Summary

Non-signatory the United States (US) has not taken any steps to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions, as it sees military utility in cluster munitions. The US has never participated in a meeting of the convention, even as an observer. It abstained from voting on a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2021.

President Joe Biden has not reviewed a November 2017 policy permitting US forces to use cluster munitions that result in more than 1% unexploded ordnance (UXO). The US last used cluster munitions during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with the exception of a single attack in Yemen in 2009. The US last budgeted funds to produce new cluster munitions in 2007 and since then has only manufactured them for foreign sales. Research and development programs to replace artillery-delivered submunitions commenced in 2018.

Policy

The United States of America has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The US has not taken any steps to join the convention because, in its view, cluster munitions provide “a vital military capability.”[1]

National policy

As of July 2022, the administration of President Joe Biden has not reviewed or amended US policy on cluster munitions issued in November 2017. The policy by President Donald Trump abandoned a requirement that the US no longer use cluster munitions that result in more than a 1% UXO rate by the end of 2018.[2] It replaced a July 2008 Department of Defense policy directive on cluster munitions issued under President George W. Bush.[3]

The 2017 policy requires the Department of Defense to “program for capabilities to replace cluster munitions” that do not meet the 1% UXO standard.[4] However, to “meet immediate warfighting demand” the policy gives combatant commanders (the heads of various combatant commands with geographic and other areas of responsibility) the authority to approve employing (using) cluster munitions “that do not meet the standards prescribed by this policy for procuring new cluster munitions” as well as to accept transfers of those cluster munitions.[5]

The Biden administration has not indicated whether it will review the 2017 policy on cluster munitions, which was widely condemned when it was issued.[6]

US and the Convention on Cluster Munitions

The US did not participate, even as an observer, in the 2007–2008 Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[7] However, US Department of State cables made public by Wikileaks show how the US attempted to influence its allies, partners, and other states during the process in order to affect the outcome of the negotiations, especially with respect to the issue of “interoperability” (joint military operations between the US and States Parties to the convention).[8]

The US has never participated in a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, even as an observer. The US was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Second Review Conference held in November 2020 and September 2021.

In December 2021, the US abstained from the vote on a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that urged states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[9] The US has abstained from voting on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015. The US explained in 2015 that it considers the resolution to apply “only to those States Parties to this convention.”[10] In October 2019, the US again stated that it does not accept that the convention “represents an emerging norm.”[11] The US did not comment on the 2021 UNGA resolution supporting the convention.

The US expressed deep alarm at Russia’s use of cluster munitions in Ukraine in 2022.[12] However, the US backtracked on a comment from one senior official who criticized cluster munitions as unacceptable weapons that “have no place on the battlefield.”[13] In April 2022, a group of 27 members of Congress called cluster munitions “barbaric and indiscriminate weapons” and said that they “strongly believe the credible allegations of Russian use of cluster munitions necessitate a change to the administration’s cluster munitions policy.”[14]

In previous years, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Patrick Leahy have introduced legislation encouraging the US to accede to the Convention on Cluster Munitions as soon as possible.[15]

The US is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), but has not proposed further CCW deliberations on cluster munitions since States Parties to the CCW failed to adopt a draft protocol on cluster munitions in 2011.[16] This effectively concluded CCW consideration on the matter, leaving the Convention on Cluster Munitions as the sole international instrument dedicated to ending the suffering caused by these weapons.

The US is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty, but has participated as an observer in Mine Ban Treaty meetings since 2009.

Use

The last US use of cluster munitions was during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, with the exception of a single attack in Yemen in December 2009.[17] Neither the US nor the Yemeni government has publicly denied US responsibility for the 2009 attack.[18]

In 2016, the United States Air Force (USAF) said that it had not used cluster munitions in aerial operations against the Islamic State in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.[19] The US provided logistical support to a Saudi Arabia-led coalition that used US-supplied cluster munitions in Yemen in 2015–2017.

