As a Croatian, I'm really glad to hear these type of news. However, also as a Croatian, I don't quite buy the news. I'm sure great progress was made but it's never going to reach 100%; It's just the nature of these damn things in combination with our geography and where the frontlines were.
I did some off road travelling in Croatia about 15 years ago, thanks GPS driving us into some farming roads.
Only when I got out of it, I realised how stupid idea that was to keep following the GPS, on some country side villages the markings of the war were still visible, with abandoned buildings full of bullet holes.
Naturally having mines still around was a possibility that I completly forgot about.
Something I have really wondered is, why aren't there stronger incentives to build mines with a mechanism that disables them after a certain time has passed? There must be tactical and strategical reasons which are regarded more important, but surely the party using them for defending their own land ought to have an interest in not having to deal with this threat for decades after the war has ended, and an aggressor who wishes to take over an area should have the same incentives.
Or are the reasons technical, that it is simply too difficult to develop a reliable mechanism for disabling them?
Cost/manufacturing complexity. If you are country struggling to defend your self you don't think problems in 30 years if today problem is does the country exists or not. Might be difficult to put your self to a small defending countries shoes which is absolute running our of resources.
“The Department will continue its commitment not to employ persistent landmines.
For the purposes of this policy, ‘persistent landmines’ means landmines that do not
incorporate self-destruction mechanisms and self-deactivation features. The Department will only employ, develop, produce, or otherwise acquire landmines that are non-persistent, meaning they must possess self destruction mechanisms and self-
deactivation features.”
“ For example, all activated landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in 30 days or less after emplacement and will possess a back-up self-deactivation feature. Some landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in shorter periods of time, such as two hours or forty-eight hours.”
This distinguishes “self-destruct” where the mine blows itself up and “self-deactivation” where the mine disarms itself. The first is safer because it doesn’t leave explosive material behind, which could chemicaly detoriate and become unstable decades later. The second is used as a failsafe in case the self-destruct fails.
> Or are the reasons technical
They certainly were when the really old mines were made. Some of them are nothing more than just spring loaded pressure plates. But today modern landmines are much more sophisticated. Some of them can distinguish the seismic signature or a truck from a tank. There are also radio controlled mine fields where soldiers can remotely activate / deactivate the whole mine field as the threat evolves.
I'm guessing it's the latter, because you have to keep the mine-disabling mechanisms working and powered up through possible adverse weather and environmental conditions for long enough that the conflict has a fair chance of having ended.
10 years is a long time, but 10 years after a war is not a long time. Damages to building still remains, mines and plenty of unexploded ordinances will remain, and psychological scars are still very strong.
I had the good fortune of going to Croatia (as an American) for work about 10 years ago, and I milked that trip hard. What a beautiful country. Dubrovnik, Split, Hvar Island, it was pretty magical.
Just this week I talked to a person doing tree pruning/forestry, they were negotiating a job in a rural area in Croatia (wider Karlovac area).
The particular patch of land is still suspected to contain mines, although "in theory" they were all cleared out.
The client didn't want to pay for the minesweeeping tech team to ensure safety, the workers didn't want to wade into a forest that might still be mined.
I suspect this is not an isolated case. It's far from over.
Placing landmines is probably among the shittiest and most vile things someone can do.
Knowing that ten, twenty, maybe 50 years after a conflict ends a completely innocent and unrelated person, maybe even not born at the time you did it, might die or get permanently disabled is a sick move.
Place where I grew up is still full of landmines (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and some of the people who placed those mines are government officials today, loved by EU because of their natural resources.
In conflict between equals, landmines are the only practical way to restrict the mobility of the enemy. That's why 20% of Ukraine is contaminated by mines. If you were official and your choices would be losing and more people dying or placing more landmines that can be cleared over 20 years, what would you do?
Also I think that if you live next to a warmongering country you certainly care more about making a military invasion the shittiest and the most vile thing for the aggressor that you can think of and landmines are cheap and effective there.
I think it's a sufficient trade off that landmines self-disable themselves in, say, 5 years or so. If the war continues you'll keep planting more and when it ends you'll just wait a few years and go collect them.
Poland withdrew from the Ottawa Convention last month, with the aim of being able to lay anti-personnel mines along its eastern border.
Whether it does or not is an open-question, and while I understand it of course, the idea we're increasing the use of mines is a sad day. They're so indiscriminate and will no doubt cause injuries far into the future.
Placing landmines systematically during peacetime by a stable government-ran military should at least make clearing mines easier, and minefields better marked for locals. So, it's not completely indiscriminate. If it decreases war-related life loss (both direct and indirect), it's net positive
There's no border wall, just a typical bike road next to a small fence. So no, unless Poland is planning to blow up their own civilians, they won't mine their own country lol.
My wife’s part of the Family has a house with view of the border to Belarusia. It used to be a small fence just in front of a wood, but that’s long past. It’s truly a wall now.
I live near part of the WW1 trenches. Most mines, bombs, etc. have been removed for decades now. Still, there are patches where the ground is so polluted with e.g. lead that nothing would grow. We tend to use that ground for companies and industrial things, but no worries, its completely safe for your health, citizen.
France still has WWI unexploded ordnance, and keep-out areas are still being de-mined.
This has been going on for a century now.
