Several large Southeast Asian nations—Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines—are increasing their defence budgets, deepening defence co-operation and expanding military exercises. What will this mean for resolving current and future conflicts peacefully?
Keywords: militarisation, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, conflict transformations
Over the past decade, several nationsin Southeast Asia have undergone military expansion and increased securitisation, contributing to what many observers describe as a regional arms race.
The trend includes rising defence expenditures, deepening defence cooperation, expanded military exercises, and the enforcement of conscription and reserve force policies. The Indonesian military’s role in public affairs has regrown, with the stated aim of tackling ‘conventional and nonconventional conflicts’; and Myanmar has intensified military operations against domestic armed opposition groups. The Philippines has increased defence acquisitions and deepened strategic alliances with the US and middle powers. Thailand has also strengthened its defence cooperation with the US and increased the scale of military exercises; Cambodia has introduced policies of concern related to conscription; and Vietnam has signed defence contracts to support its military modernisation strategy up to 2030.
The drivers of these developments vary across national contexts, yet several common security dynamics can be identified:
- Regional geopolitical competition has heightened threat perceptions, especially regarding China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea. Escalating tensions involving China, Philippines and Vietnam have incentivised greater defence preparedness across the region.
- Domestic political considerations are contributing to militarisation, with military institutions in some countries expanding their influence and political authority to pursue economic interests, most notably in Myanmar and, to a lesser extent, Indonesia.
- Perceived external threats and interstate tensions have encouraged military buildup, as seen in Thailand and Cambodia border disputes.
As states increasingly frame security challenges through military lenses, governments have sought to justify force expansion and, in some cases, relied more heavily on coercive measures against domestic armed groups rather than pursuing negotiated conflict resolution.
Military campaigns against revolutionary movements have become more pronounced, while alliance networks, arms transfers, and military technology exchanges have indirectly enhanced states’ coercive capacities. At the same time, calls for accountability, human rights protection, and peaceful settlement of conflicts are frequently marginalised, particularly as states align around shared perceptions of external threats and an evolving global order.
By examining the cases of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar—countries where state forces continue to confront separatist movements, insurgencies, or armed resistance groups—this article argues that the ongoing militarisation in Southeast Asia, combined with the erosion of the liberal international order and the weakening of democratic and human rights norms, has contributed to a self-reinforcing cycle of violence. Rather than addressing the political causes of conflict, increasing predominance of military solutions prolongs insecurity, intensifies armed confrontation, and exacerbates human suffering in conflict-affected communities.
Myanmar’s sham peace: Promising peace, waging war
Myanmar has experienced one of the world’s longest-running civil wars, with numerous ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) opposing successive central governments and military authorities in pursuit of autonomy and self-determination since the country’s independence in 1948. After the illegal 2021 military coup overthrew the elected government, military authorities intensified their repression of political expression, launched large-scale counteroffensive operations against armed resistance groups, expanded conscription, and gradually increased both conventional and unconventional aerial attacks on civilian and military targets. An estimated 90 percent of Myanmar’s population has been exposed to conflict. Over 3.5 million people have been displaced, while one in three citizens now requires humanitarian assistance. The scale of insecurity has transformed Myanmar into one of the world’s most severe humanitarian and protection crises.
Prospects for a negotiated settlement remain bleak. The Myanmar military, which is responsible for the vast majority of political violence in the country, has demonstrated little genuine commitment to resolving the political crisis fuelling nationwide conflict. While coup leader-turned-President Min Aung Hlaing has invited selected ethnic armed organisations to participate in peace talks, he has demanded the surrender of anti-coup resistance forces, which emerged to defend local communities from military persecution, after 2021. These overtures have not been accompanied by even hints of a credible political framework or meaningful peace agreement.
Recent China-brokered ceasefires between the military and Ethic Armed Organisations operating in northern Shan state are indicative of military authorities’ strategic approach to conflict management. They reflect the military’s longstanding divide-and-rule strategy: neutralising one adversary through ceasefire agreements while intensifying military operations against another. Historically, the military has also used ceasefire agreements to expand its operational footprint, strengthen territorial control, and consolidate political influence, often under the guise of development initiatives. This results in ‘ceasefire capitalism,’ a situation where the military grants local armed groups economic privileges and political accommodation in exchange for loyalty, marginalising conflict-affected civilian populations and failing to address the underlying drivers of continued violence and insecurity.
External support further reduces the military’s incentives to pursue genuine negotiations. Backed by international partners such as China and Russia, which continue to provide it with military equipment and technical assistance, and benefiting from varying degrees of diplomatic engagement from neighboring countries such as India and Thailand, the Myanmar military faces limited external pressure to change. Airstrikes against civilian populations and armed opposition groups continue. For the junta, peace talks appear to be less aimed at achieving conflict resolution than at managing threats to its authority and fragmenting opposition coalitions. If historical patterns are any indication, the military is likely to engage only in negotiations where it holds obvious advantage and can deny meaningful concessions. As a result, dialogue risks becoming a mechanism for conflict management rather than conflict resolution, where the military prioritises regime survival over the pursuit of durable and inclusive peace.
