Comment by jampekka
7 hours ago
Whatever the reason, this will increase the likelihood of landmine casualties in the future. And not necessarily (only) in this area, but it weakens the treaty in general.
Part of these kinds of treaties is to accept some additional difficulty or expenses in defence for a more widespread benefit. I'm living in Finland and I would have accepted these.
Would you expect other countries to come to Finland’s aid if the country had declined to employ all the ‘force-multipliers’ that were available to it?
I would not expect other countries to come to Finland’s aid if Finland had made such decisions.
161 countries are still in the Ottawa Treaty, including all European countries except the ones who withdrew. I have hard time seeing how this treaty would have much effect on wartime alliances.
But if that's the case, what are "all the force multipliers"? Chemical weapons? Biological weapons? What share of the GDP for defence?
It's nice that so many countries are signatories, but the countries which are currently involved in significant conflicts, have been, or are likely to be, are all non-signatories, have withdrawn, or are not abiding by their commitment. I'm not sure how much it matters that many non-warring countries are signatories to the convention, unless you think the Ottawa Treaty has actually prevented one or more conflicts (which I doubt).
I find some of the signatories laughable, as both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict have used them (with Ukraine being a signatory), while countries like Palestine and Eritrea have committed egregious human rights violations (since assenting), so I don't trust any commitment of theirs.
With respect to chemical and biological weapons, I think the reason they're not widely used is that they're relatively ineffective, and inconvenient, so I don't think they're a force-multiplier at all. Russia & Syria's (likely) uses of chemical weapons seem like more of a (mostly ineffective) desperate gamble than a brilliant move, though they demonstrate the non-existent consequences to such violations of treaty obligations.