The Military Utility of Landmines: Implications for Arms Control

Abstract

This briefing evaluates the military utility of landmines in high intensity, mechanized land warfare and draws implications from this for landmine arms control. While military utility is clearly only one of wide range of issues bearing on the advisability of any particular arms control proposal, it has nevertheless played an unusually important role in the debate to date. While IDA is continuing a broader assessment of this issue, it is hoped that this more narrowly focused analysis will shed some important, if necessary partial, light on that broader debate. The basic conclusion of the briefing is that issues of military utility in high intensity conflict need not preclude further consideration of landmine arms control. A rather demanding set of assumptions and preconditions is required for the military utility of landmines in such conflicts to be so high as to make arms control unworthy of further consideration requires as especially demanding set of assumptions about the nature of future warfare. It is far from obvious that the required assumptions can be sustained.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA283061

Entities

People

  • Jaeson Rosenfeld
  • Julia Klare
  • Stephen D. Biddle

Organizations

  • Institute for Defense Analyses

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter IED

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Anti-Personnel Mines
  • Arms Control
  • Classification
  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Conventional Warfare
  • Information Operations
  • International Security
  • Land Mines
  • Land Warfare
  • Military Operations
  • Mine Warfare
  • Security
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Economics

Readers

  • Munitions and Ordnance Engineering
  • Strategic Security Studies
  • Systems Analysis and Design