Burma

A Strategic Perspective

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8095843
AutoresMarvin C Ott (autor de correspondencia), Marvin Ott
Año1996
Fecha de publicación1996-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoREPORT
EditorialDefense Technical Information Center (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.21236/ada385644
OpenAlexW231323453
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas7

Conclusions During the past decade, the United States has condemned the actions of the Burmese government, halted all bilateral economic and military assistance, suspended most-favored nation trading status, and generally tried to isolate the oppressive regime in Rangoon. Despite these policies of isolation and sanction, the regime continues to be as dismissive of human rights as ever. Meanwhile, a growing economic, political and military embrace of by China has not gone unnoticed by the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). ASEAN has argued that should be integrated into the region and that policies that quarantine it only backfire, since a country that has welcomed isolation cannot be punished by it. Thus, not only might the United States fail to change the behavior of the Burmese regime, it might also let China develop a quasi-protectorate role over it and allow the human rights issue to divide the United States from its ASEAN friends. Idealism versus Realism: Meeting the Interests of the United States Since the earliest days of the Republic, U.S. foreign policy has exhibited two, often conflicting, tendencies. The first is a normative, idealist impulse to use foreign policy to further deeply held American political values-notably democracy and human rights. The second is a geopolitical realist approach that stresses the pursuit of national interests defined largely in terms of power and economic advantage. Recently, the tension between these two orientations has been clearly evidenced in policy toward China and most specifically in the recurring debate over granting most favored nation (MFN) status to Chinese trade. Both within the Executive and the Legislative--and between the two branches-proponents of conditioning MFN on Chinese adherence to basic human rights standards have clashed with those who see MFN as a matter of economic self-interest. In the case of China, the realists seem to have carried the day--largely because the costs of trying to impose a normative agenda on China were seen as being too high. Burmese Brutality Drives U.S. Policy In the case of the normative approach has governed policy for most of the last decade. (Burma was the nation's official name in English until it was changed by the current regime to Myanmar. The U.S. Government, however, continues to use Burma in its official documents.) Policy has been driven by a deep repugnance for the crude, brutally authoritarian character of the Rangoon junta, the self-described State Law and Order Council (SLORC). The SLORC government has massacred pro-democracy demonstrators (including students and Buddhist monks) in 1988, suppressed political dissent before and since, engaged in large-scale forced labor, probably collaborated in opium/ heroin trafficking, and annulled the results of a democratic election in 1990 while imprisoning the leader of the democratic movement, Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. A recent Washington Post editorial that referred to the SLORC as thuggish, the bullies of Burma, and worthy of contempt is typical of recent newspaper commentary concerning Burma. Not surprisingly, U.S. policy toward has reflected this sense of moral outrage. Since 1988 the United States has regularly condemned the actions of the regime, halted bilateral economic and military assistance, suspended MFN privileges, opposed lending by international financial institutions to and tried to rally support for such policies among other countries--including a proposed international embargo on arms shipments to Burma. The other side of the coin has been outspoken support for Aung San Suu Kyi and other champions of democracy in Burma. Even prior to the outrages of 1988, Washington had kept its dealings with the authoritarian leadership in Rangoon to a minimum. Congressional interest in has been episodic at best, but has usually taken the form of urging harsher, more punitive policies toward Rangoon

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