The Burmese military regime knows how to do one thing well: survive. Twenty years ago, it nullified an election that was massively won by the party of the opposition, the National League for Democracy. It placed the party's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, under a house arrest that, with a few brief respites, continues to this day. For two decades, the regime has consolidated its power, created an economic oligarchy, ended most of the ethnic insurgencies or fought them to a draw, crushed any...