Recently, I saw the news that the Myanmar military staged a coup while detaining the president and Aung San Suu Kyi, who is the leader of democratic party of Myanmar. As a veteran, hearing about armed-suppressing citizens resulting in a big number of deaths daily, I thought that I wanted to go deeper on this issue. So, I set my topic for the Independent Project as a military regime. Since I find it interesting in analyzing the politics case by case (comparative politics), I used this method for the two assignments which I mentioned in my independent project proposal. I chose four countries to compare, and chose two readings for each country; one that shows the history of the military regime in each case, and a scholarly source that analyzes the military regime. With these readings, I sought to demonstrate my ability to compare each case, and demonstrate my ability to apply political theories and concepts while comparing.

Syllabus

             I chose to make a syllabus in analyzing the military regime of countries that I chose; Myanmar, Libya, South Korea and Thailand. Then, I set discussions every week and quiz for every reading. In wrap-up of each case, I sought to have discussion with my student in comparing one to another case as well as discuss the key points in the case. I set my students to be college students who are interested in politics or the military, since I believed that the assigned readings are mainly focused on the history of the military regime in each country, and a scholarly source that analyzed the military regime. Thus, I thought that students who chose political science for their major will be interested in these readings as well as I thought they will be able to understand the readings easier.

The main reason that I chose syllabus is because I thought that teaching someone else well shows that the instructor has a strong knowledge in course materials. Therefore, I sought to show my knowledge on military regime and social movement theories through this syllabus; I pointed out different key points from each country. I highlighted the power of the social networking service in testifying the situation in Myanmar while Myanmar has blocked access to the internet. For Libya, I mentioned the Arab Springs, in order to show the power of social movement. In the case of my home country, South Korea, I highlighted the process on how we were able to launch democratic system while developing our economy; in the process, Korea also has a history of social movement being a game changer in politics. As a last, I looked forward to highlighting how the military regime could cause humanitarian issues from Thailand. I first aimed to show my students how the military regime in assigned countries took over the power, and how it impacted democracy. Then, I required my students to read 2 texts for each case. Particularly, while I used the method of comparative politics as I mentioned above, I focused on applying social movement theories in this course in order to show the successful case of achieving democracy from the military regime.

Policy Memo

             I wrote a policy memo to Min Aung Hlaing, who is the current commander of the Myanmar military. I had to spend some time on making my decision on doing a public awareness campaign or policy memo; however, I chose doing policy memo since I thought that doing policy memo will better demonstrate my understanding of the issue as well as I thought that I will be able to better mention my key findings from the readings.

Since I set my topic on the coup of the Myanmar military, I believed that my policy memo should show my logic based on the political theories and concepts. Thus, I again mentioned the social movement theories in order to argue that the power of the social movement is not that simple as Min Aung Hlaing might expect it to be; especially with a case of Arab Springs in Libya that I brought, I was able to explain why Aung Min Hlaing cannot ignore the Burmese protesters. Furthermore, I brought a few concepts from International Security to argue that the sovereignty of Min Aung Hlaing is not headed to right direction, and must stop the genocide and let muzzles of the weapon point the right direction. Also, these concepts were helpful in mentioning the fact that there are a lot of reasons for international society to intervene in this issue. Therefore, I was able to better explain why Min Aung Hlaing should realize that international society is also aware of the tragedy in Myanmar.

Conclusion

             This Independent Project was a good opportunity for me to recall what I have learned during my four years in CSU. Also, as a veteran, I came to think again about how I was used to being in the military; especially, I thought that the military has stronger power than anyone would expect it to have. The military could protect the citizens and country. However, the military also could cause a major conflict within the nation if it goes toward the wrong direction.