Here Be Dragons

Insight Myanmar · Jan 16, 2026 · 2h 2m

Episode #469: “This is not simply about solving the conflict, but about understanding the conflict to begin with,” explains Bhanubhatra “Kaan” Jittiang, an assistant professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University and director of the Nelson Mandela Center for Conflict Resolution and Human Security. He argues that most external efforts to mediate or manage Myanmar’s conflict fail because they begin from the false assumption that Myanmar functions as a centralized, coherent nation-state. In his view, this assumption collapses because Myanmar is structurally complex, rapidly changing…