Damned mines

February 28, 2004 11:22 AM

Current U.S. Administrationchooses "smart anti-personnel mines" versus "dumb mines".The U.S. military will stop using always-armed, live landmines after 2010. Some may appreciate this move as a valid step toward..more "intelligent" mines, others disagree. More links inside.
posted by elpapacito (23 comments total)

The rationale behind the use of minefields is simple: when the enemy makes contact with minefield, it will either slow down or stop after recognizing the danger or be killed ; also, an area infested by mines cannot be used for any purpose (tactical or strategical) if not after a time and resources consuming bonification. Minefield are not designed to destroy the enemy like conventional bombs, but to slow it down and terrorize it.

When the enemy employes systematical ways of deploying mines, like Iraq did against invaders, the minefield becomes even less effective as the opponent figures out the scheme that is -routinely- used to deploy mines.
Therefore an efficient minefield shall not be layed using a recognizable pattern ; probably Iraqui engineers were far more concerned about exploding on their own mines, so they used a simple pattern.

But one doesn't need to clear the entire minefield to march trought it ; once a corridor is set, the rest of the minefield becomes far less useful if not entirely useless from a military point of view ; the concept of setting a corring has been implemented in many ways , like[1],[2] [3] [4] et al.

All this technology lets technologically advanced armies have less fear or overcome the minefield problem entirely ; it is safe to say that minefield isn't such a devastating weapon today as it was in the past, at least not for an army
that can employ at least a few heavily armored tanks with plows.

But apparently anti-personnel mines are still effective against third world armies troops, and even against (guess who)
civilians ! In fact the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Conventional Weapons designed to limit the use of certain weapons says

"This Protocol shall not apply to situations of internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, isolated and sporadic acts of violence and other acts of a similar nature, as not being armed conflicts" Curious indeed as the rest of the Protocol calls for the mines and booby traps not to be used against civilian targets.

So my point is, no matter if the mine is "smart" (yeah sure like "smart" bombs, what a delusion) or "dumb" what is the point of anti-personnel mines ? Why in the hell should the U.S. government choose not to follow 120 other nations and become THE global leader against mines, which are in my opinion terroristic weapons by the way ? China and Russia aren't doing better either, guess U.S. lost a sizable opportunity and manager to attract more contempt
posted by elpapacito at 11:26 AM on February 28, 2004

The US is trying to replace landmines at least. Here's a Wired article about a new technology the US is developing. I think mainly they see land mines as *the* best non-human controlled line of defense (or offense). So they create a remote controlled machine gun to replace it. I don't know if this technology is dead in the water but it shows that the US isn't going to replace landmines with flowers.
posted by geoff. at 11:34 AM on February 28, 2004

New weed may flag land mines
posted by homunculus at 11:41 AM on February 28, 2004

homunculus: that's a very welcome discovery, better then other archaic stick and sensor tools for sure, but it's hardly a solution for at least two reasons

1) probably doesn't work were vegetation is already present (lack of sunlight may stop or slow down the weed groving, so unless the weed is an unstoppable pest it will need some work on terrain before deployment)

2) may not work for the future, as demand for mines that aren't weed-detectable will spark a new market

On the good side, presence of such tools may make mines more expensive to produce which is ,generally speaking, good.
posted by elpapacito at 12:14 PM on February 28, 2004

Compassionate carnage.
posted by scarabic at 12:14 PM on February 28, 2004

but one doesn't need to clear the entire minefield to march trought it ; once a corridor is set, the rest of the minefield becomes far less useful if not entirely useless from a military point of view

Uh, no. If you have a few corridors through a minefield, the technical term for those is "kill zones." You have your artillery and bombers go visit those convenient places where the enemy are gathered and turn them into goo.

The US experience with minefield-breaching in the Gulf wars was in the context of utterly absolute air supremacy and overwhelming ground supremacy.

The experience on the other side of that coin is that gathering your forces together in readily bombable, easy-to-strafe collections -- ie, in lines through a minefield, or on a road through a desert -- leads to them being slaughtered wholesale on the Highway of Death until your enemy itself gets disgusted at the turkey-shoot.

