Arakan Army’s Strategic Dilemma: Sustainability Hinges on Bangladeshi Support

Reading Time: 3 minutes As the civil conflict in Myanmar intensifies, the Arakan Army (AA) continues to make incremental gains in Rakhine State. However, despite recent territorial advances against the embattled Myanmar military junta, the AA’s aspirations for a de facto independent Arakanese polity face significant structural, geopolitical, and logistical challenges. Chief among these is the necessity of cooperation with Bangladesh, without which the movement risks strategic isolation and eventual unsustainability. A War of Attrition With No Clear Victor The ongoing confrontation between the Arakan Army and Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC) has developed into a protracted war of attrition. While the AA has capitalised on the junta’s overstretched military posture—exacerbated by concurrent offensives in Kachin, Karenni, Chin, and central Myanmar—the conflict remains essentially zero-sum in nature. Neither side has achieved a strategic breakthrough, and both are incurring significant attritional costs in men, material, and morale. Despite its tactical agility