The 1997 Antipersonnel Landmine Ban Treaty was a humanitarian triumph, backed by Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana and landmine survivors themselves. The global advocacy campaign was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The treaty has encouraged the destruction of over 55 million stockpiled mines and the clearance of more than 1,500 square miles of contaminated land, an area larger than the metropolitan area of Helsinki. The treaty was also a strategic win for smaller states bullied into neglecting their own security interests during the Cold War. The fall of the Berlin Wall allowed governments to choose an independent path toward a multilateral, rule-governed world.
But the Mine Ban Treaty is under threat. Not just from Russia, which has used mines in Ukraine. Nor only from the new US Administration, which has put at risk life-saving aid for demining. Five European states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Finland — are threatening a self-inflicted strategic defeat by withdrawing from the treaty.
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If you’ve spent significant time around landmines in the real world, you know withdrawal would be an appalling misjudgment. Working as an aid worker in Bosnia and northern Iraq in the early 2000s, I developed a cold dread of overgrown fields and abandoned houses. In Afghanistan, I saw Russian antipersonnel mines just on the other side of a flimsy fence along a major road, emerging with erosion from the ground.
But in two decades of research in mine-affected communities — speaking with hundreds of survivors, deminers, aid workers, soldiers and diplomats in Southeast Asia, Africa and the Balkans — I’ve seen the Mine Ban Treaty transform communities for the better. Clearing minefields encourages food production and opens new opportunities for trade. Prosthetics help mine victims find jobs. Mine risk education keeps kids safe.
Just four months ago, all five of the countries threatening to withdraw joined a European Union statement asserting that “Any use of anti-personnel mines anywhere, anytime, and by any actor remains completely unacceptable.” Minefields, they insisted, “cause harm, instill fear, deny access and impede socio-economic development.”
The countries claim that quitting the ban opens up a broader range of tools in the fight against Russia and to fortify their borders. The rationale relies on outmoded Soviet mine warfare doctrine, which insisted that massive barrier minefields could deter invasion. But this assumption has been proven wrong numerous times. Soviet minefields in Afghanistan failed to stymie the mujahideen rebellion, but maimed thousands of Afghan civilians. Iraqi barrier minefields barely delayed the US invasion in 2003.
A barrier minefield would likely only delay a ground invasion briefly and do nothing to stop aerial or naval attacks.
In Chechnya and Ukraine, Russia’s military has demonstrated it is willing to accept sickening levels of casualties. A barrier minefield would likely only delay a ground invasion briefly and do nothing to stop aerial or naval attacks.
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The cost of laying minefields will likely be borne by Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Finnish people. Extensive research has shown that it is civilians who bear the overwhelming brunt of landmines. And the disastrous effects impact generations to come. Landmines laid in North Africa during WWII are still killing civilians.
The only time that landmines arguably offer a strategic advantage is in targeted ambushes, demonstrated by the deadly impact of improvised explosive devices. But in such cases, a command-detonated device is more able to be directed against the intended target and can be compliant with the Mine Ban Treaty, which only bans victim-activated mines.
European security in this moment won’t come from the old-fashioned militarism that is at the root of current instability. Instead, in Estonia’s own words to the UN last year, we must commit to “global efforts to strengthen international law and multilateralism.” European leaders must have the courage to build alternatives rooted in collective security, democracy and human rights. The Mine Ban Treaty is a crucial foundation stone of such an order.
