Myanmar’s cycle of impunity might finally be breaking

Min Aung Hlaing’s formal elevation to the presidency of Myanmar marks more than a routine consolidation of power. It is a declaration that the country’s military has no intention of retreating, negotiating or even disguising its rule.

At the very moment the junta is entrenching itself politically, however, a new genocide complaint filed in Indonesia this week signals something that has long been absent in the Myanmar crisis: the possibility that impunity might finally be challenged in a serious and sustained way.

For decades, the modern history of Myanmar has been defined by a grim pattern. The military commits mass atrocities. The international community condemns them. Some sanctions are imposed. Attention fades. The generals remain in power.

This cycle has repeated itself from the brutal suppression of the 1988 uprising to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in 2017. Each time, the costs imposed on the military have been manageable. Each time, the lesson learned in Naypyidaw has been the same: wait out the outrage.

The rise of Min Aung Hlaing to the presidency suggests that the junta believes this pattern still holds. It has weathered several years of civil war, economic contraction, and diplomatic isolation since the 2021 coup. Yet instead of weakening, it has doubled down.

By formalizing his position as head of state, Min Aung Hlaing is attempting to convert de facto control into a veneer of legal legitimacy. The message is clear: the military is not a temporary caretaker but the enduring authority in Myanmar.

And yet, this moment might be different. The genocide complaint filed in Indonesia matters not simply because of its legal substance, but because of what it represents politically. For years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has adhered to a doctrine of noninterference that has effectively shielded Myanmar’s military from meaningful regional pressure.

Even in the face of the Rohingya crisis, ASEAN’s response was cautious, fragmented and ultimately ineffective. If a leading ASEAN member is now willing to support or facilitate legal action on genocide, it suggests the old consensus might be fracturing. 

Min Aung Hlaing is attempting to convert de facto control into a veneer of legal legitimacy.

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

That shift is critical because regional legitimacy has long been one of the junta’s quiet sources of resilience. While Western sanctions have imposed economic costs, they have not fundamentally altered the military’s calculus. Trade, investment and diplomatic engagement from neighboring countries have helped cushion the blow. If that regional buffer begins to erode, the strategic environment the junta is faced with changes significantly.

At the same time, the international legal landscape has evolved in ways that make accountability more plausible than in previous decades. The case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice in 2019 has already established a pathway for holding the state accountable under the Genocide Convention. Universal jurisdiction cases in national courts are expanding. Documentation of atrocities has become more systematic, more digitalized, and more difficult to erase.

The architecture for accountability exists. What has been missing is the political will to use it in a coordinated and sustained manner.

This is where the current moment becomes potentially decisive. The convergence of the three factors — an openly entrenched military regime, growing regional willingness to break with past norms, and a maturing legal framework — creates an opportunity that did not exist before. For perhaps the first time, the cost-benefit calculation Myanmar’s generals are faced with could begin to shift in a meaningful way.

But this outcome is far from guaranteed. The greatest risk is that the international response once again fragments into symbolic gestures rather than strategic action. A single legal complaint, no matter how well-founded, will not by itself alter the behavior of a regime that has demonstrated a high tolerance for isolation and suffering.

What is required is coordination. Legal efforts must be reinforced by targeted sanctions that are tied to clear benchmarks. Regional actors must align their positions rather than hedging between principle and pragmatism. Major powers must treat Myanmar not as a peripheral crisis but as a test case for whether mass atrocities can still be deterred in the 21st century.

There is also a broader geopolitical dimension that should not be overlooked. Authoritarian regimes around the world are watching Myanmar closely. The lessons they draw will extend far beyond Southeast Asia. 

While Western sanctions have imposed economic costs, they have not fundamentally altered the military’s calculus.

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

If the junta succeeds in consolidating power, weathering sanctions and avoiding any meaningful accountability, it will reinforce a dangerous precedent: that even in an era of international law and global scrutiny, determined regimes can still act with near-total impunity.

Conversely, if coordinated legal and diplomatic pressure begins to impose real costs, it could signal that the space for such behavior is narrowing.

For the Rohingya, and the many other communities now facing violence across Myanmar, the stakes are immediate and existential. Years after the mass atrocities of 2017, more than a million Rohingya remain displaced, their prospects for safe return as distant as ever.

Meanwhile, the conflict has expanded nationwide, with civilians across several ethnic groups now subjected to airstrikes, forced displacement and systematic abuses. The crisis is no longer confined to a single population; it is a nationwide pattern of violence that increasingly resembles a statewide campaign of repression.

This is precisely why the current moment matters. It is not simply about responding to past crimes but about shaping the trajectory of ongoing ones. Accountability, if pursued seriously, is not only retrospective. It can be preventive. It can alter incentives. It can constrain behavior.

Myanmar’s history suggests that impunity is deeply entrenched. But history is not destiny. The consolidation of power by Min Aung Hlaing might appear to signal the triumph of military rule. In reality, it might also mark the point at which the contradictions of that rule become impossible to ignore. A regime that seeks legitimacy while facing credible allegations of genocide is inherently vulnerable to sustained legal and diplomatic pressure.

The question now is whether the international community is willing to act on that vulnerability. The tools exist. The evidence exists. Even the regional political context might finally be shifting. What has been lacking, time and again, is the resolve to bring these elements together into a coherent strategy.

If that failure is repeated, Myanmar will remain trapped in its familiar cycle, and the message to the world will be unmistakable. But if this moment is seized, it could begin to break a pattern that has endured for generations.

This window of opportunity is narrow. It might not open again.

• Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is the director of special initiatives at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington.

X: @AzeemIbrahim