Interpreting Myanmar is a wonderful compilation of Andrew Selth's 97 articles in The Interpreter, the Lowy Institute's blog-turned-online magazine. The chapters/posts are arranged in chronological order, and date from commentary written in early 2008 about the monk-led Saffron Revolution and Cyclone Nargis, right through to discussion of Aung San Suu Kyi's 2019 appearance before the International Court of Justice in the Hague—to defend the infamous military operations against the Rohingya identified as ethnic cleansing by senior UN and global political leaders. All chapters/posts are fully dated, and together they effectively trace Myanmar history during this 12-year period, providing commentary on the strategic environment internally and internationally throughout this period. The volume also contains a good introduction that locates the work. A very detailed index makes this an almost encyclopaedic compendium, of analysis of events in perhaps the most momentous period of Myanmar history—bar of course the recent coup.
The only disappointing aspect of the volume is that it was completed and published just before the 2021 coup, leaving the reader wishing to hear Selth's commentary on the military's thinking and behaviour since then, and the political responses within the country and globally. It feels like he closed the volume 18 months too early, although there was no way to know at the time. While this is unfortunate, as it serves to immediately date the volume, the political and social dynamics remain remarkably similar. The wealth of material in the volume provides essential analysis to locate, understand and interpret the interests and issues that drove the coup, and everything since. While some chapters are clearly dated, most thus remain very pertinent to the current post-coup context.
Understanding the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar military, their interests and mindset, is essential to understanding contemporary post-coup Myanmar. Selth, an Australian diplomat/strategic intelligence officer turned academic, has been one of the foremost authorities on the Tatmadaw for decades. Now an adjunct professor at the Griffith Asia Institute, his expertise has been widely acknowledged at least since 2002, when he published the landmark Burma's armed forces: Power without glory. This earlier book of his is still one of the most insightful and detailed insights into the country's military. However, Selth's involvement with Myanmar is far deeper, going back to the 1970s when he was first posted to the Australian embassy in Rangoon. This long and deep historical understanding shines through in every post he writes. The book is full of his strategic analysis of the interests and actions of the Tatmadaw, and other political actors. As the blurb states, Myanmar remains relatively little known and poorly understood. This volume, while written for a blog and therefore only referenced to other online articles, shows Selth has access to excellent sources, and it showcases a deep understanding of the people, actions and issues involved. This volume is thus still very worth acquiring and reading, either from cover to cover, or as a reference work analysing more than a decade of Myanmar political history.
