“Hard Questions About Land Mines”

By Patrick M. Cronin and Ted Sahlin
The Washington Post, 09 July 1997

There can be no disagreement on the
tragic consequences of land mines when
they kill or maim innocents. The
grotesque images of crippled or seriously
wounded victims of war always will be
emotionally gripping. Unfortunately, the
alternatives to the painstaking
U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament
— either the so-called Ottawa process or
the proposed legislation co-sponsored by
Sens. Patrick Leahy and Chuck Hagel to
forbid U.S. military forces from using
anti-personnel land mines — are more
nostrums than solutions.

Before the president is urged to
unilaterally relinquish the U.S. right to
use land mines, he should be given
straight answers to three hard questions:

• What is the source of the problem?
  Like terrorist bombs, land mines have
  been and will remain an inexpensive means
  of inflicting casualties. Sadly, cheap
  and easy technology (land mines generally
  cost less than $ 10 each and can be
  constructed by almost anyone) lends to
  their proliferation. The largest makers
  and exporters of anti-personnel land
  mines are China, Iraq, Iran and North
  Korea.

U.S.-controlled land mines are not
killing or maiming innocent people
overseas. We halted the export of
anti-personnel land mines in 1992, but
even before that Congress regulated their
export. The United States now stocks
“smart” mines that
self-destruct within two weeks. President
Clinton has ordered the armed forces to
use smart mines until a global ban is
reached and to destroy stocks of older
“dumb” mines. The
“smart” mines used in the
Persian Gulf War cut off the Iraqi
Republican Guard and saved countless
lives among coalition soldiers. The
proposed Leahy-Hagel legislation and the
Ottawa process would eliminate even these
smart mines while not getting at the
source of the dumb mines, which are the
most direct threat to innocent victims.

• Will our abandonment of land mines
  solve the problem? Obviously, it is
  difficult for a self-imposed U.S. ban to
  solve the problem if our mines are not
  its source. In addition, the argument
  that U.S. moral leadership will reduce
  the source of the problem can be
  entertained only with incredulity. The
  countries that are the largest source of
  the problem are the least susceptible to
  moral suasion from the international
  community. Non-state actors or military
  movements are even less sensitive.
  Less-developed countries and armed
  factions around the world will continue
  to resort to mines as a means of leveling
  the battlefield. If the United States
  unilaterally relinquishes all
  anti-personnel land mines, it will be
  exerting moral leadership for no
  substantive result while denying itself a
  valuable war-fighting capability.
• How will a ban affect our ability to
  fight wars and protect the lives of
  Americans? The president has been a
  staunch advocate of continued global
  engagement, and Secretary of State
  Madeleine Albright has cogently
  articulated why the United States is
  unique in its ability to prevent and
  limit conflict. A blanket proscription on
  land mines would irreducibly weaken the
  U.S. military’s ability to conduct its
  mission.

The Korean peninsula and the Persian
Gulf are perhaps the two hottest flash
points on the planet. It is not difficult
to imagine how increasing internal decay
in the North could trigger an explosion.
At this critical juncture, it would be
foolhardy to diminish any part of the
U.S. deterrent and thereby potentially
send the wrong message to Kim Jong-Il and
the military leadership in Pyongyang.

Likewise, the leaders of Iran and Iraq
would view the U.S. elimination of
self-destructing anti-personnel land
mines from our Persian Gulf defense plans
only as an opportunity to improve their
fighting capability. In both cases, the
United States — unilaterally — would be
assisting potential adversaries.

Finally, what message does it send to
our soldiers and Marines if their
civilian leaders prohibit the use of land
mines to stake out the moral high ground
when they know that they will face
enemies not bound by a similar constraint
nor by our value system?

What can be done to ameliorate the
problem without hastily jeopardizing our
own fighting force? In addition to
persevering with the step-by-step
Conference on Disarmament process, we can
give U.S. forces the advantage in mine
warfare by increasing counter-mine
technology and equipment, increase
training in de-mining operations and
increase aid to U.S. military
medical-assistance teams in providing
prosthetic devices and training to
victims. These modest steps address both
the humanitarian problem posed by land
mines and the U.S. national interest.

Patrick M. Cronin is deputy
director of the Institute for
National Strategic Studies,
National Defense University, and
director of its Strategy and
Policy Analysis program, where
Ted Sahlin, an Army colonel, is
senior military fellow. This
essay represents their personal
views and not those of the U.S.
government.