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.

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.

Conscription was based on the ahmudan system, which required local chiefs to supply their predetermined quota of men from their jurisdiction on the basis of population in times of war.

[29] At the beginning of the First World War, the only Burmese military regiment in the British Indian Army, the 70th Burma Rifles, consisted of three battalions, made up of Karens, Kachins and Chins.

The small and independent military command now set up had been carved out of the experienced Indian organisation with its comparatively large resources; adequate though this may have been for peacetime conditions it was quite inadequate to deal with the expansion im- posed by a great war.

[35] In accordance with the agreement reached at the Kandy Conference in September 1945, the Tatmadaw was reorganised by incorporating the British Burma Army and the Patriotic Burmese Force.

[41] Due to deteroriating political situations in 1957, the then Prime Minister of Burma, U Nu invited General Ne Win to form a "Caretaker Government" and handed over power on 28 October 1958.

On 2 March 1962, the then Chief of Staff of Armed Forces, General Ne Win staged a coup d'état and formed the "Union Revolutionary Council".

In 2010, conscription legislation was passed that compelled able-bodied men and women between 18–45 and 18–35 respectively to serve up to three years in the military, or face significant jail sentences.

In June 2016, the Australian Federal Police signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with its Myanmar counterparts aimed at enhancing transnational crime cooperation and intelligence sharing.

[55] A 2019 UN report revealed the degree to which the country's military uses its own businesses, foreign companies and arms deals to support, away from the public eye, a “brutal operations” against ethnic groups that constitute “serious crimes under international law”, bypassing civilian oversight and evading accountability.

[64][65] On 10 February 2024, the State Administration Council activated conscription under the 2010 SPDC People's Military Service Law in response to anti-junta ethnic militias and pro-democracy rebels capturing massive swathes of territory.

[68] Defence budgets were publicly shared for the first time in 2015, and in recent years, parliamentary lawmakers have demanded greater transparency in military spending.

[74] On 28 October 2014, the Minister for Defence Wai Lwin revealed at a Parliament session that 46.2% of the budget is spent on personnel cost, 32.89% on operation and procurement, 14.49% on construction related projects and 2.76% on health and education.

However, the conventional strategy under the concept of total war was undermined by the lack of appropriate command and control system, proper logistical support structure, sound economic bases and efficient civil defence organisations.

The doctrine did not take into account logistic and political support for KMT from the United States and as a result it failed to deliver its objectives and ended in a humiliating defeat for the Tatmadaw.

[76][77] At the 1958 the Tatmadaw's annual Commanding Officers (COs) conference, Colonel Kyi Win submitted a report outlining the requirement for new military doctrine and strategy.

He stated that the 'Tatmadaw did not have a clear strategy to cope with insurgents', even though most of Tatmadaw's commanders were guerrilla fighters during the anti-British and anti-Japanese campaigns during the Second World War, they had very little knowledge of anti-guerrilla or counterinsurgency warfare.

Based upon Colonel Kyi Win's report, the Tatmadaw began developing an appropriate military doctrine and strategy to meet the requirements of counterinsurgency warfare.

This included reviews of international and domestic political situations, studies of the potential sources of conflicts, collection of information for strategic planning and defining the possible routes of foreign invasion.

Reconnaissance, Ambush and all weather day and night offensive and attack capabilities along with winning the hearts and minds of people are important parts of anti-guerrilla warfare.

Throughout the BSPP era, the total people's war doctrine was solely applied in counterinsurgency operations, since Burma did not face any direct foreign invasion throughout the period.

[80] The third phase was to face the lower level external threats with a strategy of strategic denial under total people's defence concept.

Current military leadership has successfully dealt with 17 major insurgent groups, whose 'return to legal fold' in the past decade has remarkably decreased the internal threats to state security, at least for the short and medium terms, even though threat perception of the possibility of external linkage to internal problems, perceived as being motivated by the continuing human rights violations, religious suppression and ethnic cleansing, remains high.

[80] The Tatmadaw has developed an 'active defence' strategy based on guerrilla warfare with limited conventional military capabilities, designed to cope with low intensity conflicts from external and internal foes, which threatens the security of the state.

Depending on the size of RMC and its operational requirements, Regional Military Commanders have at their disposal 10 or more infantry battalions (Kha La Ya).

Chiefs of Bureau of Special Operations (BSO), the heads of Q and A Staffs and the Director of Defence Services Intelligence (DDSI) were also elevated to lieutenant general rank.

The Office of Strategic Studies (OSS, or Sit Maha Byuha Leilaryay Htana) was formed around 1994 and charged with formulating defence policies, and planning and doctrine of the Tatmadaw.

All RMC Commander positions were raised to the level of major general and also serve as appointed chairmen of the state- and division-level Law and Order Restoration Committees.

[93] The Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs (OCMSA), commonly referred to by its Burmese acronym Sa Ya Pha (စရဖ), is a branch of the Myanmar's Armed Forces tasked with intelligence gathering.