A Burma scholar traverses the history of Burma?s armed forces, its reasons for expansion and the complications facing the country?s most dominant institution... The Burma Army possibly has the worst press in Asia. Vilified as a regime of inept thugs who cosy up to drug dealers, whose foot soldiers perpetrate murder and rape on a major scale, who flesh out their ranks with children and waste money on planes that don?t fly at the expense of health and education, it would be hard to make them look good. Andrew Selth, the preeminent expert on the Burmese armed forces, the Tatmadaw, doesn?t attempt to improve their image, but he does provide the reader with a more in-depth perspective on this much-maligned organization. His book, Burma?s Armed Forces: Power Without Glory, provides a detailed study of the Tatmadaw, its dramatic expansion during the 1990s, and the ideological and practical impulses for its repressive behavior. It represents the most serious and erudite analysis of the Tatmadaw since its formation in the 1940s.