Four-star rank (Myanmar)

In the Tatmadaw (the armed forces of Myanmar) there are two different ranks, one higher than another, but both designated as four-star ranks.

Seniority in Armed Forces Burmese title English title Rank insignia Golden strap
Rank medal
Car insignia
for Army and Air Force for Navy
2. ဒုတိယဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး Vice-senior general
3. ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး General Admiral

Vice-senior general

"Vice-senior general" (Burmese: ဒုတိယဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး, romanized: dautaiya bauilaʻ khayupaʻ mahūʺkarīʺ) is the second highest rank in Myanmar Armed Forces. It is held by the person appointed to both Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services and Commander-in-Chief (Army). Since 2012, it can also be held by the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services if he has not yet been promoted to Senior general.

It is between the five-star rank of Senior general and the four-star rank of General or Admiral, thus being a unique rank existing only in Myanmar Armed Forces. The rank medals of both Vice-Senior general and General/Admiral have the same obverse; both with golden logo of Armed Forces and four golden stars overheading it, but the rank medal of Senior general has a green stripe in addition to that of General/Admiral. Thus, it can be assumed as a higher variant of four-star rank. The flag of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services also confirms that.

Insignia

Burmese title English title Rank insignia Golden strap
Rank medal
Flag Car insignia
ဒုတိယဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီး Vice-senior general
Insignia on
regular uniform		 of Myanmar Army of Myanmar Navy
of Myanmar Air Force

History

When the five-star rank Senior general was created above the four-star rank General, there was no Vice-senior general or similar rank between them. In 1990, General Saw Maung promoted himself directly to Senior general, his deputy: Lieutenant General Than Shwe to General, and Brigadier General Maung Aye to Major general. In 1993, General Than Shwe was promoted directly to Senior general, and Major General Maung Aye was promoted to Lieutenant general and became deputy of Than Shwe.

Lieutenant General Maung Aye was promoted to General in 1994, and then Vice-senior general in 2002. Thus, he became the first person to hold the rank of Vice-senior general.

List of rank holders

No. Photo Name Date of promotion from previous rank Date of promotion to next rank or retirement Remark
1. Maung Aye 1 December 2002 30 March 2011 Promoted from General.
Retired.
2. Min Aung Hlaing 1 April 2012 27 March 2013 Promoted from General.
Promoted to Senior general.
3. Soe Win 27 March 2013 10 April 2026 Promoted from General.
Retired.

General/Admiral

'General' or 'Admiral' (Burmese: ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး, romanized: bauilaʻ khayupaʻ karīʺ) is the third highest rank in the Myanmar Armed Forces, and traditionally the highest rank that a personnel from the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force can obtain. It is a four-star general rank.

The rank's Burmese title and insignia is the same for all branches. The Myanmar Navy uses a different English translation to be harmonized with the naval terms; "ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး" is translated as "General" for army and air force, and as "Admiral" for navy.

Since 2011, the rank "ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး" is designated to be held by the persons in following appointments.

Appointment Service branch Number of posts
Chief of General Staff (Army, Navy, Air) (can be promoted from any of the three branches) 1
Commander-in-Chief (Navy) Defence Services (Navy) 1
Commander-in-Chief (Air) Defence Services (Air) 1

Beside these appointments, the Defence Services personnels appointed as Union Ministers in the Union Government can also hold this rank. Currently, the Union Ministers for Defence and for Home Affairs are Generals.

Insignia

Service branchBurmese titleEnglish titleRank insigniaGolden strapRank medalCar insignia
Myanmar Army
and
Myanmar Air Force		 ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီး General
Myanmar Navy Admiral
Insignia on
regular uniform		 of Myanmar Army of Myanmar Navy of Myanmar Air Force

List of rank holders in Defence Services (Army)

There have been 22 people with the rank of "General" in the Defence Services (Army).

No. Photo Name Date of promotion from previous rank Date of promotion to next rank or retirement Remark
1. Ne Win 1 January 1956 20 April 1972 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
2. San Yu 20 April 1972 3 March 1978 Promoted from Brigadier-General.
Retired.
3. Tin Oo 8 March 1975 6 March 1976 Promoted from Brigadier-General.
Retired.
4. Kyaw Htin 6 March 1977 30 November 1985 Promoted from Major-General.
Retired.
5. Saw Maung 4 November 1986 18 March 1990 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Promoted to Senior General.
6. Than Shwe 18 March 1990 23 April 1993 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Promoted to Senior General.
7. Maung Aye 23 April 1994 1 December 2002 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Promoted to Vice-Senior General.
8. Khin Nyunt 1 December 2002 19 October 2004 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
9. Shwe Mann 2003 26 August 2010 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
10. Soe Win 21 June 2005 12 October 2007 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Died in office.
11. Thein Sein 5 November 2007 27 April 2010 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
12. Tin Aung Myint Oo 25 March 2009 26 August 2010 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
13. Min Aung Hlaing 20 March 2011 1 April 2012 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Promoted to Vice-Senior General.
14. Soe Win 1 April 2012 27 March 2013 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Promoted to Vice-Senior General.
15. Hla Htay Win 1 April 2012 13 August 2015 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
16. Mya Tun Oo August 2016 31 July 2025 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
17. Maung Maung Aye 20 March 2021 10 April 2026 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
18. Nyo Saw 15 August 2024 31 July 2025 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
19. Aung Lin Dwe 15 August 2024 31 July 2025 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
20. Ye Win Oo 15 August 2024 Incumbent Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Currently serving.
21. Kyaw Swa Lin 20 March 2025 Incumbent Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Currently serving.
22. Ko Ko Oo 1 July 2026 Incumbent Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Currently serving.

