This article is a rebuttal to “Beyond the BRAVE Burma Act: US Myanmar Policy at a Crossroads,” published by Modern Diplomacy on 11 March 2026.

Modern Diplomacy recently published an essay that, in my view, offers readers a deeply misleading portrait of both the BRAVE Burma Act and the broader situation in Myanmar. While I welcome open debate—and commend this publication for inviting rebuttals—readers and policymakers in Washington and Brussels deserve to see the other side of the ledger. What follows is a fact‑based response to the article’s central claims.

What the BRAVE Burma Act actually does

The original article describes the BRAVE Burma Act as a mechanism designed to “collapse the country’s financial system” and punish “Buddhist Myanmar.” That framing does not survive contact with the bill’s text. As summarized by non‑partisan trackers like The Capitol Wire and PoliScore, the Act requires the President to conduct an annual assessment of whether to impose targeted sanctions on specific junta revenue streams—Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), Myanma Economic Bank, and foreign suppliers of aviation fuel used in airstrikes against civilians. It creates a Special Envoy to coordinate sanctions, humanitarian assistance, and diplomacy. It limits the junta’s voting power at the IMF. It does not authorize war, impose blanket trade embargoes, or target ordinary Burmese citizens. Bipartisan sponsors, including Senators Young and Van Hollen and Representatives Huizenga and McCollum, have been explicit: this is a targeted toolkit, not a scorched‑earth campaign.

The same logic applies in Europe. The EU has extended its own targeted sanctions on Myanmar through April 2026, covering 106 individuals and 22 entities with asset freezes, travel bans, a full arms embargo, and a ban on military training and cooperation with the Tatmadaw. Brussels has made clear it “stands ready to impose additional restrictive measures” and remains “committed to supporting the people of Myanmar in their struggle for democracy. “The BRAVE Burma Act and EU sanctions share the same architecture: precise pressure on the regime’s financial lifelines, not collective punishment of Myanmar’s people.

The junta as religious persecutor, not guardian

Perhaps the most striking claim in the original article is that Myanmar’s generals are the “last warriors of a besieged Buddhist fortress,” protecting a “pure Buddhist civilization” against the West. This is not cultural analysis; it is the Tatmadaw’s own propaganda, contradicted by one of the most authoritative bodies on the subject.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in its 2026 Annual Report, once again recommends that Myanmar be designated a “Country of Particular Concern”—the harshest category, reserved for the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. USCIRF documents that Tatmadaw forces destroyed 379 religious sites in 2025—Buddhist monasteries, Christian churches, and mosques—and killed more than 259 clergy and civilians in or around those places of worship. They have persecuted, conscripted, and displaced Rohingya and other religious minorities on a systematic basis.

Notably, USCIRF has also urged Congress to ban CPC‑listed governments from hiring U.S. lobbying firms. An army that destroys Buddhist monasteries and tortures Buddhist monks, while also bombing and burning churches and mosques, is not guarding Buddhist civilization. It is weaponizing religion while systematically violating it.

Who actually leads the resistance?

The original article portrays Myanmar’s democratic opposition as “disillusioned peasants” in “gangs led by political commissars,” comparable to the Khmer Rouge and Red Guards. It dismisses the National Unity Government (NUG) as a façade for chaos. This caricature erases who has actually anchored Myanmar’s resistance since 2021.

The Civil Disobedience Movement was led from the first days of the coup by doctors, nurses, teachers, civil servants, and students who refused to work under an illegal regime—a pattern documented by the BBC, The Irrawaddy, and The Diplomat. Today, the NUG’s Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office is a renowned orthopedic surgeon who left a senior hospital post to lead civilian governance. The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs is a doctor and former dean of a major medical college. The NUG’s president and prime minister are university‑educated civilian politicians from the pre‑coup parliamentary era, not warlords or ideologues.

