Page 2 of
2 Pyrrhic
victory in Myanmar By Anthony
Davis
The second phase of the campaign
began around New Year. Blocked on the most direct
axis of advance to Laiza, Tatmadaw forces began
pushing into the KIA's rugged mountain redoubt to
the north and east of Laja Yang. This
multi-pronged advance then became by default the
focus of operations and involved a series of
bitter, meat-grinder contests for the various
heights on which the KIA was dug in. As they
inched forward, Tatmadaw infantry came to rely
less on air power and increasingly on intense
bombardments from 105mm artillery and 120mm
mortars.
The first key height to fall was
Bumre Bum (feature 771) on January 3, followed by
the Tibet Post and the Wai Maw Post. From these
features, government forces moved into the Hka Ya
Hkyet valley then launched a brutal uphill assault
on the high ground of Hka Ya Bum. Under heavy
artillery fire, the KIA were
finally forced to withdraw
from Hka Ya Bum on January 26, bringing Tatmadaw
forces to positions effectively dominating Laiza
town.
Curiously, the government advance on
Laiza played to the few advantages the KIA enjoyed
in an otherwise entirely unequal contest: intimate
knowledge of the terrain, initial control of the
heights and far shorter lines of communication and
resupply. For this, the Tatmadaw evidently paid
heavily in term of casualties. According to one
well-placed local analyst, the capture of Hka Ya
Bum cost over 120 government dead and nearly 400
wounded.
The second surprise in the Laiza
campaign was the Tatmadaw's failure to exploit
air-power effectively. While repeated sorties by
both jets and helicopters marked a sharp
escalation of the war and attracted widespread
international criticism, Kachin reports suggest
the actual battlefield impact was fairly
ineffectual. Indeed, by the second week in January
there was a clear shift away from the near-daily
air strikes seen earlier in favor of sustained
artillery bombardments - which certainly did have
a lethal effect.
The lack of effective air
support is likely to have stemmed from two
factors. First, close tactical coordination
between front-line ground forces and supporting
air assets is critical, particularly in rugged,
wooded terrain where the lines are often fluid and
difficult to see from the air. The nature and
location of the air strikes suggests this
coordination was inadequate, if not entirely
lacking. Unconfirmed reports of a friendly fire
incident in December at Pangwa to the north of
Laiza, where Mi-35s were first committed, may have
contributed to uncertainty in operations near
Laiza.
The second factor is the altitude
at which air support assets are prepared to
operate. Video footage from the battlefield
invariably showed both jets and helicopters
bombing and rocketing from considerable altitude
and suggests that Tatmadaw close air support (CAS)
was in fact never that close. It also appears that
many air strikes were directed at suspected KIA
positions well behind the front lines. As a
result, the local forests and wild life appears to
have suffered far more damage than the Kachin
insurgents.
Fear of ground-fire may also
have pushed inexperienced pilots to higher
altitudes. But the 12.7mm heavy machine-guns
fielded by the Kachin pose only a minor threat to
fast-flying jets and heavily-armored,
titanium-bellied Mi-35 gunships; and losses were
in any case slight. Battlefield reports indicated
that one Mi-8 helicopter was damaged on December
14 and seen flying back to Myitkyina trailing
smoke. On January 11, both sides confirmed the
crash of an Mi-35 over KIA territory.
According to the government, the loss was
the result of mechanical failure rather than
ground-fire, an account which is entirely credible
given the Mi-35's capacity to absorb small-arms
fire on the one hand and servicing by newly
trained, inexperienced ground crew on the other.
Video footage shot on December 31 or January 1 and
aired in international news broadcasts also
appeared to show one K-8 jet hit by ground fire,
catching fire, and dropping in a vertical,
uncontrolled descent. But this loss, if indeed
there was one, was never confirmed by either side.
Given the failure to use either armor or
airpower effectively, it is extremely unlikely
that Tatmadaw commanders even contemplated the
possibility of air assault operations - the use of
helicopters to insert company or even
battalion-sized infantry forces behind enemy
lines. A regular and highly effective feature of
Soviet, and to a lesser extent, US
counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan, the
tactic permits attacks on enemy positions from the
rear, cuts lines of communication and supply, and,
not least, sows panic and confusion in enemy
ranks.
