The graveyards of the past:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

While we tend to think of mines killing people as something that happens in say, Vietnam or Afghanistan, it still happens in places where the expectation is of a more peaceful reality.

In fact, land mines dating to the US Civil War were actually discovered in Alabama, evidently still able to go off and thus blow somebody's foot off when they weren't expecting it.

http://blogs.shu.edu/diplomacy/files/archives/3_bloomfield.pdf

This, however, is not the only place where land mines and leftover weapons of war still kill people where it would not be expected. World War II-vintage mines and explosives are still killing people into the 21st Century. Some of this, like taking old bombs off of the battlefields qualifies for entry in the Darwin Awards, but other instances are rather more tragic than black comedy. This to me is a sign of the somber reality that underlines war as it is, not as fiction would have it be. The idea that a war that ended 67 years ago is still killing people in the modern age is something that is rather horrid to consider, but it's again reality.

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16211938,00.html?maca=en-tagesschau_englisch-335-rdf-mp

To me this raises the more complicated issue of use of mines and cluster bomb weaponry in warfare and whether or not morality and military efficiency could or even can coincide. While there is an international treaty that outlaws use of cluster weaponry (which for the uninitiated means a bomb that explodes and leaves a lot of little bombs. Think dropping shotgun pellets from the sky, and the little bomblets have a lovely tendency to kill children these days, adding further misery to a word already over-saturated with it), all the Great Power signatories to this treaty retain military pacts with the USA, which has not ratified it, and accept US military basees on their territory, indicating something of irony and half-heartedness in this particular limitation.

Cluster bombs are very efficient in a war of mechanized armies. For that matter land mines themselves, viewed from the cold calculus of military logic *are* efficient weapons. It kills or maims people without involvng actual humans, saving labor for one side and amplifying it on the other. However this is a calculus that views human lives in a purely number-crunching fashion, not in a sense that these are actual people who'd be mutilated and killed.



Personally, I find these weapons to be utterly detestable at a conceptual level, however as an American, I do not find myself as able as I'd like to say they should not be used. The land mines, after all, in the DMZ are extremely thick and are a part of a dense fortification belt that's kept North Korea from self-destructing in an attempt to invade South Korea again. The USA maintains those and does so with an eye to keeping South Korea independent. This does not give much room to say that a weapon that serves a purpose here is always evil, even if I find it evil in concept, purpose, and results no matter how it's used.

What say you? Is it possible to differentiate a purpose of a particular category of weapon like land mines from their utility? Or should some types of weapons be erased altogether from existence because their purpose is too evil to sanction?

Comments

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

They're still finding bombs that were dropped from planes in Germany and England, so I don't think that the time factor is a real consideration in the issue. There are plenty of other reasons for/against land mines though.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

To me it is one, but it's more from the POV that people generations after a war shouldn't still be dying from weapons left over from something they themselves had nothing to do with. It's a pure example of wasting innocent life.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

My point is are you going to include regular dropped bombs in your invective? Or any other variety of munition that hangs around long after the war is done?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I would, yes, as they've been killing people, too. And to put it bluntly WWII-vintage strategic bombing was evil on two levels: it didn't work worth a damn and it was based on the principle that killing enough civilians would collapse enemy morale.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

I find these weapons to be utterly detestable at a conceptual level

I don't understand this logic. The concept is to deny an enemy easy movement over a piece of ground without having to risk the time, resources and lives required to do so with a conventional force. So, you can protect a flank and slow an advancing enemy long enough to counter attack without having to weaken other more critical defenses prematurely. They are also a force multiplier in a defensive situation, channeling and disrupting enemy attacks. As you rightly note, their liberal use in Korea has certainly helped keep the North at bay and saved countless lives.

Now, clearly you can find criminal uses of land mines. Like any weapon, they can be used in lawless and detestable ways. Every right thinking person should detest targeting civilian farmers or children with land mines placed randomly in populated areas. Equally clear is that landmines used in a legitimate way can be thoughtlessly or even recklessly left un-decommissioned. To the extent that this is deliberate, it is obviously detestable. To the extent that it is inadvertent, we can chalk it up to another reason war itself is detestable and why we should resort to it only in the most terrible of circumstances. But these detestable acts and detestable results are not inherent in the design of a landmine or the conception of how they are to be used.