The US has used cluster munitions in past conflicts in several countries and areas: Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam (1960s–1970s); Grenada and Lebanon (1983); Libya (1986); Iran (1988); Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia (1991); Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (1995); Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo (1999); Afghanistan (2001–2002); Iraq (2003); and Yemen (2009).[20]

Production

The US Department of Defense could not confirm whether the US still produces cluster munitions as of December 2018, telling a US media outlet that it “is not aware of any U.S. industry production of cluster munitions.”[21]

Since 2005, all submunitions produced by the US must have a failure rate of less than 1%, according to a 2001 policy issued by Secretary of Defense William Cohen.[22] The US last budgeted funds to produce new cluster munitions in 2007.[23] Since then, it has manufactured cluster munitions only for each foreign sales order in accordance with the contractual delivery schedule.

The US government has not taken any steps to prohibit US production of cluster munitions since 2016, when the sole remaining US producer, Textron Systems Corporation, announced an end to its production.[24] In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 30 August 2016, Textron Systems Corporation said it had discontinued production of the CBU-105 cluster bomb because of reduced orders, stating that “the current political environment has made it difficult” to obtain sales approvals.[25]

US defense contractor Northrop Grumman announced in January 2021 that it was ending participation in a US government contract to test the shelf life of stocks of cluster munitions.[26] The company, which does not make cluster munitions, inherited the stockpile management contract after acquiring US company Orbital ATK.

In the past, before the adoption of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the US licensed the production of cluster munitions with Japan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, South Korea, and Turkey.

Replacements for cluster munitions

The US Army continues a research and development program to replace existing cluster munitions used in 155mm artillery systems. The Cannon-Delivered Area Effects Munition (C-DAEM) project aims to replace existing dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) projectiles. The effort was funded to US$58 million in fiscal years 2020 and 2021 with the aim of informing “the Army's cluster munition replacement strategy.”[27] Under decisions earlier in this program, the US procured 3,676 BONUS Mk2 projectiles in fiscal years 2019–2021 from BAE Systems AB, Sweden, totaling $209 million.[28] Funding for the so-called “increment-2” of C-DAEM was not requested in the budget for fiscal year 2023.[29]

Lockheed Martin continues to produce the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System-Alternate Warhead (GMLRS-AW) for the US Army and Marine Corps.[30] The GMLRS-AW is also manufactured for foreign military sales.[31] In April 2020, Lockheed Martin vice president Jarrod P. Agen told media that the company “does not develop or produce cluster munitions, as defined in the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.”[32] Funding for the procurement of 3,552 GMLRS-AW and 120 GMLRS-AW Extended Range was included in the budget for fiscal year 2023.[33]

Transfer

Export moratorium language has been included in the annual budget each year.[34] The provision of military assistance for cluster munitions, the issuing of defense export licenses for cluster munitions, or the sale or transfer of cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology is prohibited unless “the submunitions of the cluster munitions, after arming, do not result in more than 1 percent unexploded ordnance across the range of intended operational environments.” In addition, any agreement “applicable to the assistance, transfer, or sale of such cluster munitions or cluster munitions technology” must specify that the munitions “will only be used against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.”

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA)—the US government agency that administers weapons transfers—issued a memorandum on 19 May 2011 regarding the sale of cluster munitions that incorporates these legal requirements into DSCA policy, by adding them to the Security Assistance Management Manual. According to the memorandum, “the only cluster munition with a compliant submunition (one that does not result in more than 1% UXO across the range of intended operational environments) is the CBU-97B/CBU-105, Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW).”[35]

The last congressional sales notification for CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons was in July 2015. Congressional notifications show that the US had concluded agreements from 2008–2015 to sell the CBU-105 to India,[36] Oman,[37] Saudi Arabia,[38] Singapore,[39] South Korea,[40] Taiwan,[41] and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).[42]

