The junta’s recruitment drive since last year has exposed the frailty of the regime’s military amid an expanding nationwide resistance offensive.
Myanmar’s military has suffered an all-time high number of casualties and defections and faced escalating resistance in the three years since the coup, on top of a recruitment crisis. As a result, the regime has resorted to various remedial measures to replenish the armed forces’ ranks.
Here’s a look back at the regime’s efforts to shore up its dwindling military manpower.
Public call to deserters to return to duty
In the early months following the formation of the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and its armed wing, the People’s Defense Force (PDF), the regime threatened to crush them in a short period while showing off heavy artillery and aircraft at its annual Armed Forces Day commemorations.
Meanwhile, thousands of soldiers and police deserted to join the Civil Disobedience Movement.
After its army started to lose ground in 2022—despite its advantage in terms of weaponry—the regime started relying heavily on its air force. Still, it suffered heavy casualties without being able to replace the lost soldiers, as recruitment collapsed.
The launch of Operation 1027 by an alliance of three ethnic armies in October last year definitively turned the tide of the war. Reports of junta soldiers surrendering in clashes or fleeing into neighboring countries like China, India, Bangladesh and Thailand have become commonplace. The regime started to lose towns and battalion headquarters.
In December, the regime made an announcement encouraging Myanmar military soldiers who have deserted or gone AWOL (absent without leave) to return to their barracks. The public call to deserters to return to duty was the first in the modern history of the Myanmar military.
Junta spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun defended the offer to take the soldiers back, saying it was being made “at their request,” but the claim was widely dismissed. “Why would they return after fleeing the military they no longer want to serve?” people asked.
Conscription law
Min Aung Hlaing activated the country’s long-dormant conscription law in February 2024, following a string of humiliating military defeats in northern Shan State and Rakhine State.
The law was first promulgated under then-dictator Than Shwe in 2010. It was, however, never enforced under his regime, Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government, or the since-ousted National League for Democracy government.
The law requires men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 to serve at least two years. Evading conscription is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Training for the first batch of conscripts commenced in April. The mandatory military service has resulted in a mass exodus of young people to foreign countries, mostly to Thailand, while some have opted to join anti-regime forces.
Five months after activating the conscription law, the regime is now preparing to train the fifth batch of conscripts.
Reserve Forces Law
The regime did not feel safe with the conscription law alone. So, it activated the Reserve Forces Law, allowing it to send veterans back to the front line.
Even before it put its recall of former military personnel on a firmer legal footing by activating the law, the regime was already using many veterans to guard checkpoints in towns.
Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing justified the recall by saying that many veterans had asked him to take the step because they wanted to return to duty for the sake of national defense.
Forty-eight former military officers including one colonel and 42 captains were recalled to active duty in April, according to a junta gazette.
Observers say those recalled to active duty can be assigned either to combat operations or to training conscripts.
Under the Reserve Forces Law, all former personnel must serve as reservists from three to five years from the day they resign or retire. The law allows Min Aung Hlaing, as military chief, to extend their service for more than five years “in the interests of the state”.
Many well-known former military personnel have questioned Min Aung Hlaing’s competency as the chief of the Myanmar military.
‘People’s security’ teams
On Armed Forces Day in March, Min Aung Hlaing said the activation of the conscription law and Reserve Forces Law would boost the regime’s defense capability to a certain extent. But things haven’t turned out as he had expected.
As the regime was busy searching for recruits, its North Eastern Command—along with the rest of Lashio town, where it was located—fell to the ethnic Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and allied groups in early August. It was the first time in its history that the Myanmar military lost a regional command.
Clashes have spilt into Mandalay since Operation 1027 resumed in late June on the border of northern Shan State and Mandalay Region, and some towns in Mandalay and Sagaing regions have subsequently fallen.
The regime has recently introduced what it calls the “people’s security system”, forming “people’s security and anti-terrorism” groups at village and ward levels comprising men older than 35.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun said the regime was working to put its latest scheme into action as early as possible.
In his visit to Mandalay on Sunday, Min Aung Hlaing said the people’s security system would be implemented at the ward and village levels.
Other recruitment drives
The regime expanded and increasingly armed Pyu Saw Htee and other militia groups starting from 2022, with veterans being recruited into the groups. The regime has also forcibly recruited troops by snatching pedestrians off the streets, and lured them by posting bogus job advertisements on social media.
In December, the regime released around 200 jailed deserters on condition they serve in the armed forces for the rest of their sentences. They were reportedly sent back to prison after refusing to rejoin the military.
In Sagaing and Magwe regions, a resistance stronghold in central Myanmar, the regime formed Pyu Saw Htee militias with members of the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), military sympathizers and nationalists.
Former military officer Hla Swe, who is the chairman of the USDP’s Naypyitaw chapter, plays a central role in arming Pyu Saw Htee. Nationalist monks including U Wasawa and Pauk Kodaw are also notorious Pyu Saw Htee leaders.
