Smart mine refers to a number of next-generation

land mine A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...

designs being developed by

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

forces around the world. Many are designed to self-destruct or self-deactivate at the end of a conflict or a preset period of time. Others are so-called "self-healing" minefields which can detect when a gap in the field has been created and will direct its mines to reposition themselves to eliminate that gap, making it much more difficult and dangerous to create a safe path through the minefield. The development of smart mines began as a response to the

International Campaign to Ban Landmines The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is a coalition of non-governmental organizations whose stated objective is a world free of anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, where mine and cluster munitions survivors see their right ...

as a way of reducing

non-combatant Non-combatant is a term of art in the law of war and international humanitarian law to refer to civilians who are not taking a direct part in hostilities; persons, such as combat medics and military chaplains, who are members of the belligerent ...

and

civilian Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not "combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant, b ...

injury. Critics claim that new technology is unreliable, and that the perception of a "safe mine" will lead to increased deployment of land mines in future conflicts. Current guidelines allow for a 10% failure rate, leaving a significant number of mines to pose a threat. Additionally, in the case of self-destructing mines, civilians still are at risk of injury when the mine self-destructs and are denied access to land which has been mined. As mines are inherently non-discriminate weapons even smart mines may injure civilians during a time of war. Many critics believe this to be unacceptable under international law. The

human security Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents challenges the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the proper referent for security should be at the human rather t ...

paradigm is outspoken on the issue of the reduction in the use of land mines due to the extremely individual nature of their impact - a facet that is ignored by traditional security concerns which focus on military and state level security issues.

References

See also