Mines and shells in Ukraine recall NATO to the old -fashioned technology issues

The war in Ukraine shows that weapons formerly thought that redundants remain essential – and NATO countries play the catch -up while they run to rearm.

Last week, Finland became the last European country to repeal a ban on several decades on the use of anti-personal land mines. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have already announced that they abandoned the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, which prohibited the use, manufacture and sale of anti-personal land mines.

Countries are preparing to strengthen their borders with Russia using terrestrial mines while the Kremlin refocuses its economy on its soldiers and its relations with the West is deteriorating.

Although war includes examples of advanced technologies, it also highlights the importance of weapons like shells and mines.

While Europe between “an era of rearmament”, he must learn that it must invest in the technology which it previously thought of redundant in the fast and heavy wars of technology which they would consider defined the 21st century.

Ukraine used mines to slow down the advances of the Russian army in the east and the south of the country in a dead end and to channel enemy troops in the areas that his forces can defend.

While sophisticated NATO guidance missiles have provided that Ukraine is sensitive to Russian electronic jamming that blurs the signals used to guide them, relatively coarse – and inexpensive – do not have this drawback.

The European allies of Ukraine stimulated the production of shells. But last week, the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe, the American general of the American army Christopher Cavoli, told the Senate Committee of Armed Services that Russia was on the right track to build a stock of shells “three times higher in the United States and in combined Europe”.

In a recent article, the Royal United Services Institute, a group for reflection in the United Kingdom, said that European governments expected the private sector defense companies “solve the problem” of the production of ammunition but had not introduced “incentives or a regulatory environment that would allow it to be done”.

NATO had planned a different war

Paul Van Hooft, a leader in defense research to the United Kingdom reflection group Rand Europe, told Bi that the threat of Russia was very different from what Western military leaders had planned.

“For three decades, because the Western soldiers were not focused on the war of large-scale land and territorial collective defense, these weapons (such as shells and terrestrial mines) were not considered precious-in particular in Western Europe,” he said by e-mail.

After the September 11 attacks, NATO allies planned wars against militias such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, where terrestrial mines and shells had little time, said Van Hooft.

But fighting a terrestrial war against a large army requires defending and holding large area of ​​territory.

Artillery can be an old technology, but it is more effective when used alongside new surveillance technology such as drones, said Van Hooft.

Mark Cancian, a main advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Defense and Security Department in Washington, DC, said that the war in Ukraine has become more static, shells and terrestrial mines have again proved essential.

“These weapons become useful, even dominant, whenever the front lines stabilize,” he said. “They are difficult to use when the armies maneuver but easy to use when the armies appear and dig.”

In Ukraine, drones were used to monitor the battlefields, identify troop rallies or command posts – and identify the positions to target with artillery dams.

Cancien warned against military planners becoming “blunting with flashy concepts of future war” while billions are paid into European defense budgets and military technological startups are competing for advanced AI and weapons.

“The artillery and not guided artillery ammunition are always essential,” he said, adding: “The concepts that the next war would take place through the small teams pulling precision ammunition has not proven to be the case.”