Land mines are the lethal detritus of 20th-century warfare. Indiscriminate, all but permanent, ever cheaper and increasingly hard to detect, they bedevil efforts to put a country back together after the shooting stops. And not just Bosnia, where millions of high-tech mines lie hidden–and where 85 NATO soldiers have been injured and seven killed by mines this year. In Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique and Afghanistan, peasants often must risk their lives to earn a living; huge fertile areas lie fallow. The problem is staggering. Up to 110 million active mines are scattered in 64 countries (map). The toll: 2,000 victims a month. Today it would cost $33 billion to lift those mines. Tomorrow it will cost more: in 1994 2 million new mines were planted, 20 times as many as were removed.

Should land mines be banned? That’s the goal of a four-year-old international campaign by several hundred relief, religious and veterans’ organizations. As more than 50 nations prepare to meet in Geneva this month for final debate on ways to address the plague of mines, the activists want Washington to join 24 countries that have called for an immediate ban on anti-personnel mines (APMs)–the small mines, costing as little as $3 each, that most often cripple civilians. Last week the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation demanded in a New York Times ad: “President Clinton: Ban Land Mines Now.” This week another such ad will carry an open letter to Clinton from at least a dozen retired U.S. generals, including former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman David Jones, Desert Storm commander Norman Schwarzkopf and former NATO commander John Galvin–a potent political force. Most combat vets hate mines (following story). Colin Powell says he won’t weigh in on the public debate until a current Pentagon review of land-mine use is completed, but he wrote to those seeking his support for a ban, “I abhor mines.” Powell’s encouragement may not be necessary; NEWSWEEK has learned that Clinton already is preparing to sign on to a new line of military thinking: that modern nations stand to lose more from anti-personnel mines than they gain.

Administration officials are pulling together a three-prong strategy for responding to the growing threat of these mines:

In Geneva, Washington will press for approval of a series of amendments to the 1980 U.N. Convention on Conventional Weapons. The anti-mine campaign argues that such amendments only legitimize use of a weapon that should be made as unacceptable as poison gas. But “we can’t change our demands at the eleventh hour,” said one U.S. official. Among the proposals: a requirement that all new APMs be equipped to self-destruct within 30 days, new export controls, extending the restrictions to cover civil wars and a rule that long-lived mines be used only in marked, fenced and monitored minefields. Washington also wants another review of the treaty in five years.

With the strengthened mine protocol signed, Washington will turn its attention from consumers of mines to their suppliers. The goal: export controls by the 36 manufacturing nations. The United States and Britain quietly convened the group last June in Budapest. Another meeting of this embryonic suppliers’ club is likely later this year. One glitch: although most of the main mine-makers came to the Budapest meeting, China missed it.

If the forthcoming report by Joint Chiefs Chairman John Shalikashvili gives him enough running room, President Clinton is being urged to announce a major U.S. initiative on APMs. He may dramatize this by appointing a mine-control “czar.” Clinton aides hope he can seize the high moral ground by announcing that the U.S. military will observe a unilateral moratorium on the use of anti-personnel mines for a five-year period until the next review of the conventional-weapons accord. He then could call on other nations to follow the U.S. lead.

Such an initiative would signal a shift in U.S. military thinking. (It also would protect Clinton against a flanking maneuver by decorated war vet Bob Dole.) U.S. Army doctrine has long seen mines as"force multipliers" to disrupt opposing forces during an assault. That view has prevailed as recently as 1994, when the White House ordered a Pentagon review of mine use in preparation for the conventional-weapons talks. The army’s response: land mines remain a “key combat capability” that can cut U.S. combat loss ratios in half. Concern over holding down U.S. losses trumped clamor over the morality of using a weapon that doesn’t discriminate between combatants and civilians.

But a new view is evolving in the Pentagon, driven by one thing: Bosnia. Commanders have been shocked to discover how poorly the army’s kit of de-mining tools and techniques performs against the kind of modern, plastic APMs strewn across Bosnia. And better mine detectors–using radar, microwaves, lasers or thermal neutron analysis–won’t be available for five to 10 years. With the spring thaw, the threat of mines multiplies. Yet long-term goals for Bosnia–the return of refugees, elections, reconstruction–hinge on restoring freedom of movement. And if reconstruction lags, it could threaten the administration’s pledge to withdraw forces within a year.

