"On Monday, reports surfaced that a Myanmar military spokesman had hit out at comments made by a minister in the country about civil-military control. While the incident may appear minor relative to wider developments in Myanmar and Naypyidaw’s broader challenges, it nonetheless served as a reminder of the complex dynamics underlying civil-military relations in Myanmar and the sensitivities in navigating them. As I have observed before in these pages, governance in Myanmar remains a complex and contested affair, with the National League for Democracy (NLD) ruling the country but the military, known as the Tatmadaw, still exercising significant political influence in the country in official and unofficial ways, including a quota of seats in parliament and control of key ministries: defense, border, and home affairs. Over the past week, we have seen these complex and contested civil-military dynamics at play with a spat in Myanmar’s domestic politics. The spat emerged from comments made by Myanmar’s Union Minister for Religious Affairs and Culture U Aung Ko, who suggested at an interfaith event in Yangon last month that that the military had control of the police. On Monday, in a sign of fallout from those comments, Myanmar news media outlets reported that military spokesperson Zaw Min Tun had urged the government to take action against the minister and added that the Tatmadaw would file a complaint with the government according to legal procedures..."