About 900 tons of explosives are removed each year. Completion in 700 years at the current rate.[1]
Does Australia have any landmines? I was under the impression that we had some areas with sea mines which had been swept but still weren't guaranteed safe, and that was it.
Poland and other countries that just abandoned the mine treaty border russia and belarus. You know, the country that launched and the country that allowed its land to launch largest war in europe since WW2.
Yes. But the what's the point of a convention about weapons that you only observe during peacetime and abandon as soon as war is at your gates?
I mean, I get it, I would be scared shitless too if I had Russia at my border. I'm not saying that Poland is bad for doing this (but I'm not saying it's good either). It's more of a general observation about this kind of treaties: (relatively) easy to get into during peacetime, hard to uphold when shit hits the fan.
Can drones sniff explosives? I think that would be very expensive, they can have metal detectors, and mark suspicious sites for someone (or something, like a different digging drone) else to check.
But rats can sniff explosives and do so succesfully.
I don't know how it works for rats, but I assume it is like with dogs. If you have already a trained dog, you make the same exercises with the trained and the untrained dog, so the untrained dog can just watch what the trained dog does and imitate it.
Only when I got out of it, I realised how stupid idea that was to keep following the GPS, on some country side villages the markings of the war were still visible, with abandoned buildings full of bullet holes.
Naturally having mines still around was a possibility that I completly forgot about.
Or are the reasons technical, that it is simply too difficult to develop a reliable mechanism for disabling them?
For example consider this Department of Defence policy from 2020: https://media.defense.gov/2020/Jan/31/2002242359/-1/-1/1/DOD...
“The Department will continue its commitment not to employ persistent landmines. For the purposes of this policy, ‘persistent landmines’ means landmines that do not incorporate self-destruction mechanisms and self-deactivation features. The Department will only employ, develop, produce, or otherwise acquire landmines that are non-persistent, meaning they must possess self destruction mechanisms and self- deactivation features.”
“ For example, all activated landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in 30 days or less after emplacement and will possess a back-up self-deactivation feature. Some landmines, regardless of whether they are remotely delivered or not, will be designed and constructed to self-destruct in shorter periods of time, such as two hours or forty-eight hours.”
This distinguishes “self-destruct” where the mine blows itself up and “self-deactivation” where the mine disarms itself. The first is safer because it doesn’t leave explosive material behind, which could chemicaly detoriate and become unstable decades later. The second is used as a failsafe in case the self-destruct fails.
> Or are the reasons technical
They certainly were when the really old mines were made. Some of them are nothing more than just spring loaded pressure plates. But today modern landmines are much more sophisticated. Some of them can distinguish the seismic signature or a truck from a tank. There are also radio controlled mine fields where soldiers can remotely activate / deactivate the whole mine field as the threat evolves.
The problem is of the enemy know you use only mines that work for max n hours or m days they just wait for n + 1 hours or m + 1 days.
There is a lot more to say about this, but there are probably people way more qualified than be here to explain it.
The fire traversed the hillside, and every hour or two a landmine would explode.
This was ten years after the war.
They make me immediately go “oh I get it”
The particular patch of land is still suspected to contain mines, although "in theory" they were all cleared out.
The client didn't want to pay for the minesweeeping tech team to ensure safety, the workers didn't want to wade into a forest that might still be mined.
I suspect this is not an isolated case. It's far from over.
Knowing that ten, twenty, maybe 50 years after a conflict ends a completely innocent and unrelated person, maybe even not born at the time you did it, might die or get permanently disabled is a sick move.
Place where I grew up is still full of landmines (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and some of the people who placed those mines are government officials today, loved by EU because of their natural resources.
Also I think that if you live next to a warmongering country you certainly care more about making a military invasion the shittiest and the most vile thing for the aggressor that you can think of and landmines are cheap and effective there.
I think it's a sufficient trade off that landmines self-disable themselves in, say, 5 years or so. If the war continues you'll keep planting more and when it ends you'll just wait a few years and go collect them.
Actually at the rate we're going, there will still be active minefield defenses for most of our lifespans.
Whether it does or not is an open-question, and while I understand it of course, the idea we're increasing the use of mines is a sad day. They're so indiscriminate and will no doubt cause injuries far into the future.
The self-clearing is interesting and I hindsight auch an obvious thing to implement.
Hell, Australia still has WW2 mines.
[1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/the-red-zone-la...
Cause the latter is pretty common in Europe too, but I'm surprised you have actually minefields which haven't been cleared up in Australia.
> all known minefields have been cleared
When clearing minefields, one does not miss mines, because that would be lethal! Every cube inch is carefully mapped. It is extremely hard work.
I mean, I get it, I would be scared shitless too if I had Russia at my border. I'm not saying that Poland is bad for doing this (but I'm not saying it's good either). It's more of a general observation about this kind of treaties: (relatively) easy to get into during peacetime, hard to uphold when shit hits the fan.
It's a group that provides prosthetics to people who have lost body parts due to landmines left over from the Vietnam War.
Even decades later, there are areas in Laos that have so many unexploded bomblets, it's dangerous to do stuff there, or even build.
But rats can sniff explosives and do so succesfully.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magawa
How does that work for a rat? Sounds interesting.
Then the ground ones do the actual demining.
There has been lots of rain falling from the sky, moving earth, since the mines were laid.