In May 2016, a senior Department of Defense official said that the end-use provision of its 2012 agreement with Saudi Arabia and “a handful of other cases” was “incomplete.”[43] The Saudi Arabia-led coalition’s use of the CBU-105 in Yemen in 2015–2016 raised serious questions about whether the transfer requirements were being met.[44] In May 2016, the Obama administration suspended transfers of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia after reports of their use in civilian areas of Yemen.[45]

While the historical record is incomplete, in the past, the US transferred hundreds of thousands of cluster munitions containing tens of millions of submunitions to at least 30 countries: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, and the United Kingdom (UK).[46]

In 2012, Chile’s Ministry of National Defense provided information showing that Chile transferred one 250kg cluster bomb and one 500kg cluster bomb to the US in 1991.[47]

Stockpiling

A 2004 Department of Defense report to the US Congress detailed a stockpile of 5.5 million cluster munitions of 17 different types, containing approximately 728.5 million submunitions, as listed in the following table. That total does not appear to be a full account of cluster munitions available to US forces, as it apparently does not include US cluster munition stocks located in foreign countries or stockpiled as part of the War Reserve Stocks for Allies (WRSA).[48]

Although it is outdated, the list from 2004 remains the most detailed public account of US cluster munition stocks.

US stockpile of cluster munitions (as of 2004)[49]

Stockpile destruction

All cluster munition stocks that exceed or do not satisfy operational planning requirements were removed by the service and combatant commands from the active inventory by June 2009.[50]

In March 2019, the Department of Defense budget stated, “there are approximately 93,766 tons of cluster munitions” in the demilitarization account known as ‘B5A.’The document states that 203,024 tons of cluster munitions in the US remain outside of B5A, while another 91,362 cluster munitions are outside of the US or not scheduled for destruction. The budget for fiscal year 2022 no longer details the amount of cluster munitions or other types of conventional ammunition, but states that 342,791 tons of conventional ammunition and 35,913 tons of missiles are awaiting destruction as of March 2021.

In April 2022, Expal USA was awarded the contract for the demilitarization and disposal of cluster munitions.[51]

Since the fiscal year 2007, there has been a separate funding source for the destruction of Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) rockets and ATACM missiles, with special destruction facilities for MLRS rockets at the Anniston Defense Munitions Center in Alabama, and at the Letterkenny Munitions Center in Pennsylvania.[52]

Recent funding for the destruction of cluster munitions (US$ million)[53]

Note: FY=fiscal year.

Foreign stockpiling and transit

The US appears to have removed its cluster munition stocks from the territories of at least two States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The US removed its stockpiled cluster munitions from Norway in 2010,[54] while the UK announced in 2010 that there were now “no foreign stockpiles of cluster munitions in the UK or on any UK territory.”[55]

The US has stockpiled, and may continue to store cluster munitions, in countries including States Parties Afghanistan, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain, and in non-signatories Israel, Qatar, and possibly Kuwait. This information is contained in the following US Department of State cables released by Wikileaks in 2010–2011:

• In Afghanistan, the “United States currently has a very small stockpile of cluster munitions,” according to a December 2008 cable.[56]
• Germany has engaged with the US on the matter of cluster munitions that may be stockpiled by the US in Germany, according to a December 2008 cable.[57]
• In Israel, US cluster munitions are “considered to be under U.S. title” until they are transferred from the WRSA for use by Israel in wartime.[58]
• Italy, Spain, and Qatar are identified in a November 2008 cable as “states in which the US stores cluster munitions,” even though apparently, Qatar “may be unaware of US cluster munitions stockpiles in the country.”[59]
• Japan “recognizes U.S. forces in Japan are not under Japan’s control and hence the GOJ [Government of Japan] cannot compel them to take action or to penalize them,” according to a December 2008 cable.[60]
• The US may store clusters munitions in Kuwait, according to a May 2007 cable.[61]

Policy

The United States of America (US) has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty.

