Background
History of Landmines
   •The Two World Wars
   •Changing Uses
   •Technological Advances
   •Production and Trade
Impact of Landmines
Impact of Landmines - part 2

History of Landmines

The Two World Wars
The first improvised precursors of landmines were used in the 15th century at the battle of Agincourt in England. Subsequently they were used the 19th century during the American Civil War where they were referred to as 'land torpedos'. World War I witnessed the introduction of tanks to break the impasse of trench warfare. Anti-tank mines were developed to counter this new invention.

However, it was not until World War II that landmines became a prevalent weapon on the battlefield. During World War II, more than 300 million antitank mines, filled with powerful, lightweight trinitrotoluene (TNT), were deployed by all warring parties. The military use of antitank mines was compromised, however, because they could be easily removed and re-deployed by the enemy. Smaller antipersonnel landmines were developed to address this problem. They were deployed around antitank mines to prevent their removal. One of the most effective antipersonnel landmines during this time was the German-made "bouncing betty," which was designed to jump from the ground to hip-height when activated and to propel hundreds of steel fragments within a wide range. Military forces soon began to use antipersonnel landmines as a weapon in their own right.

Changing Uses
Originally, both antitank and antipersonnel landmines were developed as tactical, defensive weapons. They were intended to protect troops, military bases, and key installations like power plants and water supplies. They were also used to delay the advance of enemy troops, to deny them access to certain areas and resources, and to burden them with soldiers injured by landmines. "Nuisance minefields" - two or three mines placed at the entrance of a house or designated area - were intended to have a demoralizing psychological effect on troops. Soldiers during World War I and World War II lived in constant fear of mines and invested valuable time and energy clearing suspected mined areas.

After World War II, advances in weapons technology accelerated rapidly. In the 1960s, an antipersonnel landmine was developed that could be delivered by air and automatically activated as it hit the ground. These scatterable mines made it possible to rapidly deploy large numbers of mines, rather than the more traditional, time-consuming method of manually planting each mine by hand. Mines were often used as an offensive and defensive weapon, driving a wedge between opposing forces and their military bases, and channeling these forces into adverse terrain. Increasingly, scatterables and hand-deployed mines were used against civilian populations - to terrorize communities, to displace entire villages, to render fertile agricultural land unusable, and to destroy national infrastructures like roads, bridges, and water sources.

Scatterables were first introduced by the United States during the Vietnam War. However, they had severe consequences for U.S. troops, who often found themselves retreating through their own, unmarked minefields. It has been estimated that nearly one-third of all U.S. casualties during the war were due to landmines deployed by U.S. troops themselves. These BLU-43 and BLU-44, nicknamed "dragon teeth" because of their shape, were the forerunners of the Soviet-made PFM-1, or "butterfly" mine, which was extensively used during the conflict in Afghanistan in the late 1970s and 1980s.

With the proliferation of low-intensity conflicts in the 1960s and 1970s in many less developed areas of the world, landmines became the weapon of choice for many government troops, paramilitaries, and guerilla forces. They were cheap, effective, and durable weapons of war, readily available, and easy to manufacture or procure locally. As landmines became more prevalent, the distinction between their defensive and offensive uses became blurred. In addition, the traditional rule of mapping and marking all minefields became increasingly disregarded after World War II. The remote delivery of scatterable mines further led to imprecise minefield boundaries and made adequate mapping and marking of minefields altogether impossible.

Technological Advances
In recent decades, new technologies have transformed the improvised "dumb" landmine, traditionally used for defensive purposes, into a sophisticated "smart" mine that is now used largely for offensive purposes. Technological advances have made landmines more dangerous for civilians and more difficult, if not impossible, to detect. Greater numbers of mines can be laid more rapidly than ever before. Furthermore, as landmines have become more sophisticated, mine clearance technologies have developed very slowly. In general, the most effective and reliable method of clearing mines continues to be manual demining - a deminer probing the ground with a prod, checking the ground for mines one inch at a time.

Technologically advanced mines include remote delivery systems and mines with low metal content, electronic sensors, and self-destruct mechanisms. Remote delivery systems deploy large numbers of scatterable mines from the air, which automatically activate as they hit the ground. Plastic mines contain very little metal content, they are extremely durable, and they are virtually impossible to detect with traditional metal detectors. While mines with electronic sensors are intended to differentiate between animals and humans, and are often capable of identifying the numbers of passersby before they explode, they do not distinguish between soldiers and civilians, and between children and adults. Accordingly, even these "smart" mines are indiscriminate weapons of war.

Self-destructing mines are designed to automatically explode after a pre-set time. They are used largely by military forces to shape the battlefield and to be destroyed once troops have moved beyond areas of confrontation. They are intended to minimize the long-term scope of danger to civilians. However, one of the limitations of these self-destructing mines is that they are not sufficiently reliable.

Self-neutralizing mines, a variation of self-destructing mines, are also designed to reduce the danger of landmines. These mines defuse themselves after a period of time without exploding. There is a failure rate associated with these mines, however, and individuals who locate these mines are often unable to determine whether or not they have been neutralized. Combined, these two factors make self-neutralizing mines an even less favorable alternative than self-destructing mines.

As landmines become more technically sophisticated and advanced, the likelihood of their malfunctioning also increases. While these new "smart" mines are readily available around the world, most warring parties, including rebels, paramilitary groups, and governments in low-intensity conflicts, have preferred to use traditional "dumb" mines because they are cheaper, simpler to use, and easier to manufacture.

Production and Trade
The production and trade of antipersonnel landmines is a secretive business. Governments and companies are reluctant to disclose information about their involvement in the production or sale of mines. The Arms Project of Human Rights Watch has compiled a list of nearly 100 companies in 54 countries - both in the developed and developing world - that have manufactured more than 340 models of antipersonnel landmines or their components, at a production rate of five to ten million mines a year. Conventional antipersonnel landmines cost between $3 and $27 to produce, while technologically advanced mines, like scatterables and self-destructing mines, can cost up to 50 times more.

While it is difficult to obtain complete and reliable information about the production and sale of landmines, there is an urgent need for transparency in order to minimize and eventually eliminate the dangers to civilians. This issue has become of paramount importance since the Mine Ban Treaty entered into force on March 1, 1999. The treaty prohibits the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of antipersonnel landmines and calls for their destruction. The publication of information on the production and trade of mines is essential to properly enforce the treaty and to ensure that states parties comply with its provisions.

The Mine Ban Treaty has already had some tangible effects on the production and trade of landmines, even among countries that have not yet become party to the treaty. By 2007, only 13 of the original 54 mine-producing countries had the capacity to manufacture antipersonnel landmines or their components, and all traditional exporters of mines have officially ceased their activities.