Tatmadaw

"Armed forces of Burma" and "Military of Burma" redirect here. For the country's historical armed forces, see Military history of Myanmar.

Myanmar Armed Forces
(Tatmadaw)
တပ်မတော်
(lit. 'Grand Army')
Flag of the Myanmar Armed Forces
Emblems of the Myanmar Armed Forces' service branches(left to right): Army, Navy & Air Force[note 1][1]
Motto
  • ရဲသော်မသေ၊ သေသော်ငရဲမလား။ ("If you are brave, you will not die, and if you die, hell will not come to you.")
  • ရဲရဲတက်၊ ရဲရဲတိုက်၊ ရဲရဲချေမှုန်း။ ("Bravely charge, bravely fight, and bravely annihilate.")
  • တပ်မတော်အင်အားရှီမှ တိုင်ပြည်အင်အားရှီမည်။ ("Only when the army is strong will the nation be strong.")
  • အသက်သွေးချွေး စဉ်မနှေးပေးဆပ်သည်မှာတပ်မတော်ပါ။ ("Never hesitating always ready to sacrifice blood and sweat is the Tatmadaw.)"
  • တပ်နှင့်ပြည်သူမြဲကြည်ဖြူ သွေးခွဲလာသူတို့ရန်သူ။ ("Military and the people in eternal unity, anyone attempting to divide them is our enemy.")
  • လေ့လာပါ၊ လေ့ကျင့်ပါ၊ လိုက်နာပါ။ ("Study, Practice and Follow Up.")
  • တစ်သွေးတည်း၊ အသံတစ်သံ၊ အမိန့်တစ်ခု။ ("One blood, one voice, one command.")
  • တပ်မတော်သည်အမျိုးသားရေးကိုဘယ်တော့မှသစ္စာမဖောက်။ ("The military shall never betray the national cause.")
  • တပ်နှင့်ပြည်သူ လက်တွဲကူပြည်ထောင်စုဖြိုခွဲသူမှန်သမျှချေမှုန်းကြ။ ("Military and the people, cooperate and crush all those harming the union.")
  • စည်းကမ်းရှီမှတိုးတက်မည်။ (Only when there is discipline will there be progress.")
  • အမိနိုင်ငံတော်ကိုချစ်ပါ။ ဥပဒေကိုလးစားပါ။ ("Love your motherland. Respect the law.")
Founded27 March 1945 (79 years ago) (1945-03-27)[2]
Service branches
HeadquartersNaypyidaw, Myanmar
Website
Leadership
Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing
Deputy Commander-in-Chief Vice-Senior General Soe Win
Minister of Defence Admiral Tin Aung San
Joint Chief of Staff General Maung Maung Aye[3]
Personnel
Military age18 years of age
Conscription
  • 18–45 years of age (male)
  • 18–35 years of age (female)
  • 2 years (during peacetime)
  • 3 years (for people with professions)
  • 5 years (during emergencies)
Available for
military service		14,747,845 males, age 15–49 (2010 est.),
14,710,871 females, age 15–49 (2010 est.)
Fit for
military service		10,451,515 males, age 15–49 (2010 est.),
11,181,537 females, age 15–49 (2010 est.)
Reaching military
age annually		522,478 males (2010 est.),
506,388 females (2010 est.)
Active personnel150,000 (including 70,000 combat soldiers)[4]
Reserve personnel18,998
Expenditure
Budget$2.7 billion[7] (2023)
Percent of GDP4% (2014)
Industry
Domestic suppliers
Foreign suppliers Belarus[9]
 China[10]
 India[10]
 Iran[11]
 Israel[10][12]
 North Korea[10]
 Philippines[10]
 Russia[10]
 Ukraine[10]
Related articles
RanksMilitary ranks of Myanmar
Parliamentary Seats
တပ်မတော်သား လွှတ်တော်ကိုယ်စားလှယ်များ (Burmese)
Seats in the Amyotha Hluttaw
56 / 224
Seats in the Pyithu Hluttaw
110 / 440
Seats in the State Administration Council
9 / 18
This article contains Burmese script. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Burmese script.

The Tatmadaw (Burmese: တပ်မတော်; MLCTS: tatma.taw, IPA: [taʔmədɔ̀], lit. 'Grand Armed Forces'), also known as Sit-Tat (Burmese: စစ်တပ်; MLCTS: cactap., IPA: [sɪʔtaʔ], lit. 'Armed Forces'), is the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include the Myanmar Police Force, the Border Guard Forces, the Myanmar Coast Guard, and the People's Militia Units.[13] Since independence in 1948, the Tatmadaw has faced significant ethnic insurgencies, especially in Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, and Shan states. General Ne Win took control of the country in a 1962 coup d'état, attempting to build an autarkic society called the Burmese Way to Socialism. Following the violent repression of nationwide protests in 1988, the military agreed to free elections in 1990, but ignored the resulting victory of the National League for Democracy and imprisoned its leader Aung San Suu Kyi.[14] The 1990s also saw the escalation of the conflict involving Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State due to RSO attacks on the Tatmadaw forces, which saw the Rohingya minority facing oppression and, starting in 2017, genocide.

