, Burma – referring to the Bamar, the largest of the country’s 135 ethnic communities – became the country’s official name under British rule. In 1948, when the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom, it kept the name.
In 1989, one year after it suppressed a pro-democracy uprising, a military junta took control of Burma, and, rejecting the old name as ethno-supremacist and a relic of British colonial rule, renamed the country the Union of Myanmar, or Myanmar.
Pro-democracy activists in the country, led by Suu Kyi, refused for decades to legitimize the junta by using the name “Myanmar.” Several democratic countries, including the U.S., followed suit.
In recent years, the politics of the name have changed. In 2011, the military began to relinquish control over the government, and, with successful elections held in 2015 and 2020, long-standing authoritarianism receded and the mechanisms of democracy began to turn. After she was elected top civilian leader in the country in 2015, Suu Kyi made it clear that the country’s name did not matter, going so far as to occasionally refer to it as “Myanmar” herself. As a diplomatic concession, and as a show of faith in the increasingly democratic government, officials in the U.S. seemed to similarly soften their stance: while U.S. policy maintains “Burma” as the country’s official name, President Obama made a point to use “Myanmar” when he visited the country in 2012.
It’s possible that, by generating goodwill between the two countries, American acquiescence to the country’s now decades-old name change could have advanced U.S. interests in Myanmar, including securing the country’s cooperation in regional solidarity against Chinese aggression in Southeast Asia and bringing an end to the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims sponsored by the “increasingly democratic” Myanmar government that existed until yesterday. Instead, Myanmar’s military coup brings the country closer to the Chinese government and no closer to ending the genocide within its borders.
It’s no surprise then, that in response to the military coup, President Biden’s statement reverted to long-standing U.S. anti-junta policy. If use of “Myanmar” by the American government is a diplomatic reward for democratic progress in the country, expect President Biden to continue soft-sanctioning the new military government reinstituting authoritarianism in Burma.
Why It’s Burning: As Myanmar’s recent democratic progress crumbled under a military coup yesterday, U.S. interests in both the country and the region became harder to realize. While former U.S. officials have referred to the country as “Myanmar” in a show of diplomatic good faith, President Biden is likely to stick with “Burma” for the uncertain future.
Nukes No More: Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Enters Into Force
In The Bag: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which requires ratifying countries to never develop or possess nuclear weapons, has entered into force after accruing the minimum 50 ratifications required.
On January 22nd, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force, becoming legally binding for the 50 states party to the agreement. For multilateral treaties, it is common to require a fixed number of states to express their consent to trigger its entry into force: under Article 15 of the TPNW, the treaty enters into force 90 days after its ratification by a 50th country.
The TPNW is the first legally binding comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons. The treaty prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, and transfer of nuclear weapons. It also prevents parties from threatening to use nuclear weapons or having nuclear weapons stationed in any territory under their control. This treaty builds on other counter-proliferation efforts like the global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and various regional nuclear weapon bans.
The NPT, which entered into force in 1970, is the most widely acceded to arms control treaty ever, with 189 states as parties to it. Although Article 6 of the NPT requires parties to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures...to nuclear disarmament,” no nuclear-weapon states have made any specific commitments to achieving total disarmament. The TPNW lays out a framework for nuclear-weapon states to eliminate all of their nuclear weapons and demonstrates a potential path to achieving the goals originally set by the NPT. It includes measures such as a legally binding plan for the verified and irreversible elimination of a state’s nuclear weapons program, including the elimination or irreversible conversion of all nuclear-weapons-related facilities. No nuclear-weapon states have signed the treaty at this time, and some, including the United States and Russia, have expressed clear opposition to it.
The fifty states that have ratified the TPNW can be found here.
Why It’s Burning: The 189 states that ratified the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons have all committed to pursuing negotiations towards nuclear disarmament. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons lays out a roadmap for total disarmament and provides an example for an end to which those negotiations could ultimately lead.
This week on The Burn Bag Podcast:
Reopening the World: A Conversation with GEN (Ret.) John Allen, Brookings Institution President
Listen here.
In this week’s episode of The Burn Bag Podcast, co-hosts A’ndre and Ryan speak to retired Four Star General and current Brookings Institution President John Allen about how we ‘reopen’ both the United States and the world, in a conversation oriented around Brookings’ ‘Reopening’ project. General Allen discusses why a global approach to addressing the pandemic is necessary and why U.S. leadership is unique in its capability to build a global coalition to combat the crisis. We dig into what the General and the Brookings Institution mean when they refer to ‘reopening’ as opposed to mere ‘recovery’, why an ‘America First’ foreign policy hindered our response to the pandemic over the past year, and the opportunities the Biden Administration has in broader diplomacy in addressing the pandemic in a multilateral fashion. A’ndre and Ryan talked about several other issues with General Allen, including the future of the U.S.-China relationship, and why General Allen doesn’t believe the recent tensions are necessarily indicative of a new Cold War. General Allen, the co-author of Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, also discusses artificial intelligence as a new medium through which war-fighting will take place, providing an insightful take on another huge challenge that will only rise in prominence in the years to come.
By now, you’re probably familiar with The Burn Bag Podcast, a weekly national security and foreign policy podcast featuring conversations with leading policy practitioners, thinkers, and leaders. If you aren’t, please visit our website and subscribe at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Overcast, or Google. New episodes weekly!