The Philippines’ security dilemma: Rejecting dialogue, prolonging conflict
The New People’s Army (NPA), widely regarded as Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency, has been engaged in armed conflict with successive Philippines governments since 1968. Over the years, the insurgency has suffered significant setbacks as it confronts a better-equipped army possessing air superiority, advanced surveillance capabilities, and drone technology.
The Philippines government has shown little appetite for renewed dialogue with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its armed wing, the NPA, and its political wing, the National Democratic Front (NDF). The National Security Council has rejected calls to resume peace negotiations, arguing that the CPP-NPA-NDF is a weakened, isolated, and criminalised armed movement whose participation in talks would not advance the country’s security, peace, or development objectives. Government officials further contend that the organisation has historically used peace negotiations as a strategic instrument to recover operational capacity, rebuild networks, regain influence in local communities, and project political relevance.
The NPA has lost several senior leaders since 2022 through natural causes or military operations, further weakening its organisational structure and diminishing its bargaining leverage. As a result, Manila appears determined to neutralise the insurgency through military pressure and localised reintegration programs, rather than pursuing a negotiated political settlement with the CPP-NPA-NDF leadership.
Despite official claims that the communist insurgency has become a negligible security threat, patterns of political violence suggest otherwise. Since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared in July 2024 that the rebellion had effectively ceased, armed confrontations between state forces and insurgents have continued and, in some areas, intensified. According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data , 56 percent of armed clashes in the country in the two years between 1 July 2024 and 1 July 2026 involved the NPA. April 2026 marked the deadliest month for the insurgency in recent years, with counterinsurgency operations reportedly resulting in 19 deaths, including six civilians. The government’s principal counterinsurgency body, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, reported that 49 of 51 documented cases of spy-tagging occurred in Negros, a longstanding NPA stronghold, between January 2025 and May 2026. In the meantime, the authorities’ red-tagging—the practice of labeling civilians as communist sympathisers or insurgent supporters—continued. Overall, at least 390 combatants and civilians were reportedly killed in insurgency-related and counterinsurgency violence in 2025 alone. The intensity, persistence, and geographical spread of these incidents indicate that the conflict is unlikely to dissipate in the near future and will have substantial societal and security costs.
Separately, Manila has deepened defence and security cooperation with the US and other regional partners amid growing tensions in the South China Sea. Joint military exercises, technology transfers, expanded access to military facilities, and new defence agreements have been justified by the Marcos administration as necessary measures to strengthen deterrence and protect Philippine sovereignty. However, these developments may also contribute to the militarisation of areas where insurgent activity persists, including parts of Luzon, potentially complicating local conflict dynamics.
For Manila, reopening negotiations with the CPP-NPA-NDF would mean revising its current peacebuilding and counterinsurgency strategy. Such a shift would likely involve greater scrutiny of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, which has frequently been associated with allegations of red-tagging and political repression. It would also necessitate reducing militaristic approaches, ensuring accountability for human rights violations, reallocating resources toward socioeconomic development programs in conflict-affected areas, and implicitly recognising the insurgency movement. Without a revised peacebuilding strategy that addresses both security and underlying political grievances, the conflict is likely to persist, generating costs that extend beyond the legitimacy of the Marcos administration and continue to undermine long-term peace and stability.
Indonesia’s failure in Papua: Projecting power, not peace
Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto is pushing to project power outside Southeast Asia. He seeks to transform Indonesia into one of the world’s 10 largest developed economies by 2045 while simultaneously improving military capabilities. Indonesia has also sought to strengthen its international profile by joining US President Donald Trump’s controversial Board of Peace platform to supposedly end global conflicts. Jakarta initially pledged 8,000 peacekeeping personnel for Gaza, only to put it on hold indefinitely after the US-Israel-Iran war broke out a week later. Through these initiatives, Jakarta aims to present itself as a responsible actor committed to international peace and security, supported by a strong defence posture.
Domestically, the Prabowo administration regularly faces strident public opposition in Jakarta to its economic and populist policies and armed resistance in Papua, home to Indigenous Papuan communities and the site of protracted armed conflict and serious human rights violations. There is concern about the expanding role of the military in civilian affairs and the government’s increasingly military-led approach to managing local conflicts. Prabowo’s flagship ‘free lunch’ program, which many Papuans perceived as facilitating greater military presence and settlement by military families in the region, generated significant opposition. The Indonesian government has deployed thousands of Indonesian military Armed Forces and police to Papua since January 2025, soon after Prabowo, a former military general, assumed office.
