US Refuses Anti-Landmine Treaty

[blike]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040227/D80VF6R80.html

[Cheetah]

Why am I not surprised?

[blike]

The government agreed that all landmines from now on would be tracked by US forces, and would deactivate themselves over a certain period of time. I lean towards this view rather than banning them outright. As they pointed out, they are being used more discriminantly.

[Cheetah]

Yes, I read the article. And making the land mines "smart" makes it a lot easier for me to accept.

 

But they could still fail, and not be disarmed when the time comes. And if the USA should be able to send out some signals and disarm the land mines, couldn't another force also be able to do that after some time?

 

Besides, I'm not convinced of the tactical or strategical value of land mines.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I like the Hornet land mine. It launches a projectile at any enemy tank within 100 yards. And deactivetes by radio signal.

[fafalone]

The R&D neccessary to develop remote controlled landmines seems like an aweful waste of money we could be using to develop much cooler weapons like phasers.

[Sayonara]

A timed mine would be better than remote mines anyway, as it's less vulnerable to enemy interference.

[atinymonkey]

That's interesting. The US can't seem to make a system that identifies allied equipment to prevent blue on blue mishaps. I wonder how they will manage to do that with landmines, if a tank is a bit tricky?

[fafalone]

...because theres never been a friendly fire incident not involving the US.

[Sayonara]

If you're talking about the USA using the USA's weapons, what everybody else is doing isn't really relevant.

[-Demosthenes-]

That treaty has been around for a ver long time, we didn't sign it then why would we sign it now.

Mines are one of the cheapest and best ways of defending a position, and these smart mines take most of the problems away anyway.

[Sayonara]

"That treaty has been around for a ver long time, we didn't sign it then why would we sign it now."

 

Because the administrations change?

 

 

"Mines are one of the cheapest and best ways of defending a position"

 

Cheap for the country laying them, yeah.

 

Not cheap for the citizenry of their allies who have to fund charities to deal with the aftermath, despite paying taxes that are meant to partly fund the respective MODs.

 

http://dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Warfare_and_Conflict/Weapons/Landmines/

 

http://www.redcross.org/news/in/africa/010810mozmining.html

 

 

"these smart mines take most of the problems away anyway. "

 

Correction: they will do when you (we?) start using them, AND all non-smart mines are neutralised and removed from both combat and non-combat zones.

[-Demosthenes-]

Okay, okay. That's okay, but we can't go around making promises and signing treaties we can't keep now can we?

[Sayonara]

Rofl!

[-Demosthenes-]

Rofl indeed, what does that mean?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

ROFL! rofl= rolling on the floor laughing!

That adheres to politics, too.

[atinymonkey]

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

Okay, okay. That's okay, but we can't go around making promises and signing treaties we can't keep now can we?

 

That's the point. You can stop producing landmines and sign the treaty. It's simple. You can't guarantee the use of mines will result in purely military casualtys.

 

Mine are indiscriminate, shouting 'But I'm innocent' won't stop the death and so on.

[Sayonara]

atinymonkey said in post # :

Mine are indiscriminate, shouting 'But I'm innocent' won't stop the death and so on.

This is a good point.

 

Even smart mines will blow if trodden on by a civilian while they are active. The US and UK response will be to claim "we consider anyone in the combat zone to be a combatant".

 

There are a couple of problems with this:

 

1) I'm guessing the plan is to disarm mines as ground is gained, when the combat zone shifts away from that particular minefield. If this is the case...:

- How do you define the combat zone?

- When all is quiet, how do civilians know whether what was a combat zone last week is still live?

- Who will go around the area telling civilians "don't go over there or you'll get blown up by our hidden mines. Oh yeah, and don't tell our enemies where they are please"?

 

2) Just saying "anyone in the combat zone is a combatant" won't actually make it true. It's a way of assuaging guilt and shedding responsibility for the [unnecessary] extra casualties.

 

 

The idea of making mines inactive when the combat force leaves the area is a very good one (due to the unpleasant nature of mines as a weapon - they are designed to remove limbs and shatter organs, forcing massive support demands onto units that fall prey to them). But it's not going to completely remove all the problems.

 

And by problems I don't mean "hitches with the plan". I mean the fact that they are fundamentally nasty pieces of kit.