List of rank holders in Defence Services (Navy)

There have been 5 people with the rank of "Admiral" in the Defence Services (Navy).

No. Photo Name Date of promotion from previous rank Date of promotion to next rank or retirement Remark
1. Nyan Tun 1 April 2012 15 August 2012 Promoted from Vice-Admiral.
Retired.
2. Thet Swe 2013 10 August 2015 Promoted from Vice-Admiral.
Retired.
3. Tin Aung San 10 April 2016 31 July 2025 Promoted from Vice-Admiral.
Retired.
4. Moe Aung 20 March 2021 10 April 2026 Promoted from Vice-Admiral.
Retired.
5. Htein Win 5 December 2024 Incumbent Promoted from Vice-Admiral.
Currently serving.

List of rank holders in Defence Services (Air)

There have been 5 people with the rank of "General" in the Defence Services (Air).

No. Photo Name Date of promotion from previous rank Date of promotion to next rank or retirement Remark
1. Myat Hein 1 April 2012 13 February 2013 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
2. Khin Aung Myint 2013 2 January 2018 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
3. Maung Maung Kyaw 3 January 2018 9 January 2022 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
4. Tun Aung 20 March 2022 14 October 2026 Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Retired.
5. Tun Win 20 July 2026 Incumbent Promoted from Lieutenant-General.
Currently serving.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "File image of Myanmar Army's deputy commander-in-chief, Vice Senior General Soe Win". Flickr.
  2. 1 2 Aung Shine Oo. "Myanmar New Appointed Home Affair Minister". Archived from the original on 26 April 2022. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
  3. 1 2 KoKo LinnMaung (23 July 2019). တပ်မတော် ရာထူးအဆင့်အတန်း အင်္ဂလိပ်လိုအခေါ်အဝေါ်များ [Tatmadaw appointment ranks' nomenclature in English]. Facebook (in Burmese and English).[user-generated source]
  4. ↑ Vice-Chairman of the State Administration Council Vice-Senior General Soe Win holds phone talks with Australian Vice-chief of Defence Force yesterday. Photo: MNA from MNA (February 2021). "(Vice-Senior General holds discussions with Australian Vice-chief of Defence Force over phone". Global New Light of Myanmar.
  5. ↑ Fleet Exercise-2020 conducted with involvement of attack submarine Minye Theinkhathu of Tatmadaw (Navy) to enhance defence prowess of State
  6. ↑ Mya Win (1991). တပ်မတော် ခေါင်းဆောင်များ သမိုင်း အကျဉ်း (၁၉၄၂ ခုနှစ်မှ ၁၉၉၀ ပြည့်နှစ်အထိ) [A Brief History of Tatmadaw's Leaders (1942 to 1990)] (in Burmese). Yangon: News and Periodical Enterprise. pp. 86–87.
  7. 1 2 3 "(၇၆)နှစ်မြောက် တပ်မတော်နေ့အထိမ်းအမှတ်အဖြစ် ခေတ်အဆက်ဆက်တာဝန်ထမ်းဆောင် ခဲ့ကြသည့် ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်၊ တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ်(အငြိမ်းစား) များ၏ အမှတ်တရရုပ်တုများ ဖွင့်ပွဲအခမ်းအနားကျင်းပပြုလုပ်" [As a commemoration for the 76th anniversary of Armed Forces Day, the opening ceremony for memorial statues of those who served through successive periods as Chief-of-Staff and Commander-in-Chief (now retired), was held.]. Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services (in Burmese). 25 March 2021.
  8. 1 2 "General Maung Aye". Mizzima Election 2010. Mizzima News. 1 April 2010. Archived from the original on 23 August 2011. Retrieved 20 August 2011.
  9. ↑ မြန်မာ့အလင်းသတင်းစာ (၃.၄.၂၀၁၂) (Myanma Alin Newspaper (3.4.2012)) (in Burmese)
  10. ↑ ကြေးမုံသတင်းစာ (၂၈.၃.၂၀၁၃) (The Mirror Newspaper (28.3.2013)) (in Burmese)
  11. ↑ ကြေးမုံသတင်းစာ (၂၅.၃.၂၀၁၃) (The Mirror Newspaper (25.3.2013)) (in Burmese)
  12. ↑ "Order No (6/2021), Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defence Services, Republic of the Union of Myanmar" (PDF). The Global New Light of Myanmar. 2 February 2021. p. 5. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  13. ↑ "Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing receives a model plane from Gen. Maung Maung Kyaw in 2019. | OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT WEBSITE OF SENIOR GEN. MIN AUNG HLAING / VIA REUTERS". Archived from the original on 21 April 2022. Retrieved 23 April 2022.