Bertil Lintner is a well-known name to those who have been observing developments in East and Southeast Asia. He is a Sweden-born journalist who has spent decades in the region and knows Myanmar in particular like the back of his hand, having travelled extensively in the country and also having covered it for long for the newspapers and magazines in which his writings regularly appear. He has also authored over half a dozen books on Myanmar itself.
So, what is new in this book on Myanmar which is undergoing a serious internal crisis over the last four and half years after yet another coup? As the author himself says in the introductory chapter, he has written it in order to explain the enigma of military power in the country and provide a better understanding of many other issues behind the sad state of affairs so that interested parties are not misled by shallow analyses and wishful thinking. He perhaps means that because there have been some successes for the resistance forces battling the military, no one should conclude that a breakthrough for the resistance is round the corner.