A Ban on Anti-Personnel Landmines: Areas for Research in the Development of Alternatives

Abstract

On September 17, 1997, President Clinton announced that, by the year 2003, the U.S. will no longer use anti-personnel landmines (APLs) outside of Korea and, within Korea, the goal is to have APL alternatives ready by 2006. To meet this goal, efforts are currently ongoing in the development and evaluation of APL alternatives. Some of this research is directed at near-term replacements for APLs whereas other research is directed at investigating innovative far-term alternatives to them. The proposed worldwide ban on APLs is an important international issue and the task of developing replacements for and alternatives to APLs is a daunting one. Unfortunately, little directly relevant findings appear to exist in the current knowledge base. This paper discusses human factors issues involved in the development of APL alternatives - especially long-term alternatives - and examines issues for which future research is needed in order for successful development of alternatives to proceed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Cohen

(1980). Aftereffects of stress on human performance and social behavior: A review of research and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 88(1), 82–108.

Department of the Army. (1998, May 29). Field Manual 20–32: Mine/Countermine Operations. Washington, DC: Department of the Army.

Greer

W.L.

Bartholomew

(1986). The psychology of mine warfare. U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February, 58–62.

Kolasinski

E.M.

(1999). The psychological effects of anti-personnel landmines: A standard to which alternatives can be compared (Engineering Psychology Laboratory Report 99-2). United States Military Academy: author.

Leon

R.M.

(1987). Battlefield stress (DTIC No. ADA181027). Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air Command and Staff College.

Mahoney

D.P.

(1996). Goalie without a mask? The effect of the anti-personnel landmine ban on U.S. Army countermobility operations (DTIC No. ADA324323). Fort Leavenworth: Army Command and General Staff College.

Orasanu

J.M.

Backer

(1996). Stress and military performance (In Driskell

J.E.

Salas

(Eds.), Stress and human performance), Chapter 3, 89–125.

White House, Office of the Press Secretary. (1997, September 17). Fact Sheet: U.S. efforts to address the problem of anti-personnel landmines. Available through the White House Virtual Library at http://www.whitehouse.gov .