Landmines, Lies and Limitations - Example of False Security and Arbitrary Governance
Photo by Rehman Abubakr via Wikimedia Commons
TLDR
Ukraine’s withdrawal from the Mine Ban Convention and the EU Commission’s uneasy silence signals a breakdown in global humanitarian cooperation. Instead of real security, governments are turning to outdated, destructive tools like landmines that offer symbolic feelings but very limited protection, which also leads to post-war problems. This attempt to make a return to old tactics risks undermining trust, fragmenting global cooperation, and weakening Europe’s identity of peace and cooperation. In reality, landmines are increasingly obsolete in modern warfare, where drones and AI can detect and neutralize threats faster and safer than before. Liberal democracies must resist this “security theater” and lead efforts to modernize both military and disarmament in ways that protect people and principles as human security alike.
The Mine Ban Convention, also known as the Ottawa Convention from 1997, has been a cornerstone of humanitarian disarmament for over 25 years, representing one of the clearest moral agreements between nations and other entities - that weapons designed to maim indiscriminately have no place in a civilized world. The treaty’s widespread adoption helped to stigmatize and prevent the use of landmines globally. But recent developments, especially Ukraine’s decision to leave the treaty, have thrown that moral clarity into doubt.
Governments as in Estonia, Finland, and Poland, now justify such moves as necessary for national security. But in reality, reintroducing landmines often serves as security theater, as a symbolic gesture of toughness rather than a strategic necessity. These weapons create the illusion of territorial protection, while in practice posing long-term risks to civilians, peacekeepers, and post-conflict recovery. Worse, they erode global cooperation by encouraging a return to unilateralism over collective restraint.
This shift also shows a failure of imagination and understanding of the complex social reality. Modern warfare is rapidly evolving. Technologies like drones, thermal imaging, and machine learning have made the detection and disabling of landmines faster and safer than ever. The battlefield has changed, but political thinking lags since it is clinging to 20th-century tools instead of innovating 21st-century solutions.
Concluding reflections
Liberal democracies must stop pretending that landmines protect. Today, they are more as relics of past wars, incompatible with modern ethics and ineffective in modern conflict. Clinging to them does not strengthen defense since it weakens the very alliances, treaties, and humanitarian norms that have brought decades of stability. At a time when global cooperation is more urgent and necessary, backtracking on disarmament is self-sabotage. A liberal Europe must contribute to global security and other forms of cooperation but not through nostalgic militarism, but through forward-looking innovation and universal principles.
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