Content provided in partnership with

Landmines—the best hope for peace

Contemporary Review, Jan, 2005 by Alexander Deane

THE 1997 Ottawa Convention banned the use and stockpiling of antipersonnel mines, 135 nations have signed the convention, including the United Kingdom; we have also ratified it, and supported the convention's aims as they became official United Nations policy with General Assembly Resolution 53/77. The convention requires those that do so to abandon the use of landmines within ten years.

To restrict British policy in this way was misguided and we should withdraw from the convention as soon as possible--certainly before our commitment becomes binding.

Most Popular Articles in News: The Ten Best Laptop bags; Tata plans cheapest-ever car for Indian market; GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD; Corn is good for you; Corn is not only a tasty treat, but also a cereal that ...; THE 50 BEST STYLISH HANDBAGS TO CARRY; More »

Landmines are an excellent way of defending a wide area for very little money. They permit the defence of an area without requiring an accompanying large personnel attendance. This is a legitimate aim both in warfare, when military personnel are spread too thinly to protect all pockets of civilians, and in poor countries during peacetime, who would rather invest in their infrastructure than funding the military capacity that would otherwise be required to defend the same ground.

When armies still depend on conventional weapons and movement--moving tanks and large infantry groups--and borders are weak, the defensive tactic of landmines is highly appropriate: it is cheap, affordable, and maintains borders. Their existence can slow or stop an advance, delaying or even halting conflict; they can deter invasion in the first place. By guarding wide areas from swift armed advance on civilians, they can prevent genocide.

For this reason, the implications of removing landmines from the internationally available pool of armaments ought to be considered with particular attention to Africa, the theatre most likely to see such action taking place. Banning landmines disproportionately punishes small, underdeveloped countries unable to develop the higher-technology military capacity that has rendered them less useful to richer nations; that is to say, banning landmines harms precisely the kind of nation most likely to need them for defensive purposes.

The ban has an asymmetric effect: it only stops nations that obey the law from using landmines. Most nations contemplating invasion will ignore it, deploying them aggressively to defend captured territory. On the other hand, many that would use them defensively for themselves or for multinational defence of a vulnerable nation or people will observe the ban and thus weaken themselves and those they guard. The landmine should in fact be a primary tool of the United Nations' efforts to protect those in its care.

Instead, the ban fails to distinguish between different kinds of antipersonnel mines. The American arsenal includes mines that can deactivate themselves and can self-destruct. Furthermore, the ban fails to distinguish between responsible and irresponsible users. Under American deployment, they are used responsibly, being set and removed in a methodical manner. These mines, used in peacekeeping initiatives, protect US troops and present little danger to civilians. Stopping their use would endanger the lives of peacekeepers and make the US less likely to enter into such operations--part of the reason the US refused to sign the Ottawa treaty in 1997, and has declined to do so since. America only manufactures smart mines, and has--since 1976 tested 32,000 mines with a successful self-destruction rate of 99.996 per cent.

It is such anti-personnel mines--reliable, controllable, capable of responsible use--that would be used in peacekeeping operations in which Britain will take part in the future, were the option to be open. Such a facility is to be desired.

The use of landmines in war time or a tense environment is a totally separate issue to cleaning them up in peace time; efforts to band the two together by proban commentators should be resisted. The former can be fixed without banning the latter. We should realise that the consequence of keeping landmines legal is an obligation on the part of those that use them to fund clean-up efforts much more substantially. This obligation should be rigorously enforced, and the attention of humanitarian organisations in international civil society would undoubtedly urge its use once it is created.

Perhaps British withdrawal from the convention would encourage others to take up landmines once again--others who would use such weapons less responsibly, with devastating consequences. Perhaps. In the hands of irresponsible users, it is true that blowing up one's own citizens, military and civilian alike, is a large possibility. Communications are not comprehensive in a war situation. Mined areas are insufficiently signed, or entirely unmarked. In peace, mines are often the cause of terrible injuries long after the conflict they were designed to take part in has ended. But this fear should be contained and catered for rather than allowed to distort the West's efforts abroad, leading to the selection of worse policies. The West could do much more by encouraging the use of 'smart' mines, which deactivate themselves after a proscribed period, and by monitoring and signing the deployment of landmines--which solidify otherwise indefensible borders--rather than dumping incompetent peacekeepers to oversee ballooning, undisciplined armies that nations develop if they cannot deploy landmines, because they are so insecure. Once said army is up and running, the nation concerned has a large and ongoing expense--so it gets an idea: why not use it? The 'defensive capacity' becomes an offensive one. This is not the case with landmines. Landmines do not march on your neighbour's towns. Furthermore nations that want to use landmines will do so regardless of the position taken by Britain (or any other nation)--as demonstrated by the current prolific use of mines despite the mass of signatories to the Ottawa convention.

Landmines—the best hope for peace

Contemporary Review, Jan, 2005 by Alexander Deane

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Health

Most Popular Articles in News

Most Popular Publications in News