cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/16759425
Lithuania installed “dragon’s teeth” and mines in front of the bridge on the border with the Kaliningrad region
“This is a precautionary step to ensure more effective defense,” the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said on Twitter. The ministry explained that the Queen Louise Bridge is Russian property, so Lithuania cannot install “dragon’s teeth” and mines on the bridge itself, but only in front of it.
The problem is a little more deeper than that - the very nature of mines is that they are indiscriminate. Whether you’re one force, another force, a civilian, or an animal - it does it’s job and goes boom without any further intervention by a human.
The remainder of your point is absolutely valid, but mines are a shit idea from the outset. Area denial is indeed a tactic, but alliances and boundaries change, and what was once a defensive line may be a suburban district in a hundred years time, until a future innocent party detonates one underfoot and is killed or severely maimed.
I thought mines were prohibited under the Geneva Suggestions, but perhaps there’s a loophole somewhere.
Well, if you don’t want a bridge to be used, you can either mine it, or tear it down. The latter is a lot more work, and you can’t exactly only tear down your half of it.
The Geneva convention is fine with landmines. The Ottawa treaty band anti-personel mines, but it does not ban anti-vehicle or anti-armor mines. The logic being that if you don’t set it off by stepping it, it’s not that big a risk.
Now, I’m not a mine expert, but these ones look WAY too big to be anything but antitank mines.