New Frontiers

Mark Williams:  Welcome back to New Frontiers. I’m Mark Williams. This is part two of my conversation with Matthew Breay Bolton; he’s a political scientist at Pace University who co-directs the International Disarmament Institute. The author of several books, Matthew is an expert on the UN, peace building, disarmament, demining, and the environmental consequences of weapons. Along with his wife, Emily Welty, he was part of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons team, which won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

Part one of our conversation concluded with Matthew lamenting the US decision to suspend all aid, assistance, and funding for demining efforts around the world. That decision announced by the Trump State Department in January 2025 marked a reversal of bipartisan policy stretching back decades.
Part two of our conversation explores some of the ethical, political, and strategic implications of a US withdrawal from global demining campaigns. But to set the stage for that discussion, I first asked Matthew to sum up some of the big takeaways from his research on US mine clearing efforts in the past, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

If we were to sum up your earlier research on US demining efforts in those three countries, are there any other significant takeaways that you think we should know about regarding the efficacy or the way in which the US approached demining?

Matthew Bolton: I think in all three of those cases, there was an acknowledgement that the local authorities had to be involved to contribute to things like community liaison. This is really crucial. It's often overlooked, but you can't necessarily just send a bunch of deminers into a community and then get them to work, because it's very unclear where the edges of a minefield are. You need to talk to people and ask them the story of like, what happened here during the war. Where were the front lines? Do you remember particular incidents? Like where would we find that? And for the people there to give you that information, you have to have their trust.

Mark Williams: Yes, they have to trust you.

Matthew Bolton: And that means you need people who are sensitive, thoughtful, careful people who are able to speak the local languages, look like the people that they're talking to, and have the care and attention. That's not always deminers who are able to do that. It's certainly not people from the outside. And that's an additional expense, to put the money into gathering that information, but also facilitating things like–these are really practical problems–but for instance, if you find a mine and it's unstable, you’ll have to blow it up in place. But to do that, you need to make sure there's nobody close. And so you have to figure out, is there anyone in the trees over there that are just beyond where we're looking? That house over there, do we need to tape up the windows and tell them to leave? Do we need to make sure that cow that seems to be wandering towards us is tied up someplace and not anywhere close to here?
And all of that work requires extensive thought and care and requires funds to do it. And the US had participated in that. The US had also provided assistance for assisting victims of mines and cluster munitions.

Mark Williams: So it wasn't just the clearing and the elimination of the mines, it was also victim assistance as well.

Matthew Bolton: Yes. And this is really important and often overlooked. In fact, in the negotiations of the mine ban treaty, the first draft of the treaty did not include assistance to mine victims. And it included demining because many of the organizations that were doing demining were advocating for the treaty.
But several mine affected people were scandalized, and they said “nothing about us without us.” You've used our images in your photographs for this campaign. You've had us come speak and share our testimony. You've had us build the political will for this by visiting heads of states and the Pope and celebrities and so on. But there needs to be now something for us in this treaty specifically. And even now, even though that's in the treaty, people find talking about demining, including myself perhaps, to be a more exciting thing to talk about than

Mark Williams: The assistance to the people.

Matthew Bolton: Than like medical care for people who have injuries from mines. The long-term rehabilitative care for people with mobility difficulties, socioeconomic inclusion for families who've lost the people who are earning the money for the home.
And all of that is important too. And the US was providing some of that. Also, I'm remembering the Vermont connection, that Senator Patrick Leahy was a longtime champion for all of this but specifically for victims of mines and other war related injuries. Senator Leahy was a major advocate for addressing the needs of mine victims.

Mark Williams: One of the things I thought was really interesting about what you just said is that in providing assistance to the victims of landmines, would seem to go a long way toward helping to establish credibility and trust and establishing a record on which these kinds of programs could grow and expand, and people are going to be more willing to speak with the deminers and be open about situations on the ground.

Matthew Bolton: Yes, and there's been cases, for instance, of recruitment of former mine victims into demining units, and I think that if the person wants to do that, sometimes they don't wanna do that right, but if they want to do that, it really elevates the credibility and the moral force of what's happening. And when I've talked to deminers, people either who are doing the work in the field, or people who are managing them, who many of them laid the mines

Mark Williams: Really?

Matthew Bolton: Right? Yes. Or were involved in some way, and this is a way for them to repair on some level.