Why in the hell should the U.S. government choose not to follow 120 other nations and become THE global leader against mines

Because they think they're a useful part of the Korean DMZ. This really isn't difficult, folks.

I really doubt it would be hard to get the US to agree to something barring mines in most situations -- "No mines, except in designated DMZ's to keep forces separated," or "No mines, except in clearly demarcated areas surrounded by at least two rings of razor-wire, both with frequent warnings." The the ICBL seems to insist on the perfect at the expense of the good leads me to think that they don't actually want what they claim they want.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:55 PM on February 28, 2004

ROU: Guess you're right on the fact that a "bridge" or "corridor" is a dangerous place to be when all around you have no-go zones (water, swamp, mines, whatever makes you a sitting duck). It would certainly delay the enemy, but it would also require some patrolling given that if you give enemy enough time they'll set several corridors in the minefield (and I'm talking about enemy-with-a-clue, not third world class armies)

So I guess, the point is not to destroy the enemy by using the minefield as the destruction weapon of choice (too sparse, too "easily" detectable) but to stall it enough time for us to react and destroy it with far more powerful weapons.

But, wouldn't sensors achieve a similar result of early warning ? Indeed they wouldn't slow down the enemy, but slow down exactly what ? Troops or tanks ?

At best how many miles can troop move daily on foot ? I don't know, I think not many and btw they're so slow they are sitting ducks. If one follows the idea of the Blitzkrieg tactic in which infrantry has to follow battle tanks to protect them from other infantry, then you need to very friggin quickly move infrantry when parachuting is not an option, which means APCs, armored APC probably are immune to anti-personnel mine, but are bulky enough to set an anti-tank mine. But a well done anti tank mine isn't triggered by the casual civilian (unless he drivers an heavy truck on it).

So at the end, the anti-personnel mine still seem to make some sense in a very well delimited, -deep- DMZ where your ally (south korea) is expecting to be whacked by a great number of opponents. But such a zone is one I'd put on 24h suirvellance, covered with both human and mechanical sensors, in which I would build several orders of anti-veihicle obstacles (including tank mines) and I'd put MRLS rocket launcher near it (or artillery) which is by far more demoralizing then mines and far more effective at stopping anything if an attack occours.

So I guess we both agree that U.S. as well as Russia and China could agree to get rid of anti-personnel mines and keep anti-tank mines (which make a lot of sense) for DMZ use or warfare use.

You say : insist on the perfect at the expense of the good leads me to think that they don't actually want what they claim they want

It's possible. Indeed I wouldn't trust anybody to be more saint then me in a war situation, but with a ban on anti-personnel mine (anti-troop) at best they would say "if U.S. doesn't follow, who's going to protect me from U.S. ? I'm going to build anti-personnel as well and U.S. better not dare to criticize me as they're no better then me on the topic".

I think consesus is needed to build worldwide repulsion, as much as it is needed for WMD ; afaik U.S. , Russia et al still have a number of nuclear weapons, yet the current U.S. admnistration in concert with other is pushing the concept of "don't you dare build nuclear or you'll go the Iraq way" but they still have nuclear weapons. What do you think other countries would say ? "Hey this bully has nuclear and doesn't want me to have nuclear, who does he think he is , God ? Who's going to protect me from *nuclearstate* if I don't build nuclear as well even if only as a deterrent ?"

Same concept applies to anti-personnel mines.
posted by elpapacito at 3:34 PM on February 28, 2004

So I guess, the point is not to destroy the enemy by using the minefield as the destruction weapon of choice (too sparse, too "easily" detectable) but to stall it enough time for us to react and destroy it with far more powerful weapons.

As I understood, the logic wasn't to delay but to funnel. So instead of having troops and tanks spread out, you have them bunched up where a couple bombs or artillery salvos whack them all.

with a ban on anti-personnel mine (anti-troop) at best they would say "if U.S. doesn't follow, who's going to protect me from U.S. ? I'm going to build anti-personnel as well and U.S. better not dare to criticize me as they're no better then me on the topic"

That seems like magical thinking to me. You really think that Sudan is afraid of American infantry walking around, or that Sudan thinks that mines would be an effective deterrent to US military action, which would almost certainly just fall out of a clear blue sky anyway?

