Empty Promises Francis Wade on the Limits of U.S. Democracy Promotion in Myanmar

In 2015, following Myanmar’s first free election in a quarter-century, Western governments, including that of the United States, staked their hopes for democracy on Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Once regarded as a nascent democracy, Myanmar has sharply backslid in recent years. Suu Kyi’s denial of what the United Nations deems a genocide of the country’s Rohingya population coupled with her fall from power in February’s military coup, shows the limits, and perhaps naivety, of Western-backed democracy promotion.