Mark Williams: That's fascinating. Says something good about the human spirit too.

Matthew Bolton: Right. And in fact, the US veterans have often played a significant role in highlighting the impact of mines and cluster munitions in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Some of them are themselves affected. Some of them dropped the cluster munitions, and for many of them also this has been a way that I've talked to, a way for them to be involved in a kind of healing of themselves, but also to establish a kind of sense of reconciliation or connection with an area of the world that played a significant role in their lives. And they want to be a part of doing right by it.

Mark Williams: I wanted to ask you about an overall assessment of the US role in global demining. Understanding that it may have its quirks, there may be cross-cutting interests at times that would make it less effective, perhaps less idealistic than our official rhetoric might like it to sound or appear. But from your perspective, has the overall impact of US participation in global mining programs, has it had positive effects for the most part? Has it made much of a difference at all that the United States was a player in this?

Matthew Bolton: Absolutely. And I have been a long-time critic of the role of the US in this sector, and I find myself now defending the role of the US in this sector because I didn't mean “cancel it” when I was criticizing it. My criticisms have been that the US has not joined the landmine or cluster munition treaty, and in some times has gone out of its way to undermine them. But when it has been a good faith player, it has come alongside other states and has been the largest, by dollar volume, contributor to global efforts to address the humanitarian impacts of mines.

And that has made a significant difference in many people's lives. And I've seen the difference where communities that, where mobility was deeply constrained by the presence of mines, open up and people can move and people can trade things. And people can go back home. And people can go back to their farmland. And what a marvelous thing to happen. Right. Like it's a literal kind of bringing peace to the land that I think is so powerful and it breaks my heart that this is under threat now.

Mark Williams: Well, you're sort of segwaying very nicely to the next topic. In January 2025, the Trump White House halted all aid and funding to global demining programs. And I wonder what your thoughts are on this. This was a fairly abrupt and dramatic policy change.

Matthew Bolton: Yes, this will have material impacts, right? There will be people whose lives would've been safe and will not be safe now. In many communities across the world, this will have an impact on the credibility of the United States. If we're thinking from a humanitarian point of view, it's gonna have a lot of impact on those communities where the US was contributing to assisting people who had been hurt by mines, who had been demining places. But also, the US was, from a self-interested point of view, contributing to demining in Southeast Asia in part because it was wanting to normalize relations with those states that it had a conflict. Also, it had an eye toward China and kind of strategic competition. And that shouldn't be the only reason why the US funds demining, but even in the framework of a certain kind of logic of foreign policy, it doesn't make sense to me.

There's obviously a humanitarian and human rights imperative to help people who are under threat from weapons that the United States put there, and there's a justice element of that. It's an ethical obligation to address the harm that we've caused. Even though my accent is British, I'm also an American, so I consider it my responsibility to be a part of that too.

Mark Williams: Is there any sense in which this policy decision might enhance US security?

Matthew Bolton: Right, that’s the thing. I think there's a strange way that this will undermine the US position in Southeast Asia. In many cases the funding for demining and other related programs was part of the normalization of US relationships with Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. So the trade relationships there, often it was connected to cooperation around finding missing inaction people

Mark Williams: American soldiers missing in action.

Matthew Bolton: Yes, the bodies of people who were there. And from the point of view of strategic competition with China, this doesn't make sense either. And that's not a logic I would normally lean into as more of a human rights guy. But it doesn't make sense to me, even on the logic of my ideological competitors, if you will, and I don't understand it. I think it is a massive strategic blunder.

Mark Williams: It's hard for me to see a way in which not participating in global demining efforts enhances America's security. How might the US withdrawal from land mine removal projects affect, do you think, some of the other actors that are involved in these programs? Some of the NGOs and other organizations and actors you talked about, who are actually implementing these programs, what effect might be realized by them?

Matthew Bolton: I mean, we've already seen people being furloughed and laid off. There's valuable knowledge in those people. People who know what they're doing around very dangerous things and are being treated as disposable. And I think that it is such a shame that people who have such ability to offer something to their communities, to their country, and also to the world, because it's not just Lao, Cambodian, and Vietnamese people who are in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, right? There are tourists. There are US diplomats who visit these countries and their lives are also threatened by these devices. And I think, unfortunately this has had a knock on effect in multiple ways. It doesn't all rest at the feet of the Trump administration. The Biden administration had already loosened rules around the transfer of landmines, and I think that was not a good move.

