Myanmar is living through one of the most profound and uncertain moments in its modern history. Since the 2021 military coup, the country has experienced protracted conflict, institutional collapse, economic dislocation, and deep social fragmentation. Yet alongside devastation, new forms of political and institutional reconfiguration, as well as social resilience, have emerged. In this unsettled landscape, reckoning with Myanmar’s future is both difficult and necessary.
The Futures of Myanmar: Post-Conflict Scenarios is a book project of the UBC Myanmar Initiative at the University of B.C., headed by APF Canada Senior Fellow, Dr. Kai Ostwald. The project represents an effort to move beyond prediction or advocacy alone and instead ask a different set of questions: What futures are plausible for Myanmar? What forces are shaping them? And what choices—by domestic actors and international partners—might shift trajectories over time? Rather than offering a single narrative or prescription, the project adopts a scenario-based approach, recognizing that Myanmar’s path forward will likely be uneven, contested, and shaped by interacting political, economic, and social dynamics.
Each chapter in the Futures of Myanmar examines a key dimension of the country’s post-coup trajectory, and is grounded in empirical realities while remaining attentive to uncertainty. Together, they reflect a core insight of the UBC Myanmar Initiative: Myanmar’s future is not predetermined, but neither is it infinitely malleable. Structural constraints, power asymmetries, and regional geopolitics matter—but so do agency, ideas, and institutional choices.
APF Canada thanks the volume’s editors, Kai Ostwald, Director of the Institute of Asian Research at UBC, and Dr. Htet Thiha Zaw, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at UBC. The Futures of Myanmar: Post-Conflict Scenarios project was made possible through the support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), whose commitment to locally grounded, policy-relevant research has been especially vital in contexts of conflict and uncertainty.
