On a quiet night in Burma, during a lull in the fighting, we sat in a relatively safe place, free from drones and airstrikes. A young resistance soldier sipped his tea and then blurted out, “Tell the American government to airdrop weapons like in the movies or send one Rambo.”
The soldier, named Lewis, was joking, but the sentiment came from the heart.
His unit was in a state of paralysis due to a lack of munitions. They were unable to advance and reclaim lost territory. Meanwhile, most people in the resistance areas believe the government will launch a fresh offensive soon, with forces focused on taking the mines to cut off funding to the resistance and sever roads to Thailand.
The 2008 film Rambo IV depicted the titular hero, played by Sylvester Stallone, going into Burma to rescue a group of missionaries kidnapped by the Tatmadaw. At that time, the Burmese military ruled the country through the State Peace and Development Council under dictator General Than Shwe. The movie was actually shot in Thailand, but it used a number of real Karen and Burmese actors, many of whom had previously served in the resistance.
I was in Burma, in a resistance army camp, when the movie came out. This was before smartphones and Starlink, so for many soldiers and internally displaced people at the time it was one of the first, or one of the few, movies they had ever seen. In many cases they saw people they recognized in the film, and I frequently had soldiers asking me if it was a documentary and whether there really was a Rambo coming to save Burma.
Fast forward nearly twenty years, and people now have much greater access to movies and understand that Rambo is not real. But the character still sparks their imagination about a hero and fuels a very real discussion about whether the United States might ever intervene in Burma.
Resistance soldiers and civilians inside Burma now access the internet through Starlink, and they have all seen the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, which removed the dictator Nicolás Maduro. They are also closely watching the current conflict in Iran, which has killed Ayatollah Khamenei and is widely to be leading toward the collapse of the IRGC and the Islamic regime along with it.
“We need that too,” people would tell me as I traveled between cities and camps. Last year they were quoting the tens of billions of dollars the U.S. had given to Ukraine, saying, “Give us millions and we will win.” Now that they have seen that U.S. intervention is possible in certain countries, they keep asking me to tell the president to put Burma on the list. Similar requests are flooding social media from Cuba, Syria, and Iran, as well as Burma, and other countries where the population is repressed.
“I think if we have ten Rambos we can conquer all the military camps, and inside there are many guns and bullets,” said Lewis, only half-jokingly. Then, turning more serious, he said, “There are a lot of minerals in the mines, and some money. And the armed groups want to get inside the military camp because we know there are a lot of bullets and guns.”
He shook his head sadly and repeated, “We can only defend, we cannot attack right now.”
While the U.S. may not be able to help Lewis achieve his dream of ten Rambos, the Burma Act, which was enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023, authorizes the U.S. government to provide assistance to ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) and other non-state actors in Burma that are resisting the military junta.
Key provisions relevant to EAO assistance include authorization for non-lethal aid and support to resistance forces, including the People’s Defense Force (PDF) and allied EAOs; funding for democracy programs, civil society organizations, and alternative governance structures; and support for documenting human rights abuses committed by the Tatmadaw.
The act also directed the State Department to develop a strategy for supporting a federal democratic Burma, which implicitly involves engaging with the EAOs that have long sought federalism.
However, the question of which groups to support is far more complicated than a simple pro- versus anti-junta binary. The EAO landscape sorts into several distinct categories of alignment, each presenting different problems for U.S. policymakers.
Some groups are outright military junta proxies. The Pa-O National Army functions as a state-sponsored militia operating under junta command, protecting junta business interests and conducting joint operations against resistance forces, making it an obvious non-starter for any U.S. assistance.
The UWSA, the most heavily armed non-state force in the country, maintains a de facto ceasefire with the junta and has frequently allied with the Tatmadaw against Shan nationalist groups. Unlike most EAOs, it is not pursuing federalism or democracy but territorial autonomy underwritten by Beijing.
Then there are groups that fought the junta aggressively and later pulled back under Chinese pressure. The MNDAA signed a formal ceasefire brokered by Beijing in January 2025 and subsequently withdrew from Lashio under Chinese pressure, while the TNLA followed a similar trajectory. Beijing’s leverage is already producing concrete effects, with EAOs increasingly being pushed into accepting bilateral ceasefires with the Tatmadaw on terms favorable to the junta.
