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Landmines help save lives and are our best hope for peace

By Alexander Deane - posted Friday, 6 August 2004


Perhaps. But given the willingness of many in the international community to flout rules on nuclear material, it seems unlikely that those most likely to misuse weaponry will follow our lead on land mines.

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 prescribed 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 can't deploy landmines, because they're so insecure. Once the 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 don't march on your neighbour's towns. Furthermore nations that want to use landmines will do so regardless of the position taken by Australia (or any other nation) - as demonstrated by the current prolific use of mines despite the mass of signatories to the Ottawa convention.
 
Besides, banning such weapons reeks of hypocrisy when we applaud its use in certain arenas, with good cause. Applied in particular places, land mines have obvious benefits. In the Korean peninsula, a land border separates two large armies. The North's army, a million men strong, stands one and a half hour's advance away from Seoul. Land mines, clearly demarcated and deployed, make a surprise advance - and thus, war - much less likely. Whilst a wider desire to keep landmines as a military option was also at play, the refusal of the Oslo conference to grant an exception for the Korean theatre was the immediate cause of US withdrawal from the Ottawa convention. The situation on the India-Pakistan border, one of the most contested borders in the world, is less immediately conducive to landmine deployment because of the wide, occupied areas such as Kashmir that are under disputed ownership; but nevertheless constructive use of landmines in that arena is potentially possible too: perhaps a logic that has contributed to the refusal of both India and Pakistan to sign the convention.

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Furthermore, in general terms landmines boast obvious military benefits that ought to be considered. They are easy and quick to deploy. They can force an advancing enemy to take an approach or position in which they are at a disadvantage. They can save lives - the lives of soldiers that would otherwise be lost defending the territory they can guard. They permit the deployment elsewhere of the troops that would otherwise be required. Injuries to personnel from landmines slow down the unit concerned, reducing their efficiency. Landmines deter advance from a strategic perspective - advancing is harder; and from a psychological perspective - the prospect of advance is frightening. These benefits may seem of little use to Australian forces at the moment, but - as recent events have shown - our military increasingly finds itself operating in new arenas and new conditions at short notice - in many such places, these advantages would be useful for Australian troops and might save Australian lives. And on a practical level, all these aims will be catered for in another way if landmines are unavailable: as long as grenades and pressure plates are legal, this is a rather a moot discussion as when combined, they form an inefficient alternative to landmines anyway.

The horrifying injuries sustained by civilians, often years after conflicts have ended, have been a powerful force in motivating the opinion of international civil society against landmine use. The deaths of scores of people - often children - from unattended anti-personnel landmines (APLs) is to be lamented. But, as Michael Renner observes, 90 per cent of armament casualties result from small arms fire. To take on land mines is to attack a small proportion of the ten per cent, an element that, properly used, can save many civilian lives from those that would do them harm. We should do our best to stop such deaths - but not by removing a prime tool of warfare from our arsenal.

It is at first glance counterintuitive to suggest that landmines save lives. But until groups of people no longer wish to harm one another, their defensive capability can and will prove useful. It is time to abandon the landmine ban.

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About the Author

Alexander Deane is a Barrister. He read English Literature at Trinity College, Cambridge and took a Masters degree in International Relations as a Rotary Scholar at Griffith University. He is a World Universities Debating Champion and is the author of The Great Abdication: Why Britain’s Decline is the Fault of the Middle Class, published by Imprint Academic. A former chief of staff to David Cameron MP in the UK, he also works for the Liberal Party in Australia.

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