Or, for that matter, do you really think for an instant that if the US didn't have land mines, that ThirdWorldHellhole would say "Well, it's time to stop using land mines! Sure, they're cheap and low-tech enough for us to cook up our own, and they're awfully good at killing TheirEthnicGroups that we don't like very much. And sure, a bunch of more of OurEthnicGroup will get killed fighting TheirEthnicGroup rebels that, really, we'd just like to kill all of anyway, but that's a small price to pay?"

I think it's far more likely that the use of landmines is invariant across almost all choices of the US. Except possibly for choices like "We will make war on any nation that uses landmines," but the odds of that are, well, slim.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:01 PM on February 28, 2004

ROU, why does it matter what warlords in "ThirdWorldHellHole" think. We are good, our enemies are bad. Thats why its ok if we blow them up. The justification is lost if we act no differently than those we deem evil. With the technological capability the U.S. possesses, the minimal military benefit of anti-personnel mines doesn't even come close to outweighing the risks to civilians. Refusing to ban them is about as morally indefensible as anything else i can think of.

And what did you mean by invariant?
posted by MetalDog at 4:40 PM on February 28, 2004

With the technological capability the U.S. possesses, the minimal military benefit of anti-personnel mines doesn't even come close to outweighing the risks to civilians. Refusing to ban them is about as morally indefensible as anything else i can think of.

But what would the effect of the US agreeing to a total landmine ban be?

AFAIK, the US is already out of the business of putting unmarked minefields all over creation*. So we should expect a US signing a ban to reduce the number of mines in civilian-killing unmarked minefields by... what, zero or so?

And what did you mean by invariant?

Whether the US signs a ban on landmines, doesn't sign a ban on landmines, or loudly extols the virtues of landmines while drunk at parties, the number of nations using landmines, and the number of people killed by landmines, will be about the same; ie, it will not vary.

*bomblets are a different story, we seem to put *those* any old place, and heavily-mined areas like the Korean DMZ are, likewise, a different story since they're no real risk to civilians.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:54 PM on February 28, 2004

I guess you're seeing it mainly from a military point of view, and from that perspective you're correct.

The logic of funnelling makes lot of sense, but it would be delusional to hope that any serious enemy will make only one channel, -give them enough time- and they'll make more channels as the enemy isn't necessarily stupid (remember from WWII in which the idiotic furher propaganda told the troops that russian were subhumans, not fighters ?)

About Sudan or whatever country: unless they're delusional they know that a minefield will not stop a serious army and U.S. have a well equiped serious one.

Neither will the any world country administration stop doing anything atrocious because the U.S. one isn't.

But, from a political point of view, you can build up immense political pressure on nations using anti-personnel mines for -any- purpose , if you show that they're not really that useful in modern warfare and that they're far more useful as terror weapons. If you have allies doing the same and join you, pressure increases and can be backed by social, economical and military consequences.

But at the same time you can't blame nations choosing to stock terror weapons when you have the same weapons in your arsenal ; what are you stocking it for, if you don't plan to use it ?

Imagine this discussion:

A: Stop stocking mines !
B: But you have mines as well, why should I ?
A: Because I can and you can't !
B: Doesn't make much sense, who do you think you are, God ?
A: No, but you should still stop stocking mines !
B: As soon as I have proof you did.
A: But you are *an evil something*, we're not.
B: I must protect my citizens from attackers
A: We don't use mines against citizens as you did !
B: True enough. We did errors in the past, but the new administration will not. We keep on stockpiling to protect us from future unforeseeable evils.
A: Bah ! Ok keep on getting mines, but be warned we may as well use nuclear weapons on you if you dare use mines against civilians ; or we may invade you as well.
B: Oh you have nukes ? Well we should have them as well to protect us from future unforeseeable evils.
A: You can't have nukes, or we'll wipe you away.
B: We don't plan to actually use it, only as a deterrent.
A: Same do we, but you can't !
B: Why ? Your future administration may turn evil, we can't possibily know. We just want to protect ourselves.
A: We will protect you
B: Mh yeah sure as long as we're of any use to your current administration. We're not fools.

