Defence secretary Mark Esper confirmed the policy change that would, according to a Pentagon review, increase danger to US armed forces

This article is more than 7 months old

This article is more than 7 months old

The US will end its moratorium on the production and deployment of landmines, in another reversal of Obama-era policies and a further breach with western allies, it has been reported.

The defence secretary, Mark Esper, confirmed that a policy change was imminent but refused to describe it. Vox published a leaked state department cable rescinding Barack Obama’s 2014 ban on production or acquisition of anti-personnel landmines (APLs).

The 2014 directive brought US policy more in line with the 1997 mine ban treaty outlawing the weapons because of their disproportionate harm to civilians. Obama did not join the treaty, also known as the Ottawa Convention, reserving the right for the US to use landmines on the Korean peninsula. The treaty has been signed by 164 countries, including all of America’s Nato allies.

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“Mr Trump’s policy rollback is a step toward the past, like many of his other decisions, and sends exactly the wrong message to those working to rid the world of the scourge of landmines,” said Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel peace prize for her work campaigning against the weapons.

“Mr Trump’s landmine move would be in line with all of his other moves to undercut arms control and disarmament in a world much in need of them.”

CNN reported that the policy change was the result of a Pentagon policy review ordered by the former defence secretary James Mattis, which found that the prohibition “increased risk to mission success” and increased danger to US armed forces.

Rob Berschinski, who was in charge of US landmine policy in the Obama White House said that the weapons were not only a humanitarian threat but also militarily obsolete.

“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,” Berschinski, now at Human Rights First, said on Twitter. “In fact, [defence department]-commissioned studies have shown that during the Gulf war they mainly served to limit US ground forces’ maneuver capability.”

The US has not used APLs since 1991 (with a single exception in Afghanistan in 2002), it has not produced any since 1997 and has gone a long way towards destroying its stockpile.

The state department cable quoted by Vox said that the US would only consider manufacture and deployment of mines with “technologically advanced safeguards” that limit “the risk of unintended harm to civilians”.

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That could clear the way for mines which can self-destruct. The US has also developed the Gator landmine replacement munition which can be fired into enemy territory, sense if anything is nearby and then can be detonated remotely by an operator.

An advocacy organisation, Landmine Monitor, has estimated that there have been 130,000 casualties from landmines between 1999 and 2018, most of them civilians.

The landmine decision is the latest in a long list of instances in which the Trump administration has overturned foreign policy positions adopted by its predecessor, withdrawing from arms control agreements and trade arrangements as well as the Paris climate accord.