In 2008, the Tatmadaw again rewrote Myanmar's constitution, installing the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the 2010 elections, which were boycotted by most opposition groups. Political reforms over the next half-decade culminated in a sweeping NLD victory in the 2015 election;[15] after the USDP lost another election in 2020, the Tatmadaw annulled the election and deposed the civilian government. The Tatmadaw has been widely accused by international organizations of human rights violation and crimes against humanity; including ethnic cleansing,[16][17][18] political repression, torture, sexual assault, war crimes, extrajudicial punishments (including summary executions) and massacre of civilians involved in peaceful political demonstrations.[16][19][20] The Tatmadaw has long operated as a state within a state.[21][22]

According to the Constitution of Myanmar, the Tatmadaw is led by the commander-in-chief of Defence Services. Some actions of the Tatmadaw require the approval of the National Defence and Security Council, an eleven-member national security council responsible for security and defence affairs in Myanmar. The president of Myanmar has no command role over the Tatmadaw, though he may work with the NDSC in authorizing military action.[23]


Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ "CINCDS Myanmar". Cincds.gov.mm. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  2. ^ Armed Forces Day (Myanmar)
  3. ^ "Protégé of Myanmar Junta Boss Tipped to be His Successor as Military Chief". The Irrawaddy. 17 March 2022. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  4. ^ Ye Myo Hein (4 May 2023). "Myanmar's Military Is Smaller Than Commonly Thought — and Shrinking Fast". United States Institute of Peace. Retrieved 17 September 2024.
  5. ^ a b "Border Guard Force Scheme". Myanmar Peace Monitor. 18 March 2020 [first published 11 January 2013]. Archived from the original on 21 August 2020. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  6. ^ Maung Zaw (18 March 2016). "Taint of 1988 still lingers for rebooted student militia". Archived from the original on 19 February 2021. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  7. ^ "Myanmar Junta Increases Military Budget to US$2.7 Billion". The Irrawaddy. Archived from the original on 7 May 2024. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  8. ^ "Myanmar shipyard building 4th frigate". 30 March 2021. Archived from the original on 1 August 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  9. ^ Junta Watch: Belarus Seals Bloody Alliance With Regime; Resistance-Hit Naypyitaw Touted as Top Tourism Destination; and More Archived 7 May 2024 at Ghost Archive The IrrawaddyArchived May 7, 2024, at Ghost Archive
  10. ^ a b c d e f g "7 countries still supplying arms to Myanmar military". Anadolu Agency. 5 August 2019. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  11. ^ Myanmar Junta turns to Iran for Missiles and Drones The Irrawaddy Archived November 2, 2023, at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ "Israel among 7 nations faulted in UN report for arming Myanmar army". Times of Israel. 5 August 2019. Archived from the original on 1 February 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  13. ^ Buchanan, John (July 2016). "Militias in Myanmar" (PDF). The Asia Foundation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2016.
  14. ^ Wudunn, Sheryl (11 December 1990). "New 'Burmese Way' Relies On Slogans From the Military (Published 1990)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 24 April 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  15. ^ "Myanmar's 2015 landmark elections explained". BBC News. 3 December 2015. Archived from the original on 21 March 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  16. ^ a b "OHCHR | Myanmar: Tatmadaw leaders must be investigated for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes – UN report". Archived from the original on 18 April 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  17. ^ "Myanmar's military accused of genocide in damning UN report". TheGuardian.com. 27 August 2018. Archived from the original on 10 July 2022. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  18. ^ "U.N. Investigators Renew Call for Genocide Probe in Myanmar". Archived from the original on 25 April 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  19. ^ "The World Isn't Prepared to Deal with Possible Genocide in Myanmar". The Atlantic. 28 August 2018. Archived from the original on 25 April 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  20. ^ "Tatmadaw Claims Killed Karen Community Leader Was a Plainclothes Fighter". 11 April 2018. Archived from the original on 25 April 2019. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  21. ^ Smith, Martin (1 December 2003). "The Enigma of Burma's Tatmadaw: A "State Within a State"". Critical Asian Studies. 35 (4): 621–632. doi:10.1080/1467271032000147069. S2CID 145060842.
  22. ^ Ebbighausen, Rodion (12 February 2021). "Myanmar's military: A state within a state". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 10 February 2023.
  23. ^ "Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar" (PDF). Ministry of Information. September 2008. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 August 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2015.