This logic is that of escalation, not that of reduction.

In another discussion:

A: We stopped using antipersonnel landmines, our allies did as well. I explained you why they're evil.
B: Well, but we think we may use it to protect us against
unforeseeable evils
A: Oh come on you have tanks !
B: Yeah old russian ones, we're poor. They're worthless. Besides, mines are still useful in certain situations.
A: Okay okay go ahead. But we'll put a ban on sales, and if you dare produce it, we'll invade you.
B: Hey ! We need to protect ourselves from evils !
A: We will
B: Yeah sure and pigs can fly.
A:Ok, make mines. But don't dare use it on civilians or we'll woop your ass. And don't even try to sell it to other countries.
B. We don't have the know-how to make mines. We'll have to buy them
A: Allright. We'll sell you mines :-), but don't use them on civilians !
B: Mh your price is too high
A: Whatever, buy them but don't use them on civilians.
B: Mhhh we'll see...
A: Enough already ! We'll go blockade on you guys, our allies will help us !
B: Hey but you told me 5 minutes ago you were to sell me mines !
A: Mhhh...yeah not really !
B: Right right, we'll not buy it. (Phones to somecountry businessman who bought some seat in some Congress. Got an order for you guy !!)

Which may happen or not happen, but it's too late to stop production when it has happened. As U.S. and other countries has well understood you must stop production, of WMD ,stopping sales is almost unpossible.

Same applies to antipersonnel landmines. Unfortunately U.S. can't use the "moral suasion" card on mines anymore since it was spent to keep some stupid antipersonell landmine, really friggin useful in warfare.
posted by elpapacito at 5:56 PM on February 28, 2004

Whether the US signs a ban on landmines, doesn't sign a ban on landmines, or loudly extols the virtues of landmines while drunk at parties, the number of nations using landmines, and the number of people killed by landmines, will be about the same; ie, it will not vary.

Sounds a lot like an argument used by a certain other poster the other day, justifying other useful but unethical behaviour - 'But everybody's doin' it! What can it gain us if we stop doing it, when it's SOP for everyone else?'

Which is pathetic, (and patently wrong - reducing the number of mines will reduce the number of mines, over the long term - they're not a naturally occurring phenomenon, for goodness sakes) and is counter to the things that America claims it stands for. A few more thousand kids a year lose limbs? Bah, it's not our fault! We didn't physically place them in the ground, so our hands are clean!

Fuck you America.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:21 PM on February 28, 2004

"Do U.S. landmines contribute to the global problem?

The U.S. is one of just fifteen countries left in the world that produce or reserve the right to produce antipersonnel mines. U.S.-manufactured antipersonnel mines have been found by deminers in at least twenty-eight mine-affected countries or regions. The U.S. exported over 5.6 million antipersonnel mines to thirty-eight countries between 1969 and 1992 and stockpiled its antipersonnel mines in at least twelve foreign countries.

Do “smart” mines still pose a humanitarian threat?

The time when the mines are armed and when they self-destruct or fully self-deactivate can be as long as nineteen weeks. In theoretically perfect conditions all of these mines should destroy themselves. However, mines are damaged during delivery, two-to-five percent of self-destruct mechanisms fail, and up to ten percent of the mines fail to arm properly. This means that a proportion of these U.S. mines would always remain intact on the surface of the ground without any indication whether the mine is live or not. Since aircraft or artillery remotely deliver these mines in large numbers, they are not required to be marked, fenced, or monitored to exclude civilians. From a deminer’s perspective, all mines encountered must be treated as though they are live. The mines must be cleared one-at-a-time using the same procedures used to clear all mines. The humanitarian impact is still present regardless of whether the mine has a self-destruct mechanism. "

Human Rights Watch
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:27 PM on February 28, 2004

The problem with your analysis, elpapacito, is that your version of the US-signs-mine-ban goes far beyond the US signing a mine ban, or the US ceasing mine production. Actually threatening to attack a country for using mines is far different from ceasing to use mines.