Future U.S. military missions are likely to be similar to Bosnia. That changes the cost-benefit analysis of the use of mines. Last year the Army’s own think tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses, found that anti-personnel mines help in only a few battlefield situations, and even then extra firepower can compensate. Today the Pentagon’s main fear about a ban is not for its troops, but for its plans. Some generals worry that a ban could encourage efforts to limit.a new generation of high-tech sub-munitions that can be spread behind an enemy’s lines. They’re the essential component of Pentagon hopes for a smaller yet less vulnerable U.S. force over the next generation. But that’s a risk the president may be willing to take.

The Pentagon’s new thinking would have come as no surprise to the late Les Aspin, Clinton’s first defense secretary. With the end of the cold war, he mused one evening, the United States would find that its interest now lay in limiting weapons it once deemed essential. Land mines, “a classic poor man’s weapon,” were as much an example as nuclear weapons, he allowed, adding: “The army is still wedded to them. Wait until they’ve had to confront them in contingency operations a few times.” With 20,000 U.S. troops in Bosnia, that day may have come.

Small, designed to maim soldiers and prevent farmers from sowing fields. New plastic models are waterproof and evade metal detectors.

They can be set off by remote-controlled device or tripwire, dispersing a horizontal arc of steel fragments at an approaching enemy.

Called jumping mines, or “Bouncing Bettys.” Pressure applied to a tripwire ejects an explosive several feet in the air. Designed to explode near the midsection.

These WW II-era mines are driven into the ground, often in clusters and equipped with trip-wires. When activated they release metal fragments in all directions.

Delivered by the hundreds from cannons, rockets or aircraft, they arm themselves, can sense their targets and are supposed to deactivate after a set time.

A land mine that costs $3 to purchase and almost nothing to lay can cost up to $1,000 to clear. Military minefield vehicles can clear paths for tanks, vehicles and soldiers.

Clearing a vast area of mines requires probing every few centimeters of soil. The U.S. Army’s Schiebel-series mine detectors can locate anti-personnel and anti-tank mines with minimal metal content.

German shepherd dogs are used to sniff out mines harder to detect. De-miners wear plexiglass visors, kneepads and Kevlar vests for protection, while air-cushion shoes reduce risk of accidentally activating mines.

MAP: A World of Hazards Underfoot. Anti-personnel mines kill or maim 2,000 people a month, including many children. Now a growing chores of voices is calling for a total ban on their use. ..MR.-

Eastern and Central Europe Seven million mines are laid here, in-eluding about 3 million in Bosnia, which pose the greatest threat to IFOR troops maintaining the peace.

Latin America About 240,000 mines are in the region, with thousands on the disputed border between Ecuador and Peru.

Mideast, North Africa and Central Asia More than half of the world’s mines are here, including millions in Afghanistan.

East Asia Twenty-three million mines are planted in the region, 10 million in Cambodia alone.

Sub-Saharan Africa Twenty years of war have left about 15 million mines in Angola–at least one for every man, woman and child. ..MR0-

KEY A NO KNOWN MINES B NUMBER UNKNOWN C UNDER 100,000 D 100,000-1,000,000 E 1,000,000-10,000,000 F OVER 10,000,000 Country A B C D E F AFGHANISTAN X ANGOLA X ARMENIA X AUSTRALIA X AUSTRIA X AZERBAIJAN X BELARUS X BELGIUM X BOSNIA X BURMA X CAMBODIA X CANADA X CHAD X CHINA X COLOMBIA X COSTA RICA X CROATIA X CUBA X CYPRUS X CZECH REPUBLIC X DENMARK X DJIBOUTI X ECUADOR X EGYPT X EL SALVADOR X ETHIOPIA X ETITREA X GEORGIA X GERMANY X GREECE X GUATEMALA X GUINES-BISSAU X HONDURAS X INDIA X IRAN X IRAQ X ISRAEL X JORDAN X KUWAIT X LAOS X LATVIA X LEBANON X LIBERIA X LIBYA X LUXEMBURG X MAURITANIA X MEXICO X MOLDOVA X MONGOLIA X MOZAMBIQUE X NAMIBIA X NETHERLANDS X NICARAGUA X OMAN X PERU X PHILIPPINES X RUSSIA X RWANDA X SENEGAL X SIERRA LEONE X SLOVENIA X SOMALIA X SOUTH KOREA X SRI LANKA X SUDAN X SYRIA X TAJIKISTAN X THAILAND X TUNISIA X TURKEY X UGANDA X UKRAINE X UNITED STATES X VIETNAM X WESTERN SAHARA X YEMEN X YUGOSLAVIA X ZIMBABWE X