The junta has promised to hold polls in 2010 and return the country to semi-civilian rule.
The head of Burma's military junta, General Than Shwe, says he intends to give up control of the government to whoever wins elections in 2010.
By focusing on the war of attrition between Miss Suu Kyi and the junta, it is easy to overlook the role of ethnic minorities in opposition politics, says Mr Zawacki.
This week's, like other, smaller protests over the years since then, failed to budge the junta.
Last month Guinea's junta finally handed over power to a transitional government after a concerted squeeze by ECOWAS, other African countries and the West.
Another factor is whether the junta decides to wage military campaigns against the ethnic cease-fire groups that refuse to disarm and transform their troops into a border guard force, Dunford said.
You might expect a military junta with sweeping powers to have kept up the fight against such illicit activity.
China has also given the junta diplomatic support, helping for years to keep its behaviour off the agenda of the United Nations Security Council.
The military junta is determined to put down all political opposition.
Some Europeans are reconsidering even that, though the European Union this week renewed its sanctions directed at members of the junta and at the export of Burmese gems, timber and metals.
The restrictions the junta imposes on her after that will not mask her huge moral stature and widespread support.
The junta has always shown a perverse punctiliousness in following the letter of its arbitrarily enforced repressive laws.
Lesser figures in TRT may regroup and find ways to recapture the party's millions of votes, in the elections the junta promises to hold by the year's end.
The junta reacted violently to the perceived threat to its authority.
Now the obstacles are a shortage of funds and foreign squeamishness about dealing with the junta.
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