Given that, you could also imagine a conversation like this:

A: Stop using mines.
B: But you have mines! Why should we stop using mines?
A: Because we'll drop a bomb through your roof if you don't.

Or for that matter,

A: We stopped using landmines, and think you should as well.
B: That's nice. But we don't think you'll actually stop us from using them, so so what? We've got people to kill here.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:08 PM on February 28, 2004

Sounds a lot like an argument used by a certain other poster the other day, justifying other useful but unethical behaviour - 'But everybody's doin' it! What can it gain us if we stop doing it, when it's SOP for everyone else?'

That's not what I said. I didn't say that everyone is using mines. I said that the US signing a ban on landmines would be ineffectual (at least, barring a commitment to actually make war on folks who use them, which is about as likely as the EU making such a commitment).

Assume for purposes of argument that there are million mines available to bad people who want to kill civilians, and that 10,000 more are available every year as replacements. Note that, since 1992, none of this stream of replacements is from the US. So if the US signs a ban on landmines, the next year there will still be a million landmines, and there will still be about 10,000 more every year, minus whatever few escape the US arsenals through pilferage. Or to put it differently, right now assume 100,000 people die each year from mines. I'm saying that if the US signed the treaty tomorrow, 100,000 people a year would keep on dying from landmines for a long, long time.

I'd certainly agree the US shouldn't be dropping mines outside clearly marked areas* with artillery and airdrops, and I'd agree that the US should agree to limit landmine use to clearly marked fields in DMZ's-or-equivalents. But the implicit idea that if the US would only sign a ban on landmines, then they would disappear -- or that their use would diminish by any marked degree -- is just silly.

*except maybe the mines that are part of runway-killers, but I'd count inside a military airfield as close-enough for a clearly demarcated area.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:30 PM on February 28, 2004

ROU: Correct, indeed I try to look at possible scenarios.

The *country involved* may as well decide to

A: We stopped *doing something recognized my someone to be evil*. Why don't you as well?

B: You did *above* ? Nice, it's none of our business as we don't do that
B1: Cute, *above* is against our best interest, too bad
B2: Cute, *above* is interesting, I think I'll join unconditionally
B3: Cute, *above* is interesting, I think I'll join if you do something additional
B4: We do *above* all the time, try to stop us if you like.
B5: *Above* is evil ? Naaaahhh !

All possible scenarios, with very different outcomes and consequences, not necessarily only in the military domain.

Obviously, signing a ban may not lead to an actual decrease of use of landmines, neither does it necessarily imply the U.S. or some other country with some military power will choose to enforce the ban by dropping bombs.

But I guess it is one good start if one later wants to be able to say, with some credibility, that they tried to systematically remove one (not every, but at least some) problem without falling into the trap of using a double standard and without resolving the issue at last-minute by the mere use of superior brute force (which unfortunately is still an option one must consider) but by leading trought examples and not by ass kicking.

Probably, if one spins the audience to believe ass kicking is the only solution to problems, ass kicking will be the demanded solution. Is it the best solution ? I don't think so.

On preview: But the implicit idea that if the US would only sign a ban on landmines, then they would disappear -- or that their use would diminish by any marked degree -- is just silly

Yeah of course it is very very likely that was has been done will not be deleted by a signature ; to be totally realistic, I'd say it's impossible. Too many mines, too many fools. But I try to think for the future: bulding a mine is relatively trivial, yet you must be able to do it on a mass scale to reduce costs and time. For instance very few individuals are able to build an efficient reliable gun, many more can easily build a mine ; but one thing is to have mines mass produced and sold, another is to have them built by amateurs (at least from the quantity point of view).
posted by elpapacito at 8:35 PM on February 28, 2004

Q: Who is #1 right now emplacing mines that are frequently killing both the enemy and civilians.

A: The Iraqi and non-Iraqi "insurgents."

Q: How hard is it for someone to make a mine?

A: You get a large shell casing and pound a nail through the bottom. Then you put a bullet on top of the tip of the nail inside the shell casing. You bury it. When somebody steps on the top of the bullet, it goes off about 20% of the time, putting a bullet through their foot or better.
One person can make hundreds of mines in a few hours.
Real cheap.

