Landmines in Vietnam and War - Research Paper Example

Claiming over five hundred victims a week, landmines are weapons of mass destruction in slow motion” (Relief Web 2011). It can be clearly seen that landmines have become a threat in the society and should be removed on humanitarian grounds. U.S participation in Vietnam was extremely controversial and consequently it was considered to be an awfully unstable country during the late 1950’s and 1960’s. All through the Vietnam War, landmines were utilized by the United States plus the North South Vietnamese military.

Majority of the landmines were placed intentionally and were created commercially by china and the U.S, yet, as a minimum one- third of these were made spontaneously by locals. These landmines that Vietcong made were formed on the battleground with bamboos and volatile weapons of American armaments that did not detonate. Since the nature of the Vietnam War was guerilla, the conventional blockade theory of the landmine was no more applicable so as a result the armed forces invented a new use for those landmines.

These landmines were released from the planes to occupy bigger areas as scattered landmine orderliness put in a new aspect to the grounds of mine war. According to Sarah Elizabeth “properly employed, scattered landmines provides the commander with a rapid, flexible and effective means for delaying, harassing, containing or canalizing the movement of enemy ground forces while simultaneously reducing the significant manpower and material requirement previously associated with the employment of landmines” this new method altered the use of landmines from being a protective and defending weapon to an offensive one.

Landmines are distinctively ferocious in the time of recent or traditional war not just for the reason of their horrifying personal effect, but additionally because of their lasting societal and monetary obliteration. The Vietnam Battle rutted America opposed to communism and was an unforgettable model of a conflict that can be identified as a cold war. The mere thought of Vietnam beginning the procedure of changing to communism was unacceptable to America. As Johnson on 17, March, 1964 issued the national security memo that stated “to pressure an independent, non-Communist south Vietnam which is necessary to prevent all Southeast Asia from turning communist and prove to the rest of the world that communist wars of national liberation could be curtailed.

” This statement eloquently provided the reason for the war in Vietnam and encouraged and intensified the American involvement (Smits 2007). By dropping these landmines from the plane the U.S military gained an advantage since they were able to scatter it over a large area. Moreover this new technique needed very less manpower since it only required a trained pilot. These landmines were positioned inside the territory of the enemy without the possibility of causalities of the American force.

According to Mc Grath “using landmines as an offensive weapon by dropping them from airplanes enshrined the area-denial philosophy into military thinking.” The area denial viewpoint initially executed the region’s larger areas under war, futile to the opponent by layering it with weapons. It was anticipated that in 1965, seventy percent of sea killing was the consequence of the landmines and additional entraps created from these weapons. Vietnam