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[–] 15 points 1 year ago (21 children)

lemmy is the kind of place where people get offended by defense. and I don't mean what americans call "defense" but actual defense

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  • [+] -22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (21 children)
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Offensive landmines killing poor innocent invaders who come in and step on them.

    Finland is being so aggressive in this landmine assault.

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  • [+] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    They are banned for the same reason the use of cluster munitions are frowned upon. The problem of being left behind after deployed during war time as they continue to cause horrific civilian casualties which is a huge a big problem for a country trying to recover from war. Particularly if they were deployed inside a country to defend what was then the front line or a fortified location like the outskirts of a town or village.

    However if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having an aggressive neighbouring country where you share a large land border who has broken peace treaty promises repeatedly and is repeatedly making threats about invading, then putting landmines along your border is a VERY effective way to deter and slow down an invasion.

    I wish that we weren't in a situation where countries felt it necessary to deploy landmines for border defense but here we are.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)

    If nobody invades, there's no problem, no?

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  • [+] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (12 children)
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

    Wrong. If nobody invades, the mines don't get laid out in the first place.

    If it does come to that, the positions are marked mapped and they will get cleaned out. The reason for the treaty was that in some places mines were just spread willy nilly.

    I still haven't seen your explanation for how this is actually an offense, but keep moving that goalpost 👍

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Specifically marked minefields were never illegal even with that treaty so......

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  • [+] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Well, why the fuck does any country without an immediate conflict coming up maintain an army?

    For a moment earlier it sounded like you were concerned with people losing limbs to mines, and there I would agree if mines were planted proactively.

    But you're just offended by defense.

    Tanks and goodbye!

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  • [+] -13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [+] -10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    Mines are cheap and due to geography, they would be a relatively effective defense. For that reason, signing them away with the treaty was called a mistake even back then. Public opinion was about fifty-fifty for a long time and there was never enough political will to seriously consider withdrawal, or even for the opponents to be particularly vocal about it.

    So why now? The full scale invasion in Ukraine was a shock that kicked the ball rolling. The topic became hot immediately and there was also a petition that collected signatures very fast. That took some time, but it's how we got here.

    Edit: improved my bad explanation.

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  • [+] -9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    As long as there's no military need for them against an invasion there will be zero mines in the ground. No one will hurt themselves with them, unless some storage worker happens to drop a box on their toes.

    As of why now, you can't pull out of agreement and start to build up manufacturing and logistics if there's active invasion going on. I hope not a single one of them is ever dug on our Finnish soil, but I'm glad that our military is prepared to use any viable option if they need to.

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