A Dutch soldier lassos a land mine before removing it from a road during a training exercise in Germany in 2015. Photo by Justin De Hoyos/Wikimedia Commons.

“Breaching under fire is one of the most dangerous tasks combat engineers undertake,” said Gary Toombs. From Ukraine to Gaza, Toombs dismantled explosives for over 30 years and now works at Humanity and Inclusion, an independent aid organization focused on disability in regions affected by conflict and disaster. Having worked with the British Army, as well as on humanitarian missions, he is concerned about anti-personnel mines starting to “re-enter mainstream defence planning” in production, procurement, training, and doctrine.

Over the past year, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland have withdrawn from the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, sometimes known as the Ottawa Treaty. In February, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the country aimed to be able to mine its borders within 48 hours of a threat. While India, Myanmar, Russia, and South Korea have long produced landmines, reports suggest that Ukraine is now also actively producing and developing anti-personnel mines, and Finnish and Polish companies signalled readiness to produce last year. Ukraine recently suspended its obligations under the Treaty, which prohibits withdrawal during active conflict.

Anti-personnel mines are indiscriminate weapons, killing soldiers and civilians without distinction. The Treaty, signed by 161 countries, prohibits their production, procurement, and use on humanitarian grounds. None of the major mine-producing countries signed on. Still, countries overwhelmingly agreed that the proliferation of these weapons contributes to humanitarian crises and that humanitarian norms should trump military utility. Humanitarian disarmament and civil society organizations have repeatedly condemned countries that have reneged on their commitments.

Certain types of mines, such as command-detonated Claymore mines and anti-tank mines that require greater force for detonation, are not prohibited by the Ottawa Treaty, as the presence of a “human in the loop” is meant to reduce indiscriminate harm. As a preventative measure, mines are also evolving to include so-called “smart” features, such as automatic deactivation after a set period. Since withdrawals from the Treaty, the private sector has moved quickly on emerging landmine technologies. As part of Poland’s East Shield, for example, Warsaw-based company MBF Group is spearheading a consortium developing fields of automated landmines along the borders with Russia and Belarus. These systems will rely on mesh networks of “distributed sensors and controlled activation,” according to the company.

But even so-called smart mines can fail, remaining active beyond their intended lifespan—something that also occurs with cluster munitions, Toombs noted. He is not convinced anti-personnel mines improve military utility either. “Once you lay mines, you’re also restricting your own freedom of manoeuvre,” he said. What appears efficient in planning can look very different on the ground. Plans shift. Offensives pivot. Withdrawals happen. Flanks collapse. Maps are lost. Personnel change. Terrain shifts with the climate. “And suddenly you’re breaching your own obstacles, often under pressure and under fire.”

There are “smarter options,” he added, including “visible obstacles, surveillance, and controlled defensive measures” that do not rely on indiscriminate weapons. In Ukraine, “drones have proven highly effective at destroying hardware, gathering intelligence, and disrupting manoeuvres.”

Some security scholars also question the military utility argument. Instead, they argue that the normalization of landmines creates a “false sense of security, exploitable by opponents,” pointing to historic failures to halt offensives and the heavy civilian toll.

“The commitment to ban APMs is unconditional; it does not matter if the state party is at risk or not,”........

© Canadian Dimension