To understand modern Myanmar, one needs to appreciate the various pathways to the present that have come together to create the country's current condition. The inherent complexity of the issues involved is made easier to comprehend if one attempts to analyse separately the various historical forces and understandings that came together to shape the present. But in doing so, one must not lose sight of the actual interconnectedness of the strands of history that are described below. The issues which today concern the citizens of Myanmar are rooted in the country's complex and often contested institutions and history. Those who perceive their solutions as simple, and to be solved quickly by the mere introduction of democratically elected civilian rule, are in danger of deluding themselves.

Without attempting to understand how Myanmar came to its current condition, simplistically proffered recipes for change, democratic or authoritarian, are as likely to result in failure as success. Indeed, it can be argued that the country's condition now is the result of often well-meaning but ultimately foolhardy attempts to apply currently popular political solutions, encapsulated in the most popular ideology of the day, to Myanmar's myriad societal imperatives. “Nationalism”, “socialism”, and “autarky”, just as “federalism”, “autonomy”, and “centralization”, have all had their day as policy prescriptions in post-colonial Myanmar. People have fought and died during the past half century and more to promote and defend diverse sets of inchoate ideas which have marched behind each of these banners. Those that have come to be implemented have often persisted long after they demonstrated their inappropriateness. All have led to the present condition of Myanmar's more than 50 million ethnically and linguistically diverse people.

The complexity of Myanmar is significant by any measure. Geographically it stretches some 1,275 miles from north to south and 582 miles from east to west at its widest point.