The Revival of Military Rule in South and Southeast Asia

CONTENTS 1 Introduction 3 The End of the Cold War and the Decline of Military Regimes 5 The Return of the Men in Green 7 Why the Militaries Returned—Or Never Left 13 Destructive Effects of the Militaries’ Return 18 The Way Forward 24 Conclusion 25 Endnotes 33 About the Author Contents iii INTRODUCTION In the 2000s and early 2010s, South and Southeast Asia made signifi- cant democratic progress. [...] 2 The Revival of Military Rule in South and Southeast Asia THE END OF THE COLD WAR AND THE DECLINE OF MILITARY REGIMES During the Cold War, military rule often was the norm in South and Southeast Asia. [...] Similarly, in Indonesia, massive rights abuses by the military in the 1990s and the collapse of the Suharto regime in 1998 cast the armed forces in a hor- rendous light and revealed the extent of the graft within the regime and the army. [...] Since the Feb- ruary 2021 Myanmar putsch, the junta’s misgovernment, particularly in relation to COVID-19, has helped spread strains of the disease out of the country and into other parts of Southeast Asia, causing Myan- mar to be labeled a “super-spreader state.”88 In addition, the military takeover and the civil strife that has erupted in the country have led to the forcible displacement of over. [...] He is also the author of State Capitalism: How the Return of Statism Is Transforming the World, Democracy in Retreat: The Revolt of the Middle Class and the Worldwide Decline in Representative Government, and the forthcoming Beijing’s Global Media Offensive: China’s Uneven Campaign to Influence Asia and the World.