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A better idea is to just get rid of mines entirely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Treaty
These treaties are largely useless because certain large powers refuse to sign them. Sure, it's nice if Switzerland or Norway signs such a treaty, but that doesn't exactly change anything.
I'll note that it only bans the use of all non-remote-controlled anti-personnel landmines.
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How the bomb disposal experts first learned their craft is insane. https://www.amazon.com/Danger-Uxb-Heroic-Story-Disposal/dp/0... has the story. Short version, the person working with the bomb would call out what they saw, then do what the partner said. The partner had a book and was out of the blast radius. They recorded it all, and if the bomb blew up would write down not to do THAT again! Eventually they learned…
The way to do that safely (for your own people) is to use enemy POWs to disable the bomb.
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There should be international laws where after wartime, governments are responsible for clearing out any leftover ordinances and must perform ecological cleanup. One would think the U.S. government would be in support of this because it would make wars too cost prohibitive for other nations, and the contracts would be an excellent profitmaking opportunity for the military industrial complex.
That only makes any sense if the government that laid the mines still exists after the conflict and wasn’t entirely insane in the first place. Read about the Khmer Rouge.
I would prefer to use US senators who refuse to ratify the Mine Ban Convention. They won't need any particular skills or training, just have them wander around possible UXO sites until they find one with their foot. The great thing about this is, US senators are a 100% renewable resource.
>> Opponents point out that the Ottawa Convention places no restriction whatsoever on anti-vehicle mines which kill civilians on tractors, on school buses, etc. The position of the United States is that the inhumane nature of landmines stems not from whether they are anti-personnel as opposed to antivehicle but from their persistence. The United States has unilaterally committed to never using persistent landmines of any kind, whether anti-personnel or anti-vehicle, which they say is a more comprehensive humanitarian measure than the Ottawa Convention. All US landmines now self-destruct in two days or less, in most cases four hours. While the self-destruct mechanism has never failed in more than 65,000 random tests, if self-destruct were to fail the mine will self-deactivate because its battery will run down in two weeks or less. That compares with persistent anti-vehicle mines which remain lethal for about 30 years and are legal under the Ottawa Convention.
This being on the front page at the same time as "The Army tried to develop a missile guided by pigeons" is...interesting [0]. Looks like militaries are having fun using animals for warfare. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33779361
My preyer are with those brave rats who died for the peace of mankind.
> While large for rats, they are weightless for the land mines and can walk safely across a live minefield.
I had several thoughts while reading this article. > Cambodia is contaminated with millions of unexploded ordnances dropped as cluster bombs by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. In addition, millions of land mines were buried throughout the country during a series of civil wars from the 1970s–1990s. Millions. I can't process numbers that large. I know what a million is, but I struggle to imagine what a million land mi…
They should use AI driven mini robots that go around and blow up mines.
They should develop smart plants with a distributed root system, an overabundance of shoots, a preference for seeking mines, and a high threshold for shoot pain. This would also prepare us with countermeasure systems control for when the AI tries to take over.
I would prefer to use US senators who refuse to ratify the Mine Ban Convention. They won't need any particular skills or training, just have them wander around possible UXO sites until they find one with their foot. The great thing about this is, US senators are a 100% renewable resource.