Most Americans would struggle to locate Myanmar on a map, let alone its northernmost state of Kachin. Yet this rugged, mountainous frontier—wedged between China and India—has once again emerged as a geopolitical flashpoint. For Washington’s strategists, it looks like an opportunity: a region where old alliances, mineral wealth, and Chinese vulnerabilities converge. For anyone with a sense of history, however, it is also a reminder of how the United States tends to wade into other people’s wars, misread local complexities, and leave behind wreckage more enduring than its promises.

The US has a history in Kachin, though it is one most Americans have long forgotten. During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services—the forerunner of the CIA—relied on Kachin fighters to harass Japanese forces in Burma’s jungles. These ragtag but resolute men, later dubbed the “Kachin Rangers,” guided inexperienced American pilots and soldiers through a terrain they could barely survive in without local help. Many Kachin families still tell stories of their grandparents fighting alongside young Americans who barely knew how to handle a machete, much less live in a tropical jungle.

That history explains why a surviving Kachin veteran could tell an interviewer decades later: “It is my duty to help because the Americans liberated us.” It is a bond born of circumstance and sentiment—but also a bond Washington has repeatedly exploited, from Cold War experiments arming Kuomintang remnants in Myanmar, to today’s subtle flirtations with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).

Fast forward to October 2024. The KIA captured two key towns, Chipwi and Pangwa, both rich in rare earth elements. These minerals—vital for everything from smartphones to fighter jets—have become the oil of the 21st century. Beijing imports heavily from Myanmar, using the supply to buffer its own near-monopoly on global production. By February 2025, Chinese imports from Myanmar had plunged by nearly 90 percent.

For Washington, that is music to the ears. America has long fretted over its dependence on Chinese rare........

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