Monday 1 March 2010

Conflicts in South-East Asia

This post introduces a series of articles looking into current conflicts in the South-East Asia region. Since this blog started, I have been trying not to just cover major conflicts, but also other conflicts which may be lower in profile. As usual, opswarfare will try to concentrate on the military aspects of the conflicts (and try to reduce politics to a minimum).

Followers of the opswarfare Twitter feed may have seen a tweet on the list of current conflicts in the region, based on data (PDF) from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP). The list is reproduced below
  • Myanmar vs Karen National Union (KNU)
  • Myanmar vs Shan (SSA-S)
  • Philippines vs Communist Party of the Philippines (and it's military wing, the New People's Army)
  • Philippines vs Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
  • Thailand vs Patani insurgents
As readers can probably guess, the conflicts are mostly, if not all, civil-war type conflicts. Also, most can be classified under Low Intensity Conflicts.

Next post will be Myanmar vs Karen National Union (KNU).

p.s. I have not posted in 2 months. Apologies for the delay.

p.p.s I have just borrowed a book from the library called "Conflict - Journeys Through War and Terror in Southeast Asia" by Nelson Rand. Quite apt for this series of articles that I'm embarking on...