The DKBA presents yet another category. The organization has splintered repeatedly since its founding, producing factions with opposing loyalties, some integrated into the military’s Border Guard Force structure under direct junta command, others drifting toward the resistance following the 2021 coup. Those that shifted toward the anti-junta side did so gradually and incompletely, negotiating uneasy arrangements with the KNU while some elements continued to honor ceasefire obligations. The DKBA cannot be classified cleanly as pro- or anti-junta; it is an organization whose internal divisions place different factions on opposite sides of the conflict.
The RCSS/SSA-South is similarly murky. It maintains ceasefire arrangements and is currently not aligned with the resistance.
All of this means that any U.S. effort to channel aid under the Burma Act must first resolve a fundamental identification problem. In a landscape of proxies, defectors, Chinese-pressured ceasefires, and opportunistic hedgers, determining which groups genuinely and durably oppose the junta, and which can be trusted with U.S. support without that support being redirected or exploited, is an intelligence and policy challenge.
Notwithstanding these complications, the strategic logic for U.S. engagement remains compelling. Surveys indicate that between 63% and 85% of civil society groups, activists, and EAOs say that China is not a good neighbor. China’s involvement in the war and its support for the junta have fueled product boycotts, silent protests, and symbolic attacks on Chinese-linked infrastructure.
China has forced ethnic resistance groups to halt fighting and barred them from formally aligning with the National Unity Government, pressuring the Brotherhood Alliance to cease Operation 1027 at the height of its momentum, coercion that EAO leaders themselves have publicly resented. Beijing’s flurry of diplomatic activity following passage of the Burma Act makes clear that China does not want U.S. aid and influence reaching EAOs along the Chinese border, which is itself evidence that such aid would carry real strategic weight.
A democratic government emerging from U.S.-backed resistance would likely have a negative disposition toward China and would seek support from a more powerful patron to counter Beijing’s influence, an outcome that aligns directly with American strategic interests in the region.
The demonstration effect matters as well. Groups currently hedging, those in informal ceasefires watching the battlefield from the fence, are doing so largely because they have no viable alternative to Chinese mediation and junta accommodation. The continued absence of Western support risks pushing even reluctant EAOs toward closer accommodation with Beijing.
Conversely, tangible U.S. support flowing to clearly pro-democracy groups such as the KNDF, KNU, and KIA could shift the calculus for wavering groups, making alignment with the resistance more attractive than submission to Chinese-brokered ceasefires that serve the junta’s survival rather than ethnic federalism.
“I hate China. But most of the resources go to China,” said Lewis, referring to the natural resources, minerals, and most importantly rare earths, while money flows back to the junta. “China buys the minerals, buys the resources, gives the money, and then they use the money to buy Chinese weapons. So, they’re getting money and weapons.”
Wishing for a U.S. alternative and thinking of the Burma Act, he said, “I think America can give support to the big EAOs who control a lot of territory and are fighting the military.”
His next question represented a tremendous escalation of U.S. intervention. “Can America make an empire in Myanmar?” He seemed disappointed when I said it could not.
He continued, “Many people during this time want America to colonize Myanmar.”
Once again, he shook his head sadly and said, “But the U.S. wants only Greenland.”
“Also, China doesn’t care. They don’t care if they buy from EAOs or they buy from the junta. They don’t care. So, in the future it is very important for us to continue relations with the USA.”
He then brightened up and said, “We are proud of our political unity. Many different armed forces should unite as one army. Because the civilians and the IDPs, the people, they are also willing to unite all the armed forces to fight against the junta. Otherwise, we cannot make a strong offensive. If the junta continues getting support from China, Russia, and Belarus, it will be enough for the junta to win.”
“If China doesn’t interfere in our country’s peace revolution, or if they don’t support the junta with weapons, airplane fuel, and technical support, we can definitely win against the junta.”
Lewis was a veteran of many battles and had seen this destruction for himself. In some recent battles, resistance soldiers were pinned down by drones and never got close enough to fire their rifles.
“Because of airstrikes and drone technology, it is now difficult for us to fight against the junta. But if we can block their support in the UN, maybe we can have a better solution. But they are so shameless (Russia and China). They say they are using the veto power in the UN, yes, but they are supporting the junta. Because now we have had like five long years fighting the junta. So, if Russia and China didn’t support them since the beginning, the junta would not have enough ammunition and enough fuel.”
In Lewis’s estimation, “the war would be over already if not for China.”
“It could be better for us to get help from the USA,” he concluded.
Antonio Graceffo is an economist and China expert who has reported extensively on Burma.
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