Q: Can be ban bad things?

A: Not as long as there are bad people.
posted by kablam at 6:34 AM on February 29, 2004

kablam: Yeah that is technically an hidden mine and provided that one have access to bullets anybody can make a little minefield very easily. That's hardly a secret I guess since Vietnam ? Or maybe even since the day bullets triggered by percussion were invented ?

But they're also very easily detected with a metal detector, do not detonate when metal detector magnetic field "pass" trought them, may at "best" kill the one who stepped on it , but more likely just injury his foot (unless of course you use far less avaiable big caliber bullets).Plus as you say they don't go off all the time, 20% is quite lame for a mine to be called effective. And they can't be spreaded on a field by helicopter or just spreaded like seeds, you must dig a hole in the ground to make them work.

Have a loook at this array of mines and this nice display of "dumb" cluster bomblets

Mass production, sale and distribution of such shit is many orders of magnitude worse then the bullet and nail, imho.
posted by elpapacito at 8:00 AM on February 29, 2004

elpapacito: "worse" is relative. One of the "worst" minefields in existence is in Germany, from WWI. It is simple mines with high explosive and mustard agent, located on what is now a major military training area.
It is "worst" because it is unbelievably hard to get rid of. The best guess I've heard to eliminate it is to first build an enormous plastic tent over it, then use only robots to remove the mines. Then to dig up the ground to a depth of 5-10 feet and incinerate it.
Oh, and those mines can't be detected with minesweepers, either.

Little or big, mines are pestiferous, I will grant you; but it is like outlawing guns. A zip gun with a .22 bullet may not be as magnificent as an Uzi, but it will do the job.

I suppose you could say,

"When mines are outlawed, only outlaws will use mines."

Sounds silly on the surface, until you consider that "outlaws", in this case, means countries.

Smarter mines *are* better, however, in that in the long run they will kill fewer civilians. That is unless the "outlaws" do like the Russians did in WWII, and force civilians and POWs to march across minefields to clear them.
posted by kablam at 8:27 AM on February 29, 2004

kablam: indeed for practical point of view "smart" mines (self-destructing) are a very welcome step toward reduction of so called "collateral damages"; and of course given that with freedom comes responsability another good step may be that of tracing each and every mine produced so that the company responsible for its production shall pay damages if the mine doesn't explode as per contract.

It will be very interesting to see how and if this will be accepted
posted by elpapacito at 10:13 AM on February 29, 2004

a truly intelligent land mine would explode on the prototype bench, killing its designer.
posted by quonsar at 11:45 AM on February 29, 2004

in fact they're no longer called intelligent weapons, only smart :) and I doubt they're so friggin brilliant as well
posted by elpapacito at 11:51 AM on February 29, 2004

elpapacito: There is a long legal tradition of protecting government contractors from liability from the use, or even the misuse or abuse of their weapons.

I might add that the US has taken some pretty bizarre steps to defend its weapons. Often by stating that its weapons are not being used against "people", but against the "equipment" the people are carrying.
Technically, the M-16 rifle is an illegal weapon, because it is a high-velocity "killing" weapon, not a normal velocity "wounding" weapon like the AK-47. So US soldiers don't shoot at the enemy, they shoot at the enemies' rifle, load bearing equipment and uniform.

(I will give the US a little credit here, because some of the anti-war conventions are so extreme that they try to outlaw virtually all weapons, and war, and even self-defense. Dozens of countries include riders that negate most of these treaties, before they will sign on.)

(Russia was renowned for always scrupulously obeying the *letter* of such treaties, while violating the hell out of their *spirit*; with the US visa-versa. So the US frequently got in trouble over nit picky stuff, while trying very hard to not commit *real* war crimes.)

One other mine worth mention is the gigantic WWI underground mine that didn't go off and is "lost". Literally *tons* of high explosive underground, near Ypres. A second mine, it's twin, blew up in the 1950s or 60s, after being hit by lightning. We're talking maybe 50 tons of explosives.
posted by kablam at 5:46 PM on February 29, 2004