MYAWADDY, Myanmar – Myawaddy has fallen, but not quite. Over the past few weeks, the see-saw tussle between Myanmar junta and resistance forces over the strategic Myanmar border town of Myawaddy has involved air strikes and turncoat soldiers.

It is instructive about the nature of the country’s three-year-old political crisis: There are no neat narratives for this multi-fronted civil war involving not just the junta and a variety of armed groups, but also rivalry between ethnic armed groups fighting for no one’s interests but their own.