Under the most optimistic scenario, a "people power" uprising topples the iron-fisted generals who have ruled Burmese for a half century. Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from years of house arrest and announces general elections.
The world cheers.
But were such events to unfold—and many say the junta is sure to tumble one day—Burma's long anguish might simply give way to chaos.
After a collective sigh of relief from a long-suffering population, some experts foresee a "nightmare scenario"—resurgent ethnic insurgencies, gutted institutions, clashes among leaders with no experience in democracy and continuing aftershocks from the junta's ruinous economic policies in one of the world's poorest nations.
"The transition to civilian rule is bound to be extremely difficult, given the fact that the country has not had a truly civilian government since 1962," says Bertil Lintner, one of several Burma experts who believe elements of the military would have to be retained to guide the country through such turbulent times.
Following the junta's crackdown on protesters, many in the international community—including the US—have renewed calls for democracy in Burma.
However, the country's giant neighbor and chief backer, China, has stressed stability and a gradual transition over sudden regime change, a view shared by some of Burma's Southeast Asian neighbors.
Abruptly jettisoning the military, it is feared, would have dire consequences. There are too few qualified civilians left to run the country, and disbanding the army might imperil security, much as it did after Iraq's forces were sent home after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
"You've had, over the past 40 years, the army slowly become really not just a dominant state institution but practically the only state institution, even at the local level," says Thant Myint-U, author of a recent book on his homeland, "The River of Lost Footsteps."
Buddhist monks, numbering some half a million, took the leading role in recent protests and remain a highly revered and potentially effective force for change, but cannot by their own precepts step in to govern the country.
Not only does the 400,000-strong army wield the guns—turning them on a rebellious citizenry as it did in recent weeks—but it has taken over all major business enterprises and all but the routine tasks of government.
A state-within-a-state as well as a privileged class, the military provides its own with relatively good schools, health facilities, housing and jobs, while the public copes with a shattered infrastructure on less than US $1 a day.
"Rebuilding these structures at the same time as easing the army out of its overall government role is an almost unprecedented task. It's hard for me to think of another situation in which that has happened peacefully," said Thant Myint-U, a former UN official.
Democracy may not find fertile soil in Burma, which has passed through a thousand years of feudalism, 124 years of British colonial rule and 45 years of military dictatorship, with a tumultuous, 14-year experiment in democracy sandwiched in between.
The last generation that participated in free elections is rapidly passing. Repeated crackdowns have decimated the ranks of younger pro-democracy activists, and many others are pursuing new lives abroad.
Although hugely popular inside Burma and internationally, the 62-year-old Suu Kyi remains untested as a political leader. Before emerging to lead an anti-government uprising in 1988, she had spent most of her life abroad, despite being the daughter of Burma's martyred founding father, Gen Aung San. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest.
"She's probably the only person who could counsel patience and moderation and be able to bring a large part of the population with her," said Thant Myint-U. "This will be important for the transition, but beyond that it's impossible to know how well she would be able to cope with the challenges of day-to-day government."
Many among the educated in Burma fear these are bound to be legion—from the confrontational politics that marred the country's flirtation with democracy to a dearth of human capital following what critics consider one of the military's worst offenses: a "war on education."
Universities, regarded as hotbeds of dissent, were shut down for nearly seven out of the 12 years following the 1988 uprising. In many schools, textbooks, if they exist at all, must be shared, library shelves are all but empty and science is taught without laboratories by teachers on starvation wages.
"Maybe that is what the military really wanted, the elimination of an educated population.
