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President Donald Trump has reversed Barack Obama’s policy that restricted the use of landmines by U.S. forces. In effect, the U.S. military may now use anti-personnel landmines "in exceptional circumstances", the same weapon that has been banned by more than 160 countries.
“The President has canceled the Obama administration's policy to prohibit United States military forces from employing anti-personnel landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula,” Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary, said in a statement, CNN reported.
The reason cited for lifting the ban is that the restriction on landmine use may place American forces at a disadvantage. “The Department of Defense has determined that restrictions imposed on American forces by the Obama Administration's policy could place them at a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries,” Grisham added. “The President is unwilling to accept this risk to our troops.”
A new Defense Department policy will govern what “exceptional circumstances” the U.S. military may deploy the mines, according to NPR. The statement also assured that these new mines have upgraded designs and come with a self-destruct or self-deactivation feature so they can be destroyed when no longer needed. This feature is aimed at minimizing civilian casualties.
The White House announcement sets the U.S. apart from the more than 160 countries that have banned the weapon’s use. Major allies such as the U.K., France, and other NATO countries have signed the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997, which was implemented in 1999.
Critics have always argued that the majority of landmine casualties are civilians and not their intended military targets. The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor reported last year that 71 percent of landmine casualties in 2018 were civilians.
In addition, there are those who doubt landmines’ effectiveness in modern warfare. “The main point is that they’re not only massively harmful to civilians after war’s end, but they’re also of very negligible military utility,” Rob Berschinski, who formerly headed the US landmine policy in the Obama administration, wrote on Twitter, as reported by The Guardian. “In fact, [defense department]-commissioned studies have shown that during the Gulf war they mainly served to limit US ground forces’ maneuver capability.”
