Four possible futures for Myanmar’s  failed state 

The first is just to accept things as they are, a Burman dictatorship that now has Aung San Suu Kyi as its spokesperson. This means continued racism and attacks in the country’s ethnic nationality homelands, and low-grade but never-ending repression everywhere else, including against the media. But, while the Burmese army will carry on buying new weapons systems, the ethnic armed organisations will never disarm, and the civil war will endure. The generals will never be able to impose their will such that the resistance is defeated. With this status quo, the refugee crises will never be resolved. Economic development will never take off. The people will remain impoverished.
The second option is renewed popular uprising, in combination with the ethnic resistance. Particularly when Suu Kyi is gone, the people may finally decide that enough is enough. This would have the two-fold benefit of uniting the different ethnic groups, and the likely overthrow of the regime. If everyone works together, the dictatorship can be vanquished in short order.
The third option is that some of the ethnic nationalities on their own declare independence. This possibility reflects the fact that the Burman dictators will never willingly cede power, and also the prospect that ethnic guerrilla warfare can expel the Burmese army from their homelands. This option currently applies for the most part to the members of the Northern Alliance Burma, and looking at the map it is easy to envision both Kachin and Shan States separating and becoming new, free countries – federal democracies in their own right.
The fourth option follows from the third. Were the Northern groups to declare independence, other resistance armies around the country might follow suit. A few freedom struggles could transform into the long-awaited national liberation revolution. If the people then took to the streets as well, including the Burman general public, this would effectively duplicate option two and the country would soon be free.
The generals and Suu Kyi have made their choice clear: option one. We await the day when the people are determined to fight without compromise for their democratic aspirations.
Roland Watson