Strategic mobility, the Force Projection Army, and the Ottawa Landmine Treaty: can the Army get there?

Current and emerging United States Army doctrine places great emphasis on the concepts of strategic responsiveness and force projection to meet the National Security Strategy requirements. The use or potential use, of landmines significantly increases the lethality of the Army force during deterrence and combat operations, and enhances survivability. In essence, with the use of landmines, the U.S. Army achieves an economy of force that in effect increases the U.S. Army’s agility, versatility and ability to deploy. Smaller more deployable Army forces such as the medium brigade and light units can generate more combat power by using the effects provided by landmines integrated with other combat systems. However, in order to use landmines worldwide, the U.S. must move, store, or reposition landmines in, through, or to the theater and area of operations prior to, concurrently, or in conjunction with the deploying Army force. Movement of forces, material, and equipment across international borders and into sovereign nations requires the permission of those nations, or a conscious decision to violate international laws and conventions regarding sovereignty. The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and their Destruction – also known as the Ottawa Landmine Treaty – has the potential to place severe limits on the United States ability to deploy forces. The Ottawa Landmine Treaty (OLT) prohibits signatory countries from using, developing, producing, acquiring, stockpiling, or transferring anti-personnel landmines. As more countries sign and ratify the OLT, and create internal laws that enforce it, the number of countries that will allow a force that trains, plans, and intends to employ anti-personnel landmines as a matter of course to enter, pass through or over its sovereign territory has the potential to significantly decrease. The location, national strategy, and strategic alliances of non-signatory countries may or may not support a strategic deployment of a United States Army force. This may have a significant affect on the ability to project credible and lethal U.S. Army forces worldwide. This study examines the question: Does the Ottawa Landmine Treaty significantly affect the strategic responsiveness of the force projection Army? Beginning with a review and analysis of the treaty language, this study examines the United States policy on anti-personnel landmines and its origin, the concepts of force projection and strategic responsiveness, and two recent force projection operations involving United States Army forces. This review and assessment leads to two potential forms of the treaty in the future: status quo and restrictive. Analysis of the impact of the status quo and restrictive Ottawa Treaty scenarios on the seven attributes of the strategically responsive Army leads to the conclusion that the OLT has a moderate impact on the ability to project Army forces worldwide. There is, however, the potential for a significant impact on force projection at the regional and individual country level. The altruistic aims of individual countries appears to have greater affect on the ability to project force than either the status quo or restrictive Ottawa Treaty scenarios. \n

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