On 21 June 2022, the administration of President Joe Biden realigned US landmine policy with most provisions of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, and again set the goal of ultimately joining it.[1]

The US landmine policy reinstates the prohibitions on antipersonnel mine production and use that were rolled back by a policy directive issued by the administration of President Donald Trump on 31 January 2020. The Trump policy undid years of incremental steps by the US to align its policy and practice with the Mine Ban Treaty, which the US participated in negotiating in 1996–1997. The US last used antipersonnel landmines in 1991. It has not exported them since 1992 or produced them since 1997.

The US announced its new policy at the Mine Ban Treaty’s intersessional meetings held in Geneva in June 2022.[2] The US has participated as an observer at meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty since the Second Review Conference in Cartagena in 2009.[3] It attended the Nineteenth Meeting of States Parties in November 2021, held virtually.

On 6 December 2021, the US abstained from voting on annual United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 76/26, which called for universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty.[4] The US has abstained from every annual UNGA resolution promoting the treaty since 1998.

The US is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), and provided an Article 7 transparency report for its Amended Protocol II on landmines on 29 April 2021. No updated annual report for 2022 has been submitted, as of August 2022. The US is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

2022 landmine policy

On 21 June 2022, the administration of President Joe Biden announced a new policy committing the US not to use antipersonnel landmines anywhere in the world, except on the Korean Peninsula.[5] Under the policy, the US will destroy antipersonnel mine stockpiles that are “not required for the defense of the Korean Peninsula.” The US will also not develop, produce, or acquire antipersonnel mines. The policy explicitly requires the US “not [to] assist, encourage, or induce anyone, outside the context of the Korean Peninsula, to engage in activity that would be prohibited” by the Mine Ban Treaty.

The US was the first country to call for the “eventual elimination” of antipersonnel landmines, in September 1994, and participated in the 1996–1997 Ottawa Process that created the treaty. It did not adopt or sign the Mine Ban Treaty in 1997, but the Clinton administration set the goal for the US to join the treaty in 2006. The Bush administration reversed that objective in 2004.[6] In 2014, the Obama administration issued a US landmine policy banning the production and acquisition of antipersonnel landmines, as well as halting their use by US forces anywhere except on the Korean Peninsula.[7] This brought US policy further in line with the Mine Ban Treaty. However, the Trump administration firmly rejected the notion of US accession to the treaty in January 2020.[8]

The 2022 US landmine policy has been warmly welcomed by Colombia as president of the Mine Ban Treaty, and by States Parties including Australia, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom (UK).

The 2022 policy announcement came after years of pressure from Congressional representatives and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In June 2021, Senator Patrick Leahy, Representative Jim McGovern, and 19 other Members of Congress wrote to President Biden to request that he reinstate the 2014 policy as a first step toward fully renouncing antipersonnel mines everywhere and joining the Mine Ban Treaty.[9] In January 2022, the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL) sent a letter to President Biden, signed by 37 organizations, urging “immediate action to ban the use of antipersonnel landmines without geographic exceptions, and to set the U.S. on a short direct path to join the Mine Ban Treaty by 2023.”[10]

US officials have called the new policy “a sharp contrast to Russia’s actions in Ukraine” since the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, and have condemned Russia’s use of antipersonnel mines in Ukraine for causing extensive harm to civilians and civilian objects.[11] In April 2022, the US Department of State criticized this use, stating that “Russia’s attack on Ukraine has exponentially increased risk of death and injury from deadly landmines and UXO [unexploded ordnance] in communities across Ukraine for years to come, as well as reversing years of progress addressing proliferation threats.”[12]

Use

Under the 2022 policy, the US has committed to not use antipersonnel landmines anywhere in the world, except on the Korean Peninsula.[13]

Upon making the policy announcement, US officials confirmed that the last US use of antipersonnel mines was in Iraq and Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf War, with the exception of the use of a single antipersonnel mine in Afghanistan in 2002.[14]

The Department of Defense has long cited the need for the US to use antipersonnel mines on the Korean Peninsula, in the event of an invasion by North Korea, and expressed concern that in the event of active hostilities, the current arrangement for a joint combined command structure would put a US general in charge of South Korean military forces.[15] Yet numerous retired US military officers, including those who commanded forces in South Korea, have said that using antipersonnel mines there is of little or no military value.[16]