Low military morale While
incomplete, the evidence emerging over the past
month from Laiza suggests strongly that the
Tatmadaw is still an army coming to grips with
modern war-fighting. A force that has rapidly
acquired a wide array of new equipment including
armor, artillery, helicopters and jets, it has yet
to develop the doctrine, training, logistical
support capabilities or operational experience
required to use them. In short, the Tatmadaw is
still fighting its last major war, which took
place over 20 years ago and was quintessentially
about light infantry and artillery.
The
difficulties of integrating and adapting to new
equipment have undoubtedly been compounded by
persistent problems of manpower and morale.
Despite the rapid expansion of the military's
order of battle over the past two decades, it is
no secret that Tatmadaw units in the field are
woefully undermanned, underpaid and
under-supported.
Battalions that typically
should number 700 or more troops divided into
three or four companies are in the Tatmadaw the
size of reinforced companies at best, generally
with 200-250 men or less. Unsurprisingly, reports
from international human rights organizations of
forced recruitment and the use of child soldiers
emerge from this terrain.
Equally
unsurprising is that higher than acceptable
desertion rates have been a focus of documented
concern within the Tatmadaw command for years. An
internal document obtained by IHS-Jane's in 2007
pinpointed false reporting, haphazard inspections
and poor record-keeping as chronic problems, while
battalion commanders were criticized for excessive
drinking, womanizing, and pursuing private
business activities. Morale among enlisted ranks
was low, noted the document, contributing to high
rates of desertion.
The spiralling human
cost of the war can only exacerbate problems of
morale and desertion. According to statistics
released on pro-government blog-sites, between
June 2011 and early December at least 5,000 troops
were killed in Kachin state - or more than the
combined total of US combat deaths (4,977) in over
a decade of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The
Laiza campaign will have contributed a grim
addition of several hundred more to that number.
By any standards, such a toll in 19 months
of essentially guerrilla conflict is a sobering
statistic. While much of the carnage speaks to the
resilience and determination of the KIA, there can
also be no doubt that shortcomings in Tatmadaw
equipment, training, competence and morale are
also responsible.
Video footage posted on
YouTube in the aftermath of a December ambush of a
government convoy on the Bhamo-Myitkyina road
provided a bleak insight into this situation.
Bodies of dead Tatmadaw troops lie scattered in
and around small, burnt-out pick-up trucks: after
a year-and-a-half of war, armoured vehicles are
nowhere to be seen.
Short of agreeing to
national-level negotiations with the still-loose
ethnic alliance of the United Nationalities
Federation Council (of which the KIO is a member),
it remains unclear how the Tatmadaw can extricate
itself from the Kachin quagmire. A KIA call for a
renewed cease-fire is probably less likely after
the capture or neutralization of Laiza than it
might have been before. Indeed, the most likely
short-term scenario is a reversion to classic
guerrilla tactics including the possibility of
urban attacks and sabotage beyond Kachin state.
Entirely clear, however, is that the
Tatmadaw's operational performance will have been
monitored by other armed minority groups. In
notable contrast to the military's swift foray
into the Kokang Special region in August 2009, the
Kachin war will almost certainly embolden rather
than intimidate other ethnic guerrilla outfits.
This is especially true of the Wa, based along the
Chinese border in northeastern Shan state.
Fielding 20,000 regular troops backed by
local militia forces, the United Wa State Army is
over twice the size of the KIA, generally better
trained and certainly better equipped. Since the
Tatmadaw takeover of Kokang, it has upgraded an
already impressive arsenal, not least with new
armored vehicles and Chinese HN-5 series
man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS). It is
also closely allied to the National Democratic
Alliance Army in eastern Shan State and more
loosely with the Shan State Army-North.
Given that the military and political
costs of the Kachin conflict would be dwarfed by a
war against this powerful insurgent combine, any
major new Tatmadaw campaigns in eastern Shan State
in the coming three years are virtually
inconceivable. From the perspective of the Wa and
other ethnic forces, the Tatmadaw may now be seen
as a giant with feet of clay. The implications for
negotiations over Myanmar's new political shape
are likely to be profound.
Anthony
Davis is a Bangkok-based security analyst for
IHS-Jane's.
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