This seems to me like another case of "because bad people do bad things with X, X is therefore bad in itself." No. People are bad, human actions are detestable. A landmine is just a collection of metal, plastic and explosives without a human hand to bury it and set the trigger.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

That's another way of putting what I was trying to say. :)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The concept, as I see it, is that it's simply dedicated to maiming people more than killing them, and doing so by utterly impersonal means. I find that detestable in that the thing that gets you was planted by someone you never see and you never have a chance to fight back when actually in the situation. It's an emotional dislike of the concept, and it's akin to my distaste for strategic bombing on the dual grounds that it's never worked and that it amounts to murdering enough of the enemy until he quits.

However just because something itself is despicable does not mean every use of it necessarily would be. As the DMZ allusion noted.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

simply dedicated to maiming people more than killing them

I think most landmines are meant to kill, but some landmines are dedicated to maiming people. I'd agree that those are detestable. Almost all battlefield weapons, however, while meant to kill, still wound much more than they kill. This isn't by design, it is just a consequence of imperfect use. From a military perspective, however, the only criteria is putting an enemy soldier out commission.

I find that detestable in that the thing that gets you was planted by someone you never see and you never have a chance to fight back

War isn't about being chivalrous. It never has been, even when there were chevaliers. War is about getting the other side to submit as quickly as possible while losing as few of your own people as possible. It is brutal, savage, cold blooded and heartless. War is cruelty, a great man said, and you cannot refine it. It is necessary that it is so. The worse it is, the sooner it is over and the fewer people have to suffer its depredations. Kindness, in war, is cruelty.

it amounts to murdering enough of the enemy until he quits

You have to find me an example of a war that was won any other way than by murdering enough of the enemy that they quit.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Wars aren't won through attrition. They are won through the strategic deprivation of resources. Nobody ever fights a war with the general battle-plan "kill all the other guys". Killing other guys is a side-effect of seizing or attempting to capture resources and objectives. The objective of war is not to kill all the other guys. Killing all the other guys is a hassle and a distraction.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) I would say that the Bouncing Betty types of mines certainly qualify even if we consider other mines somehow acceptable. However wars are not necessarily won by boosting the casualty rates of the other side. After all, this didn't work in Korea or Vietnam for the USA, did it?

2) Only in theory or in the abstract. In practice wars tend to be about any number of things and can end well short of either side submitting. Not all wars are waged to the last ditch and the last bullet, it's only those that are so waged that become grinding, sustained, unremitting horror. And even then in a modern war the beau ideal is to bury your enemy in a weight of firepower that progressively isolates your side from the effects of what that firepower does.

3) Well, for starters there's the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Anglo-Zanzibari War, the War of 1812, the Russo-Ottoman War of the 1830s, just for a small list.

[404.livejournal.com]

Well there is the idea of economic strangulation, General Scott's Anaconda plan was to cut the rebel states off from outside material support, and slowly make it impossible for the southern governments to provide support for the military while undercutting civilian support for the war.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Landmines don't kill people, people who lay them kill people. Amirite?

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

Inanimate objects are not generally known for their initiative.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

OK, let me just explain why this argument is naive.

Humans are the moral agents. That part is correct.

Inanimate objects are not generally known for their initiative. That part is also correct.

Stay with me.

Technologies however amplify moral choices and have inbuilt telic inclinations (a landmine could be used as a doorstop or a paperweight, but it's not as functional in those roles).

The particular purposes of a landmine enhance the moral choices of the actor (including risks) creating a situation that they would otherwise be unable to carry out. By removing that option, the moral choices are restricted and less effective.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

Another issue is--whoever wins--ends up wanting the other side to go away. Unless the "home team" did the mining, it's possible for them to either not know or disregard the locations of mines and unexploded ordnance for a long time. Additionally, another factor is many battlefields are so disrupted by battles that it can be years before civilians re-enter an area in enough numbers to really be at risk of unexploded ordnance or unidentified minefields.

The alternative might be having people from the "other side" staying resident in your country for a lot longer than you desire which can also create political conflict, especially when there's been a regime change.

So, the uses and intentions may be neutral or even noble (to protect a location without needing to kill people) but the change in situation creates a compromise between safety (i.e. removal) and sovereignty (which may also relate to safety).

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Minefields are primarily used to funnel enemy movement into concentrated fields of fire. They're a roadblock with explosives. It forces the other guy to choose to take the time to dismantle/neutralize the minefield (thus giving you more time) or to follow the funnel and take their chances with the artillery.