Unlike the previous policy, the 2022 policy does not exempt “non-persistent” antipersonnel mines equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation features from the prohibition on use outside of the Korean Peninsula. This reflects how the US has come to accept that the Mine Ban Treaty comprehensively bans all types of victim-activated explosive devices, regardless of their predicted longevity, delivery method, or type of manufacture (improvised or factory-made).[17]

The US maintains no minefields, anywhere in the world. Since October 1991, the landmines already emplaced in and near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea have been under the responsibility of South Korean forces, and not the US.[18] The US cleared and destroyed the landmines laid around its naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in 1999.[19]

Transfer

Since 23 October 1992, US law has prohibited the export of antipersonnel landmines through a comprehensive moratorium, which has since been extended multiple times.[20] The 2022 policy continues this long-standing practice by stating that the US will not export or transfer antipersonnel mines “except when necessary for activities related to mine detection or removal, and for the purpose of destruction.”[21]

Upon announcing the 2022 policy, US officials clarified that the “Claymore mines that were transferred by the U.S. Government to Ukraine are command-detonated with a person in the loop who can actually detonate them,” which is permitted under the Mine Ban Treaty.

Between 1969 and 1992, the US exported more than 5.6 million antipersonnel mines to 38 countries. Deminers in at least 28 mine-affected countries have reported clearing US-manufactured antipersonnel mines, including non-self-destructing and self-destructing/self-deactivating types.

Production

The US last produced antipersonnel mines in 1997.[22] The Trump administration policy allowed the US to acquire landmines, but this never happened. The 2022 policy recommits the US to not develop, produce, or acquire antipersonnel mines, as it previously pledged to do in 2014.

No antipersonnel landmines, or other victim-activated munitions, are funded in the ammunition procurement budgets of the US Armed Services or Department of Defense for fiscal year 2023 or requested for fiscal year 2024.

The last time the US produced antipersonnel mines was in 1997, when it manufactured 450,000 ADAM and 13,200 CBU-89/B Gator self-destructing/self-deactivating antipersonnel mines for a total of US$120 million. The last non-self-destructing antipersonnel mines were procured in 1990, when the US Army bought nearly 80,000 M16A1 antipersonnel mines for a total of $1.9 million.

Alternatives to antipersonnel mines

Over more than 20 years, the US has spent in excess of $2 billion to develop and produce weapons systems that could be considered alternatives to antipersonnel landmines.[23] The 2022 policy will continue that work by stating that the US “will undertake diligent efforts to pursue materiel and operational solutions to assist in becoming compliant with and ultimately acceding to the Ottawa Convention, while ensuring our ability to respond to contingencies and meet our alliance commitments.”

The US has undertaken programs to develop alternatives to landmines, including the XM-7 Spider Networked Munition and the IMS Scorpion. Both initially had the potential for victim-activated features, thereby making them antipersonnel mines, but the Department of Defense later indicated that they would be command-detonated and not victim-activated. The XM-7 Spider Networked Munition has been produced and used in combat, while the IMS Scorpion project was cancelled.

Stockpiling

In June 2022, US officials said that the US has approximately three million stockpiled antipersonnel landmines.[24] That total has not changed since 2014, when the Department of Defense disclosed that the US had an “active stockpile of just more than 3 million anti-personnel mines.”[25]

Previously, in 2002, the US said it had a stockpile of around 10.4 million antipersonnel mines.[26]

The US stockpile mostly consists of remotely-delivered mines that are scattered over a wide area by aircraft or tube artillery and equipped with self-destruct features designed to blow the mine up after a pre-set period of time, as well as self-deactivating features. Various types of antipersonnel landmines are stockpiled, according to the following table, which lists the latest publicly available figures dating from 2010.

