A conversation with academic and researcher Bradley Murg.

[caption id="attachment_284703" align="alignright" width="300"] Photo by Luke Hunt.[/caption]

By most definitions, Myanmar is a failed state. The military has lost control of its borders, it has absolute control over just 15 percent of the country and can not ensure supplies of food and water to the population nor provide healthcare or education across most of the country.

A recent pre-election census could only cover about half the population. It was Tom Andrews, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, who first raised the prospect that Myanmar was a failed state, just over two years ago.

Bradley Murg, a political scientist and affiliate fellow with the Pacific Forum, picks up where Andrews left off, noting that it is Max Weber, the German sociologist, and his concept of a state's “monopoly of violence” that remains key in understanding failed states.

A “monopoly of violence” is the idea that the state is the sole legitimate user of physical force within a territory and where this monopoly collapses, chaos follows.

A four-year civil war has shown the military in Myanmar lacks that characteristic as well.

Yet, junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing still plans to hold elections by January, with the tepid support from some ASEAN neighbors, and China and Russia, lending some legitimacy to the military regime.

Murg spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about failed states and the planned elections but he is mindful that the Trump administration has not laid out its foreign policy objectives for the resource rich country – and what Washington decides could impact the course of events.