US poised to take 'nascent steps' towards opening military ties with Myanmar

The United States is looking to undertake "nascent steps" to open military ties with Myanmar, a Pentagon official said in a background briefing on 19 December.

"We generally support the proposition that carefully calibrated, appropriately targeted, and scoped military-to-military contact is effective in advancing overall reform efforts" in the country, the official told reporters in Washington, DC. He specified that the co-operation would comprise "non-lethal" training for Myanmar's military, with a focus on defence "reform" and humanitarian assistance.

That the United States is considering military ties with Myanmar underscores the extent of changes that have taken place in bilateral relations between the two countries over the past year. Until 2011, the United States was one of the strongest critics of Myanmar's record on human rights since the August 1988 pro-democracy uprising, having put in place a substantially stricter sanctions regime than that imposed by other western countries.

The change in focus was made possible by Myanmar's transition in March 2011 from decades of successive military dictatorships to a semi-civilian form of governance. This resulted in the United States "rewarding" these political reforms by re-engaging the country diplomatically and by suspending many of its sanctions.