ABSTRACT
Burma, also known as Myanmar, is Southeast Asia’s anomaly: the resource-rich nation of 45 million people has a per capita gross national product (GNP) lower than India’s; once the world’s leading exporter of rice, it is today a top global source for heroin; and its army has seen continuous action for over half a century, yet faces no external threat. Isolated from the world for decades by a xenophobic military regime, Burma is, depending on whom you ask, either on the road to economic recovery and political stability, or poised to blow up again, as it did spectacularly in 1988.