One consequence of the increased security presence in Papua, has been a rise in military operations and armed confrontation with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), an armed faction within the Papuan independence movement. While the use by the Indonesian military of air power against separatist groups is not unprecedented, the intensity and lethality of recent counterinsurgency operations involving airstrikes and drone attacks have reached an alarming level. According to conflict monitors, state forces have carried out 78 air and drone strikes since Prabowo assumed the presidency in October 2024. A military operation in April 2026 extended beyond active combat zones and struck civilian areas, including a refugee sanctuary previously recognised by both the Indonesian military and TPNPB in Kambru District, blurring the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. The resulting security deterioration has produced a severe humanitarian crisis, with more than 100,000 people reportedly displaced across Papua as of March 2026.
Papuan peace and student activists and civil society organisations have repeatedly called for a shift away from military-led conflict management. Their demands include accountability for human rights violations, the reduction of military deployments, and a negotiated political settlement facilitated by an independent third party. To date, however, the Indonesian government has largely rejected these proposals and continued to prioritise security-based solutions and approach it through development projects, perpetuating the cycle of violence. Jakarta’s development strategy in Papua, which seeks to strengthen the region’s economic and administrative integration with the rest of Indonesia through infrastructure development, has often been accompanied by land grabbing and destruction, and human rights violations against Papuans and the armed operations of the TPNPB. The TPNPB has targeted civilians suspected of collaborating with the Indonesian government, as well as non-Papuan residents and mining workers. Major infrastructure and extractive projects, such as the Trans-Papua Highway and the operations of Freeport McMoRan, have become recurring sites of TPNPB attacks and military operations. The Indonesian government has also expanded military and police infrastructure, such as setting up military outposts and checkpoints to protect strategic projects, contributing to the further militarisation of the region.
At the international level, military cooperation and defence ties with foreign governments provide the Indonesian military with access to weapons, training, and logistical support, enabling the continuation of counterinsurgency operations in Papua. At the same time, the Indonesia government offers foreign investors access to strategic resource sectors in Papua and elsewhere in the archipelago. While this does not imply a direct link to violence, Indonesia’s security partnerships further reinforce the status quo.
Perpetuating cycles of violence
Militarisation has become increasingly normalised across Southeast Asia amid strategic competition and great power rivalry. External support from like-minded states, coupled with the international community’s selective attention to human rights violations and state-perpetrated violence, has contributed to this trend. In many cases, governments have limited strategic incentives to pursue dialogue with domestic armed opposition groups or invest in sustainable peacebuilding initiatives. Instead, they often prioritise projecting power, contributing to regional security architectures, and advancing broader geopolitical interests, actions that frequently carry fewer reputational costs than engaging in politically sensitive conflict resolution processes, as shown in the cases of Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Despite variations in political systems, governance structures, and conflict contexts, these three examples reveal several common factors that perpetuate cycles of violence and undermine prospects for peace:
- Military-led responses to armed opposition movements often strengthen rather than weaken insurgencies by reinforcing narratives of resistance against state repression and generating sympathy among affected communities.
- Military operations frequently extend beyond their intended targets, producing significant civilian harm, humanitarian crises, and displacement, while simultaneously deepening grievances that fuel conflict recurrence.
- State policies that prioritise security, governance, and economic development without addressing underlying political disputes do not resolve the root causes of conflict. The persistence of impunity and the absence of effective accountability mechanisms continue to obstruct pathways to peace. Individuals responsible for human rights violations and war crimes are rarely held accountable, weakening both justice and reconciliation efforts. Less than a handful of military personnel have been investigated for abuses committed in Papua, while Article 445 of Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution grants broad immunity to state actors for actions undertaken during states of emergency. Such legal and political protections entrench a culture of impunity and diminish prospects for transitional justice.
Silence should not be mistaken for peace, just as the suppression of revolutionary movements should not be equated with the end of violence. The military-led approach may temporarily contain dissent, but it often exacerbates human suffering while failing to eliminate either armed or non-armed opposition.
Achieving peace requires a fundamentally different approach: prioritising peaceful conflict resolution over military responses, recognising historical injustices, facilitating meaningful dialogue between states and affected communities, providing impartial mediation, addressing long-standing grievances, ensuring accountability and the right to truth, creating conditions for reconciliation, supporting inclusive socio-economic development, and establishing political systems that accommodate diverse interests.
Without at least some of this work, genuine peace will remain out of reach. The relatively successful peace processes in the region, such as those in Aceh, Indonesia, and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in the Philippines demonstrate that durable peace requires sustained peacebuilding efforts even long after formal agreements are reached.
Image: Indonesian and American soldiers at a training exercise in Baturaja, Indonesia, August 2025. Credit: Spc. John Farmer/US Army.
