February 13, 2026
By James Shwe
The recent op‑ed, ”Myanmar Will Always Be Burma To The US Congress” by Mr. Adam Dick appears to have been written without a clear understanding of the history and politics behind the names “Burma” and “Myanmar,” or of how people inside the country view current U.S. legislation. Its timing is also hard to ignore to many in the resistance, it looks like an attempt to mislead and influence the U.S. Senate just as the BRAVE Burma Act is coming up for consideration. From a realist perspective, this matters because it frames a strategically significant bill in ways that obscure both U.S. interests and the preferences of those who have been fighting the junta for five years and the system of military hegemony for over seventy years..
In English, the country was officially known as “Burma” from independence in 1948 until 1989, when the military regime that had just crushed the 1988 uprising unilaterally changed the English name to “Union of Myanmar.” Both “Burma” and “Myanmar” derive from the same Burmese root word; the difference is political, not geographic. The coup regime—without public consent—imposed “Myanmar” in English as part of a broader project of asserting its authority and recasting national identity and also to make the country less conspicuous to the international community which was severely criticizing and taking action against the atrocious ways that the military rulers squashed the 1988 uprising and subsequent election irregularities. Many in the democratic opposition, including long‑standing exile communities, continued to use “Burma” in English to signal that they did not recognize the junta’s right to rename the country. At the same time, many ethnic minorities have pointed out that both “Burma” and “Myanmar” are based on the name of the Bamar majority and do not by themselves solve deeper questions of equality and federalism among nationalities.
International practice has reflected this complexity. Some governments, including the United States, retained “Burma” as an official term for many years precisely to avoid legitimizing a military decree. Others shifted toward “Myanmar,” sometimes using both names together to acknowledge the dispute. Over time, people inside the country have adapted pragmatically: younger generations and many urban communities routinely say “Myanmar” in English, while still understanding why older opposition circles prefer “Burma.” In all cases, the real issues are power, legitimacy, and the structure of the state, not the spelling on a map.
Mr. Dick’s op‑ed largely ignores this background. By presenting Congress’s use of “Burma” in the BRAVE Burma Act as a simple “linguistic game” to delegitimize “the government of the country” and justify “adversarial action,” it collapses a long history of contested naming into a flat story of American manipulation. That narrative fails to recognize that “Burma” in U.S. law is not an invention of this bill, but a legacy term tied to prior legislation, sanctions regimes, and a long‑standing refusal to rubber‑stamp military decrees. A realist assessment should start from those facts: the name choice signals continuity of policy and a position on the junta’s legitimacy, not a new propaganda trick.
Equally important is what the op‑ed omits about timing and context. The BRAVE Burma Act comes forward at a moment when the junta is under real pressure from a nationwide resistance—ethnic armed organizations and new people’s defense forces—that have been fighting for five years to roll back the coup. In that period, the military which has become more dependent on support from China and Russia, has explored relationships with other isolated regimes, and has presided over the expansion of scam‑center complexes and other criminal economies that traffic people and run large‑scale online fraud operations targeting victims in the United States and globally. For Washington, this is a strategic problem: a regime that offers rival powers access and leverage in a critical corridor and tolerates transnational crime that reaches into American homes and financial systems.
From the resistance’s perspective, the BRAVE Burma Act is a modest but welcome attempt to change those incentives. Most people who oppose the junta do not expect the United States to send troops or impose a political blueprint. What they have asked for, repeatedly, are measures that hit the military’s money, aviation fuel, and criminal networks, and that make it harder for foreign governments and businesses to treat the junta as a normal partner. The Act’s focus on targeted sanctions, enhanced reporting on military‑linked entities, and a dedicated diplomatic channel fits that request: it raises the cost of supporting the junta without committing the United States to an open‑ended war or occupation. In that sense, it serves both local aspirations and concrete U.S. interests.
It is also worth recognizing, from within the country, that introducing and backing such legislation carries political risk for the US representatives involved. In a polarized environment where many voters are weary of foreign entanglements, taking a visible stand on Burma can invite criticism from both those who want no involvement and those who demand far more. Yet members of Congress moved ahead anyway, accepting that risk to maintain pressure on a coup regime and to respond to appeals from Burmese communities and their diaspora. Whatever one’s view of the best policy mix, that willingness to act—within the constraints of a democracy and under domestic scrutiny—reflects a degree of commitment that deserves acknowledgment, not caricature.
