No one knows for sure how many men and women there are in either the junta's security forces, or the various armed groups fighting against them. However, this has not stopped journalists, commentators, activists and others from citing specific figures to support their particular reports and claims. Some are doubtless more accurate than others. What also needs to be taken into account, however, is that it is not raw numbers that ultimately decide combat capabilities, but a host of other factors in complex combination.

Over the years, countless attempts have been made to estimate the size of Myanmar's armed forces (or Tatmadaw). However, the fact remains that no-one really knows. Despite the Tatmadaw's critical role in Myanmar's national affairs, its size has always been for observers one of the great “known unknowns”. Similar questions arise over the membership of the various armed opposition groups.

Ordinarily, such a count would be largely an academic exercise. However, the military coup in February 2021 and Myanmar's rapid and unexpected slide into a bitter nation-wide civil war have made answers to these puzzles of greater interest.

After Myanmar (then known as Burma) regained its independence in 1948, its armed forces grew steadily. However, despite constant challenges from a wide range of ethnic, ideological and economic insurgents, its formal strength never exceeded 186,000. This picture changed dramatically after the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, when the new military regime launched a massive expansion and modernisation program.

By the early 2000s, it was widely accepted that the Tatmadaw had grown to about 400,000 service personnel. If that was indeed the case, it made the Tatmadaw the largest armed force in Southeast Asia after Vietnam’s, and possibly the eleventh largest in the world. There were a few claims that the figure was closer to 500,000, or even 600,000, but these estimates were mistakenly based on theoretical projections by ambitious Tatmadaw planners.