When I call for regime change in Myanmar, people ask—sometimes gently, sometimes with alarm—what exactly do I mean?
Do I mean bombing? Assassination? A decapitation strike against a brutal military dictatorship and its enablers?
It is not an unserious question. It lives at the fault line between violence and nonviolence, realism and idealism, rescue and revenge. And if we are honest, it forces us to confront something uncomfortable: what do we do when dialogue fails and terror reigns?
I have spent much of my adult life in intimate proximity to Myanmar’s struggle for freedom. I have known its elected leaders. I have known Daw Aung San Suu Kyi—not as abstraction, not as caricature, but as a human being committed to what she called a “revolution of the spirit.” It was a politics animated not by vengeance but by moral clarity. A divinely feminine approach to power: dialogue over vilification, reconciliation over annihilation.
She once told me, during the making of The Voice of Hope, “Alan, if we use arms and we are successful, inevitably there will be those who disagree with our policies. They will see that we used arms, and they will seek arms. It becomes a never-ending cycle.”
That sentence has never left me.
You cannot out-kill your so-called enemy and expect transformation. You may win territory. You may silence dissent. But you will not create legitimacy. Violence may end a regime; it rarely heals a nation.
And yet—there is the other truth.
Today, Myanmar is ruled by Min Aung Hlaing, a general who has imprisoned the elected government, crushed dissent, bombed villages, and presided over a narco-economy that floods the region—and my own city—with methamphetamines and fentanyl. The country is propped up by weapons and logistical support from China and Russia. More than 22,000 political prisoners remain behind bars. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Laureate, has been held incommunicado for years with no credible proof of life.
So when I say “regime change,” I am not speaking from the comfort of theory. I am speaking from the edge of a moral cliff.
Before a single bomb is imagined, a single trigger finger tensed, the first and most urgent question must be asked: Have we exhausted every avenue of dialogue?
Have we convened the world—not merely governments but moral authorities? Have we brought together the United States, the European Union, ASEAN leaders, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, the Dalai Lama, the Pope, artists, philosophers, mediators? Have we encircled the regime with a single, unified message: It is time to talk.
Put the weapons down. Explain yourselves. Justify the terror. Listen to the people you rule.
In my book Conversation with a Dictator, I attempted something unfashionable: a fictional dialogue with Myanmar’s military ruler. Not to flatter him. Not to excuse him. But to enter the psychology of dictatorship itself. Because authoritarianism is not merely a structure of power; it is a pathology of mind. And unless that pathology is understood, it will reproduce—under new uniforms, new flags, new slogans.
My teacher’s teacher, Sayadaw U Pandita, often reflected on King Ashoka of ancient India. Ashoka was once a ruthless conqueror responsible for immense bloodshed. But after witnessing the carnage he had unleashed, he underwent a profound change of heart. He renounced violence and dedicated his reign to justice and the spread of the Buddha Dhamma across Asia.
It sounds naïve to modern ears. Redemption? A tyrant transformed? And yet Ashoka remains one of history’s great examples that power can pivot when conscience awakens.
So yes, I believe in regime change from within—through dialogue, pressure, moral encirclement, and unrelenting exposure. I believe in what we have called through the “Use Your Freedom” campaign: that even a dictator possesses agency. That he can appear before his nation, release political prisoners, declare a ceasefire, and begin the work of federal democracy.
But let me be candid.
If dialogue is refused, if mediation is mocked, if torture and aerial bombardment continue, if I myself were behind bars, I would want someone to come for me. I would want the world to act.
This is the tension. It is not theoretical. It is existential.
There is a doctrine often called “peace through strength.” I am not blind to it. Min Aung Hlaing does not survive without weapons, financing, and diplomatic cover. That leverage is real. It must be used. Sanctions, legal action, international criminal accountability, coordinated geopolitical pressure—these are not acts of war; they are instruments of consequence.
What I reject is the reflex to believe that bombing alone equals justice. What I reject is the fantasy that violence cleanses violence.
Regime change, as I use the term, means the removal of illegitimate power structures and their replacement with accountable, democratic governance. The method matters as much as the outcome. If the path to freedom replicates the logic of domination, we have learned nothing.
To those who ask whether I am advocating bombs, my answer is this: I am advocating courage. Moral courage from world leaders. Strategic courage from diplomats. Spiritual courage from religious authorities. Civic courage from citizens. The courage to confront tyranny with unity so overwhelming that the tyrant sees the writing on the wall.
Perhaps Min Aung Hlaing will flee to Moscow. Perhaps he will retire quietly under Beijing’s shadow. Or perhaps—under sufficient, coordinated global pressure—he will put down the weapon and say to his soldiers: Go home. This nation belongs to its people.
That is regime change.
Not vengeance. Not spectacle. Not annihilation.
But the turning of a nation from fear to freedom.
And if we are serious about peace—not as slogan but as structure—then Myanmar must not be forgotten.
This is the moment.
The question is whether we have the will to meet it.
Alan Clements
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