Seen from this angle, the timing and framing of Mr. Dick’s op‑ed are troubling. As the BRAVE Burma Act moves from the House toward the Senate, a piece that portrays the bill as little more than word games and “bossing people around” sends a signal to skeptical senators and staff that any pressure on the junta is illegitimate. To many in the resistance, it looks like an attempt—however small—to influence U.S. debate in ways that lower the political cost of doing nothing. By focusing on terminology and analogies to other countries, while saying almost nothing about how the junta benefits China and Russia, how scam centers harm Americans, or how five years of resistance have changed the strategic map, the article ends up shielding the generals more than it scrutinizes Washington.
A realist critique of U.S. policy in Burma is not only legitimate; it is necessary. It should ask whether the specific measures in the BRAVE Burma Act are likely to work, how they can be calibrated to minimize harm to ordinary people, what clear outcomes are being sought, and under what conditions sanctions should be tightened, adjusted, or lifted. It should weigh the risks of overreach against the risks of allowing a coup regime—backed by rival powers and criminal markets—to consolidate its position. What it should not do is ignore the country’s history, misstate the meaning of its names, or reduce a limited, interest‑driven bill to a punchline about American language games.
From both a realist and a Burmese resistance perspective, the central question is not whether outsiders should care what the country is called, but whether they are willing to use narrowly tailored, reversible tools to constrain a military that has already stolen one future and is trying to secure another with help from China, Russia, Iran, and organized crime. On that question, the BRAVE Burma Act is a cautious step, not a crusade—and it deserves to be debated on those grounds, rather than dismissed in ways that, intentionally or not, make it easier for the junta to endure.
Like what your read?
James Shwe
James Shwe is a Burmese American Engineer residing in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was born in Yangon, Myanmar in 1954 and has been residing in the US since 1984. He is a Registered Professional Mechanical Engineer in California. He owns and operates a consulting engineering firm in Los Angeles.
By James Shwe
The recent op‑ed, ”Myanmar Will Always Be Burma To The US Congress” by Mr. Adam Dick appears to have been written without a clear understanding of the history and politics behind the names “Burma” and “Myanmar,” or of how people inside the country view current U.S. legislation. Its timing is also hard to ignore to many in the resistance, it looks like an attempt to mislead and influence the U.S. Senate just as the BRAVE Burma Act is coming up for consideration. From a realist perspective, this matters because it frames a strategically significant bill in ways that obscure both U.S. interests and the preferences of those who have been fighting the junta for five years and the system of military hegemony for over seventy years..
In English, the country was officially known as “Burma” from independence in 1948 until 1989, when the military regime that had just crushed the 1988 uprising unilaterally changed the English name to “Union of Myanmar.” Both “Burma” and “Myanmar” derive from the same Burmese root word; the difference is political, not geographic. The coup regime—without public consent—imposed “Myanmar” in English as part of a broader project of asserting its authority and recasting national identity and also to make the country less conspicuous to the international community which was severely criticizing and taking action against the atrocious ways that the military rulers squashed the 1988 uprising and subsequent election irregularities. Many in the democratic opposition, including long‑standing exile communities, continued to use “Burma” in English to signal that they did not recognize the junta’s right to rename the country. At the same time, many ethnic minorities have pointed out that both “Burma” and “Myanmar” are based on the name of the Bamar majority and do not by themselves solve deeper questions of equality and federalism among nationalities.
International practice has reflected this complexity. Some governments, including the United States, retained “Burma” as an official term for many years precisely to avoid legitimizing a military decree. Others shifted toward “Myanmar,” sometimes using both names together to acknowledge the dispute. Over time, people inside the country have adapted pragmatically: younger generations and many urban communities routinely say “Myanmar” in English, while still understanding why older opposition circles prefer “Burma.” In all cases, the real issues are power, legitimacy, and the structure of the state, not the spelling on a map.
