Total Eradication of Landmines

1568 Words4 Pages

Total Eradication of Landmines

Landmines do not discriminate between friend, foe, or civilian; they recognize no cease-fire; and continue to be destructive long after they are deployed. The problem with landmines is that they are an inexpensive weapon that can be implemented in great amounts and almost at random, so as to cause the maximum physical and psychological damage to an opponent. Because of their low cost, landmines have been manufactured and dispersed at an exponential rate; and when the war is over, millions of mines remain in the ground, ready to detonate on hapless civilians, children, livestock, or anyone else who should happen to stumble across it.

The landmine got its origins from a military invention of the ancient world called the caltrop. The caltrop was a piece of metal consisting of four metal spikes arranged in a tetrahedron. When it was thrown on the ground, one of the spikes of the caltrop always faced up, waiting to sink into the foot of an advancing enemy. The explosive booby trap was first put into use in 16th century, but the landmine was not refined into the effective weapon it is today until World War II.

The modern landmine was first developed in response to another modern invention, the armored tank. Anti-tank mines were large explosive charges that required hundreds of pounds of pressure in order to detonate. These mines were easy to discover, easy to remove, and easily redistributed by the enemy. The anti-personnel mine was developed to be deployed amongst anti-tank mines, to deter the enemy from tampering with them. Anti-personnel mines have become possibly the most loathsome weapons ever to be widely employed.

Today there are more than 350 varieties of anti-personnel landmines, and it is still possible to fashion crude mines from common materials. There are three major types of modern anti-personnel mines: blast, bounding, and fragmentation. The blast mine is the most common type of mine. It is buried a few centimeters in the ground and detonates explosively outward when triggered by pressure or a trip wire. The bounding mine, when activated, hurls the explosive device a few meters into the air. When it detonates, it causes severe damage to the target’s head and chest. The fragmentation mine releases shards of shrapnel in all directions, or it can focus it in a particular direction.

Open Document