Are there problems? Of course. The Bo Nagar affair (an opportunistic revolutionary leader turned warlord who joined forces with the military after NUG took action) and tensions between PDF units and ethnic armed organizations are real. But comparing a broad‑based movement of professionals, elected officials, and civil servants to the Khmer Rouge is not analysis—it is defamation in the service of the regime that drove them underground.

Scam centers: the junta as enabler, not partner

The original article is notably silent on one of the most consequential developments connecting Myanmar to U.S. and European policy: the regime’s deep entanglement in transnational cyber‑scam operations. Investigations by the International Crisis Group, Al Jazeera, and the BBC have shown how scam compounds in Karen and Shan State grew under the protection of junta‑aligned militias.

This is not a peripheral issue. The U.S. Senate has passed the SCAM Act (S. 2950), now before the House, which authorizes sanctions against governments that enable scam centers. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has advanced the Dismantle Foreign Scam Syndicates Act (H.R. 5490) with the same focus. The U.S. Treasury has already sanctioned Burma‑linked militias and warlords tied to scam operations. The DOJ has launched a dedicated Scam Center Strike Force. And on 6 March 2026, President Trump signed an Executive Order making clear that governments that allow or profit from scam centers may face sanctions, visa bans, and aid restrictions.

Myanmar fits the profile of an enabler, not a partner. The regime’s belated, pressure‑driven raids on a handful of compounds do not erase years of protection. Any article that frames the junta as a credible ally against cybercrime while ignoring this record is incomplete at best.

The China argument, reversed

The original article’s strongest analytical thread—that China’s role in Myanmar is more complex than Washington acknowledges—contains some truth. Beijing does play all sides. But the article draws the wrong conclusion: that sanctions on the junta benefit China. The opposite is closer to reality.

For decades, it has been the Tatmadaw (military)—not the resistance—that opened Myanmar to Chinese pipelines, ports, dams, mines, and special economic zones. Beijing’s strategy in Myanmar has increasingly been described as “managed chaos”: sustaining the junta enough to keep corridors open while leveraging ethnic armed groups to ensure no one can operate outside Chinese influence. Normalizing with the generals does not contain China. It entrenches a dependent client regime that Beijing already dominates. The BRAVE Burma Act’s Special Envoy mandate, which includes coordinating with international partners to pressure China and Russia, is a more coherent approach to the China challenge than the article acknowledges.

The jet fuel pipeline

The article acknowledges Iran‑Myanmar fuel cooperation but downplays it. Justice For Myanmar has documented a sharp rise in jet fuel imports between 2024 and 2025 through an Iran–Vietnam–Myanmar shadow chain. These imports fuel the airstrikes that kill civilians. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has argued that Washington should use the BRAVE Burma Act’s authorities to target Myanma Petrochemical Enterprise, vessels, and middlemen in this trade. EU sanctions already include a full arms embargo; targeting jet fuel supply chains is the logical next step for both Washington and Brussels.

What policymakers should take away

U.S. and EU policymakers are not naïve about Myanmar. Many have followed the crisis for years, studied the same USCIRF reports, and tracked the scam‑center economy’s expansion. They do not simply “fall for” a single essay. But in a crowded information environment—where Myanmar’s generals have hired major Washington lobbying firms to sell a package of elections, minerals, and supposed cooperation against China—even informed readers benefit from reminders of what the record actually shows.

That record shows a regime designated by USCIRF as one of the world’s worst religious persecutors. A regime whose aligned militias enabled transnational scam networks until international pressure forced cosmetic raids. A regime that depends on Iranian jet fuel to bomb its own people. And a democratic alternative—imperfect but genuine—led by professionals, elected officials, and civil servants whom the original article dismisses as peasant mobs and communist gangs.

The BRAVE Burma Act and the EU’s own expanding sanctions framework are not ideological crusades. They are precise, interest‑driven instruments designed to constrain a criminalized regime. Modern Diplomacy’s readers deserve to weigh these facts alongside the narrative offered in the original article—and to draw their own conclusions about which account is closer to the truth.