Mr. Dick’s op‑ed largely ignores this background. By presenting Congress’s use of “Burma” in the BRAVE Burma Act as a simple “linguistic game” to delegitimize “the government of the country” and justify “adversarial action,” it collapses a long history of contested naming into a flat story of American manipulation. That narrative fails to recognize that “Burma” in U.S. law is not an invention of this bill, but a legacy term tied to prior legislation, sanctions regimes, and a long‑standing refusal to rubber‑stamp military decrees. A realist assessment should start from those facts: the name choice signals continuity of policy and a position on the junta’s legitimacy, not a new propaganda trick.
Equally important is what the op‑ed omits about timing and context. The BRAVE Burma Act comes forward at a moment when the junta is under real pressure from a nationwide resistance—ethnic armed organizations and new people’s defense forces—that have been fighting for five years to roll back the coup. In that period, the military which has become more dependent on support from China and Russia, has explored relationships with other isolated regimes, and has presided over the expansion of scam‑center complexes and other criminal economies that traffic people and run large‑scale online fraud operations targeting victims in the United States and globally. For Washington, this is a strategic problem: a regime that offers rival powers access and leverage in a critical corridor and tolerates transnational crime that reaches into American homes and financial systems.
From the resistance’s perspective, the BRAVE Burma Act is a modest but welcome attempt to change those incentives. Most people who oppose the junta do not expect the United States to send troops or impose a political blueprint. What they have asked for, repeatedly, are measures that hit the military’s money, aviation fuel, and criminal networks, and that make it harder for foreign governments and businesses to treat the junta as a normal partner. The Act’s focus on targeted sanctions, enhanced reporting on military‑linked entities, and a dedicated diplomatic channel fits that request: it raises the cost of supporting the junta without committing the United States to an open‑ended war or occupation. In that sense, it serves both local aspirations and concrete U.S. interests.
It is also worth recognizing, from within the country, that introducing and backing such legislation carries political risk for the US representatives involved. In a polarized environment where many voters are weary of foreign entanglements, taking a visible stand on Burma can invite criticism from both those who want no involvement and those who demand far more. Yet members of Congress moved ahead anyway, accepting that risk to maintain pressure on a coup regime and to respond to appeals from Burmese communities and their diaspora. Whatever one’s view of the best policy mix, that willingness to act—within the constraints of a democracy and under domestic scrutiny—reflects a degree of commitment that deserves acknowledgment, not caricature.
Seen from this angle, the timing and framing of Mr. Dick’s op‑ed are troubling. As the BRAVE Burma Act moves from the House toward the Senate, a piece that portrays the bill as little more than word games and “bossing people around” sends a signal to skeptical senators and staff that any pressure on the junta is illegitimate. To many in the resistance, it looks like an attempt—however small—to influence U.S. debate in ways that lower the political cost of doing nothing. By focusing on terminology and analogies to other countries, while saying almost nothing about how the junta benefits China and Russia, how scam centers harm Americans, or how five years of resistance have changed the strategic map, the article ends up shielding the generals more than it scrutinizes Washington.
A realist critique of U.S. policy in Burma is not only legitimate; it is necessary. It should ask whether the specific measures in the BRAVE Burma Act are likely to work, how they can be calibrated to minimize harm to ordinary people, what clear outcomes are being sought, and under what conditions sanctions should be tightened, adjusted, or lifted. It should weigh the risks of overreach against the risks of allowing a coup regime—backed by rival powers and criminal markets—to consolidate its position. What it should not do is ignore the country’s history, misstate the meaning of its names, or reduce a limited, interest‑driven bill to a punchline about American language games.
From both a realist and a Burmese resistance perspective, the central question is not whether outsiders should care what the country is called, but whether they are willing to use narrowly tailored, reversible tools to constrain a military that has already stolen one future and is trying to secure another with help from China, Russia, Iran, and organized crime. On that question, the BRAVE Burma Act is a cautious step, not a crusade—and it deserves to be debated on those grounds, rather than dismissed in ways that, intentionally or not, make it easier for the junta to endure.
Like what your read?
James Shwe
James Shwe is a Burmese American Engineer residing in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was born in Yangon, Myanmar in 1954 and has been residing in the US since 1984. He is a Registered Professional Mechanical Engineer in California. He owns and operates a consulting engineering firm in Los Angeles.
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