What say you? Is it possible to differentiate a purpose of a particular category of weapon like land mines from their utility? Or should some types of weapons be erased altogether from existence because their purpose is too evil to sanction?
It's sort of becoming moot. Mines are so well... obsolete when it comes to modern and next-gen warfare. There are deployable minefields via artillery shells which will cover ground and self-detonate after a set period of time. This is because old-fashioned buried-in-place minefields are laborious, expensive and also deny you movement. So minefields are cumbersome, counter-productive and annoying as all hell to deal with. You have to record where it is, lay it all out, make sure everyone else knows where it is, and then maintain it.

So I think they'll largely go away.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Or should some types of weapons be erased altogether from existence because their purpose is too evil to sanction?
You need to stop hedging on the morality here and just outlaw war. Of course, this is impossible, since war is simply the act of ignoring the rules in the first place. It'd be like saying we should outlaw crime. I don't know what to think of general provisions for rating some weapons worse than others. Most often they are merely reflections of people's comfort level with one form of violence over another. Ultimately, war itself is the problem, and concentrating on the weapons is just... well it's not really committing to the problem or taking it seriously.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, I agree with that, but as you noted it's impossible to outlaw war. It's why I think that the laws of war should be more strictly defined and much more strictly enforced than they are.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

It'd have to be terribly calculated and balanced to avoid the "season of war" mentality that dominated Europe for so long. They had so many rules war just became a meaningless exercise of endless "controlled" violence where you went out to field every damn year and accomplished absolutely nothing. This tends to piss off the peasants.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

You do realize that "the laws of war" were constructed and are maintained to protect the legacy of various imperial powers as well as allow a sizable political and military advantage to status quo powers?

Things like the communist revolution, what's going on in Syria, and many other forms of warfare where unified movements of a country's population use military means to overthrow "legitimate" governments are specifically seen as illegal under the laws of warfare.

So, any updated, strict definitions really are unlikely to affect a large number of modern wars unless we get into suppressing other people's civil wars.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I kind of figured that they would ultimately because this sooner or later happens with all military technology. You don't see a lot of people using the testudo formation these days or using siege engines, after all. I was noting, however, that the land-mine issue is rather broader than people expected it would be.

[caerbannogbunny.livejournal.com]

Land mines are convenient if you know where the enemy WILL be. You don't have to train them, they don't (always) require a human to fire them, and--in places like Iraq where the other side has better training with more accurate weapons--they (IED's in this case) let you compensate for lack of training, bad eye health, etc.

[danalwyn.livejournal.com]

I think it's better to say that this is how conventional forces use landmines, as a barrier to provide time, or as a funnel to force the enemy to concentrate in space. Unconventional forces use land mines in unconventional ways. The Vietcong did not employ land mines in the same heavy fields that the US does in conventional warfare. I suspect that if you were to give a bevy of mines to the Taliban that they would employ them the same way that they do IEDs, sometimes independently of any actual forces.

This is why I'm not sure whether mines will become obsolete anytime soon. They're cheap, potentially easy to obtain, and can be used for large-scale area denial by making it very difficult to move down roads. Since the key in warfare seems to have switched from conquering territory and defeating enemy forces to trying to maintain control over what you've already taken, I think they have a long future ahead of them in low-intensity conflicts.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I see what you are saying, but if a large portion of the supply and production is choked off because the major powers don't find any real use for them anymore, insurgencies and such will have a much harder time getting them, since there would be fewer and fewer stockpiles of them to get a hold of.

I was a Combat Engineer and even though we are still trained in the use and implementation of mines and minefields, we never actually use them. The only reason the USA keeps mines in inventory is just in case someone else uses them, and we retaliate by using them back. But for the most part, not one General or war-planner gives a crap about minefields anymore. It's all about moving fast, moving far, and moving behind. We "won" Iraq in 3 weeks not because of superior firepower, we just went around them and they were all like, "Well fuck it I guess, we surrender."

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

And this is a bit of a tangent, but the main reason US has so much trouble with insurgencies is because the main US calculus for warfighting is "economy of force" which is not conducive to "occupying entire fucking countries." The second the Baath regime fell down, every single stockpile, weapon, shell and bullet was immediately seized by everyone with a desire to have those things.

Think about from the US domestic side: How many of us know where the local National Guard armory is? Quite a few of us. What happens when they just get abandoned? We'd all go and take the stuff. We invaded Iraq with 180,000 people, and Rummy et. al. hilariously believed that 180,000 people could, well, you know, prevent anything.