Comment by seabass-labrax
3 days ago
> I don't believe that's historic; the landmine convention was drafted in 1997, and the cluster bomb one in 2008
Not historic in the sense of 'old', but still motivated by real horrors that Europe witnessed. The Bosnian War occurred only a couple of years prior to 1997 and left the region with over a thousand square kilometres of land contaminated by live landmines, which are still being cleared today. I don't know about cluster bombs specifically, but I would imagine that the (widely televised) Second Gulf War and the conflict between Israel and Lebanon had something to do with changing European perception of the weapons.
Certainly, the treaties are always drawn up in peacetime - it would be impractical to do so during an active conflict. However I believe that all of them have been prompted by some violent, horrific conflict in the years immediately beforehand.
> However I believe that all of them have been prompted by some violent, horrific conflict in the years immediately beforehand.
And in the cases of most of the European signatories, either the blinding naivete that they would never need to fight a "real war" again, or the disingenuous belief that while _they_ could take the moral high ground by signing and abandoning those weapons, the US would show up and use them in their defense if the time came. It also allowed these countries to coach more of their defense cuts in moral terms, rather than simply as saving money.
Now, of course, those illusions have been rightfully shattered, and these countries have been reminded that cluster weapons and mines are used on the battlefield because they _work_. And modern cluster munitions with low dud rates and mines with automatic neutralization go a long way towards reducing the collateral damage.