US stockpiles of antipersonnel mines in 2010[27]

* The accounting for GATOR includes CBU-89 [22], CBU-104 [22], and CBU-78 [15] air-dropped bombs.

Stockpile destruction

The existing US stockpile of antipersonnel mines is expected to expire—meaning that the mines will become unusable—by the early 2030s; in part because their shelf-life, of 36 years, decreases over time as batteries embedded inside the mines deteriorate with age.

The 2014 policy precluded the US from extending or modifying the life of the batteries in its stockpiled antipersonnel mines.[28] The 2022 policy is understood to be continuing this practice.

A Department of Defense spokesperson stated in 2014 that the existing antipersonnel mine stocks “will start to decline in their ability to be used about[sic]…starting in about 10 years. And in 10 years after that, they’ll be completely unusable.”[29]

The 2014 policy committed the US to destroy antipersonnel mines that were “not required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.”[30] In 2014, Expal USA—the US subsidiary of Spanish defense company Expal—won a contract to destroy Gator and Volcano mines at its facility in Marshall, Texas.[31] The estimated completion date was June 2020, according to MAXAM, the multinational company that owns Expal.[32]

General Atomics built the US Army a special “munitions cryofracture demilitarization facility” at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in Oklahoma, to destroy US stocks of ADAM mines through disassembly and cryofracture.[33] The destruction process started in December 2004 and was supposed to have concluded by June 2018, but it is unclear whether this deadline was met.[34]

Since 2011, at least 96 M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munitions and 40 M74 antipersonnel mines, as well as other “problematic munitions,” have been destroyed in a static detonation chamber built to destroy US stocks of chemical weapons.[35]

It is unclear how many landmines were destroyed by the US prior to the 2020 policy change.

Retention

In 2020, the US said that a small quantity of “persistent mines” (non-self-destructing) have been retained for demining and counter-mine testing and training.[36]

In 2021, the United States (US) contributed some US$194.5 million to 21 countries and one other area.[1] This represents a 4% decrease from the $202.6 million provided in 2020.

US support to mine action was distributed among the following regions: East and South Asia and the Pacific ($94.1 million, 48%, six recipient countries), the Middle East and North Africa ($49.5 million, 26%, six recipient countries), the Americas ($21.5 million, 11%, one recipient country), Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia ($17.9 million, 9%, five recipient countries/territories), and Sub-Saharan Africa ($11.5 million, 6%, four recipient countries).

Contributions by recipient: 2021

Mine action assistance approach

The US allocates the majority of its mine action funding through the State Department’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (WRA), within the framework of its conventional weapons destruction efforts. Additional funding is allocated through the Patrick Leahy War Victims Fund within the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The US is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions nor the Mine Ban Treaty, but it has been the largest financial support to mine action since the 1990s.

At the UN Security Council Open Debate on Mine Action in April 2021, the US noted that its mine action assistance aimed at protecting civilians and creating a safe environment for people to live in; further adding it was following a “three-pronged approach” focusing on clearance, risk education programmes, and rehabilitation.”[2]

COVID-19 and mine action support

No USAID funding was diverted to address COVID-19, with the exception that a few programs were working with the Department of Health to support the development of accessible communications, while remaining within the scope of the initial activity of the contributions.[3]

The US also reported that in some instances mine action funds were used to assist COVID-19 related activities, such as the simultaneous provision of explosive ordnance risk education (EORE) and pandemic prevention messaging, or the delivery of medical supplies to hospitals through unused demining vehicles.[4] In May 2020, a US representative said that “where host governments are requesting the use of HMA [humanitarian mine action]-funded assets, and it can be done in a reasonable and minimally disruptive manner, we will consider it.”[5]

Five-year support to mine action

From 2017–2021, the cumulative US contribution for mine action totaled more than $1 billion. This represents 63% more than the $672.7 million provided in the previous five-year period from 2012–2016. Annual US support has totaled more than $100 million since 2009.

Summary of contributions: 2017–2021[6]

Note: N/A=not applicable.