Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia
I had several thoughts while reading this article.<p>> Cambodia is contaminated with millions of unexploded ordnances dropped as cluster bombs by the U.S. during the Vietnam War. In addition, millions of land mines were buried throughout the country during a series of civil wars from the 1970s–1990s.<p>Millions. I can't process numbers that large. I know what a million is, but I struggle to imagine what a million land mines would look like. What happened to Southeast Asia during the 20th century was so sad and tragic.<p>> Rats have been so successful that the rodents are now seen as competition for the more traditionally used military dogs for mine clearance.<p>I didn't know dogs were used to clear mines. I would have thought they would be too heavy to walk on mines, considering that mines can kill children, and military working dogs have a weight comparable to children.<p>Lastly, I wondered whether it would be both possible, economical, and militarily sensible to create mines that expire after a certain time, due to an engineered deterioration process for the detonator or for the explosive charge. A form of planned obsolescence. Few conflicts last more than a few years. Is a five year old mine really that useful militarily? Fresh mines can be dropped from aircraft now if a sudden need arised. The Korean Demilitarized Zone is the most obvious example I can think of where old mines might still serve a future purpose.