The South East Asian nation of Myanmar (also known as Burma), has a long history as an independent nation, punctuated by over sixty years of conquest and occupation as a colonial possession of the expansionist British Empire. Burma was seized by the Japanese in World War Two, and became a major battleground as British, Indian, American, and Chinese forces battled against the Japanese. Three year after the defeat of Japan, Burma once again became an independent nation, but almost immediately plunged into civil war, as Karen ethnic group rebelled and a Communist uprising nearly toppled the new government. The civil war began in 1948, and has continued with varying degrees of intensity ever since. In 1988, a pro-democracy movement was crushed violently by the military dictatorship, which also renamed the nation "Myanmar." In late 2007, a new, so-far peaceful anti-government uprising led by Buddhist monks has been met with violence from government security forces.
It should be noted that the current involvement of the Buddhist monks in the 2007 protests harkens back to the long-running resistance to the British conquest and occupation of Burma in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Many of the protests against British rule were led by Buddhist monks, so the current monk-led protests are part of a tradition of Burmese/Myanmar popular action to unpopular and repressive regimes.
Below is a listing of the wars and conflicts of Burma and Myanmar since the first war with the British Empire in the early 1800s.
First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826)
Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852)
Third Anglo-Burmese War (1885)
Burmese Resistance to British Conquest (1885-1889)
Second World War: Burma Campaign (1942-1945)
Burmese Civil War (1948-Present)–Long and complex civil war involving several different uprisings and rebellions against the Burmese government. This long-running war includes government warfare against the Karen, Kachin, Shan and other ethnic groups, Communist rebels, and pro-democracy protestors and rebels (these last two in 1988 and 2007).
Chinese KMT Invasion (1950)–Refugee Nationalist (Koumintang, or KMT) Chinese soldiers retreated across the Chinese-Burma border to escape the advancing Chinese Communist armies of Mao Tse-Tung.
Sino-Burma Border War (1956)