New Delhi, Aug. 23 -- Four years into Myanmar's civil war, the numbers alone tell a devastating story: 82,000 lives lost, 3.2 million displaced, and a military government that controls perhaps a fifth of its territory. The rest of the country has fractured into enclaves of ethnic militias, separatist armies, and rebel movements that barely acknowledge the authority of capital Naypyidaw-or each other. In some regions, even the national currency has ceased to circulate.

Myanmar is not merely in crisis; it is dissolving into what political scientists call a "durable disorder," the kind of stateless chaos more familiar in Somalia or Libya.

But unlike those countries, Myanmar's disintegration is unfolding in the strategic heartland of Asia. ...