Burmese generals have long sought to defend themselves from imagined external threats, masking their intense paranoia with a military shield... "ARMED ethnic insurgents pose little threat nowadays to the Burmese regime, but that doesn?t deter the generals in Naypyidaw from continually strengthening their military capacity and spending the country?s precious foreign reserves on more sophisticated weapons, such as jet fighters, an air defense system, naval ships and short and medium-range missiles. Analysts generally agree that the junta?s modern military arsenal is ill-suited for combating guerilla warfare in a mountainous jungle, but is more realistically intended as a defensive shield against an external threat...Nowadays, in almost every speech to commanders and soldiers, the army leaders - including Than Shwe - remind them of the need for a people?s war and to nurture the support of the masses. Than Shwe?s call is for a "people?s war under modern conditions," wrote Maung Aung Myoe. Interestingly, under Than Shwe?s people?s war, the concept of cyber warfare has also been launched. In 1998, the Tatmadaw held its first joint military exercises of the navy, the air force and the army to introduce counteroffensive strategies to the existing people?s war doctrine. During these exercises, the fire brigade, the Myanmar Red Cross and the Union Solidarity Development Association were mobilized. "The exercises," Maung Aung Myoe wrote, "revealed that the purpose of such a counteroffensive was to counter low-level foreign invasion." According to the author, the new doctrine developed under the regime dictates that, should the standing conventional force fail to defeat an invading force on the beachheads or landing zones, resistance would be organized at the village, regional and national levels to sap the will of the invading force. When the enemy?s will is sapped and its capabilities are dispersed and exhausted, the Burmese army would be able to muster sufficient force to wage a counteroffensive that would drive the invader from Burma..."