"By now, the main contours of the recent events in Rakhine State, in western Myanmar, are well-known. On August 25, an insurgent group calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) (previously Harakah al-Yaqin) attacked police posts in northern Rakhine, eliciting a broad counterinsurgency response from the Myanmar military that has displaced over 400,000 Rohingya people into Bangladesh. As in previous cycles of violence, the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, has reportedly targeted civilians in its ?clearance operations,” leading to allegations of killings, rape, and the burning of villages. The UN?s human rights body has referred to this latest outbreak of violence as ?a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” The crisis in, and now, beyond, Rakhine is part of a much longer story of Rohingya oppression and persecution in Myanmar. This history has almost certainly contributed to the growth of the ARSA insurgency. In contrast to its own claims and those of the Myanmar government and media, ARSA comes across as a poor, small, and desperate movement, staging its attacks in a haphazard manner with homemade weapons like knives, swords, and sticks. The Myanmar government and Burmese media, however, have painted ARSA— and in many ways, Rohingya people more broadly— as part of global Islamist networks. In government communications, ?extremist Bengali terrorists” is the favored term for the military?s current foe in Rakhine. Notably, the current crisis is unfolding under the government of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. She is Myanmar?s long-time opposition leader, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD). The NLD swept into power in the country?s nationwide elections of late 2015, the first open national elections in generations..."