Mark Williams: Was this in response to events in Ukraine or to something else?

Matthew Bolton: Yes, and I think now we are seeing a kind of a reverberation of threats to the norm against mines, where there is several European states that border Russia have recently announced that they would like to withdraw from the mine ban treaty. I think this is another strategic blunder on their part, because

Mark Williams: These are states who at one time were part of the Soviet Union. Or border the Soviet Union.

Matthew Bolton: Yes. Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. And I think this is a blunder on their part. It might play well to a specific political audience internally, but the message it sends is that they don't care about their civilian populations. Because if they use mines, it's civilians who will most be harmed. A barrier minefield is ironically, the idea that would somehow slow a Russian advance, ironically comes from Soviet military doctrine, which was proven wrong over and over again, say in Afghanistan. Right. The minefields that were supposedly protecting the Soviet troops from the mujahideen clearly didn't work. And so there's a strange, twisted logic of former Soviet states using outdated military ideas that come from their former oppressor that don't work.

Mark Williams: And one of the ironies of this, I think, could be that perhaps they are doing this, thinking that it would deter a Russian invasion, a Russian attack, an advancement. So they're seeking to deter because they have questions and uncertainties about the value of prior alliances that they were a part of. They're unsure whether or not a NATO alliance would actually protect them. Whether the biggest player at NATO would actually show up if they got into a military conflict with Russia.

Matthew Bolton: Yes. And I think the fears are valid.

Mark Williams: I don't think that they are unfounded at all. I can completely understand why the leadership would look for some means to try and reassure the people and themselves that they're doing something defensive to deter what could be a very gloomy situation. But as you point out, and as history is our guide, these mines really don't offer a deterrent effect.

Matthew Bolton: No. And if you think about the Russian military forces' record over the last 20, 30 years, they've shown a remarkable willingness to accept casualties–in Ukraine and in Georgia. So I think a barrier minefield with Russia would likely only delay an advance by a few hours, if that. And so again, maybe a mine could be used effectively in an ambush, but the landmine ban treaty doesn't ban command-detonated mines. So the very mines that would be most useful in that circumstance, if you accept that mines could be useful, are not even banned by the treaty they're thinking of withdrawing from. And I think the message that it sends ultimately is that a rule-governed world is not important.

And the actors that will most benefit from that, I don't think are the small states. I think it will be Russia that will benefit most from a message that we don't need restrictions on military forces. We don't need human rights norms and humanitarian norms to really have teeth. And I think that they are withdrawing from something that actually protects people, including in some ways themselves. And those of us who care about those norms really need to stand up and defend them.

Mark Williams: As the Trump White House leads the United States away from global leadership on the landmine issue, do you think this opens the door to some other state or some group of states to stand up and take the lead on that issue?

Matthew Bolton: We are trying, those of us who are working in the space of advocacy, to try to encourage other states to step forward. The second largest single state involved in funding demining and mine victim assistance has been Norway. Norway's a significantly smaller player than the United States. And we really need the US involved in playing a role as a funder, but also as a provider of technical assistance of the data that the United States has on file, and has been able to provide in the past, the expertise of people working for the US government in all kinds of aspects, both the ability to teach demining, but also to manage aid programs. I fear the broader threat of the hollowing out of the federal bureaucracy in that regard. Right. That again, it's not just deminers in Laos that are being put at risk in terms of their jobs. There are people in DC who have years of knowledge of this sector.

Mark Williams: Of experience, of expertise are being dismissed.

Matthew Bolton: Yeah, in the federal bureaucracy but also within organizations that the United States funded and who have played such a crucial role in making the world a safer place.

Mark Williams: And here's a further irony that I've been contemplating, the withdrawal of the United States from these programs, the cessation of aid and funding to them could make theaters where US troops become active much more dangerous to the troops that might be sent there, to the American troops that might be sent there.

Matthew Bolton: We saw that in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And the mines don't discriminate. That's the thing. Mines don't discriminate. And US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are threatened by the presence of mines and unexploded ordnance in several ways. Some of them more complex than one might imagine. And there's the mines themselves, or unexploded ordnance, but then also that explosive material that was diffused throughout the landscape was a readily available source of explosives for people who wanted to fight the United States, and retool it for other purposes. And one of the main sources of casualties for US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq was these improvised explosive devices that used abandoned and unexploded weaponry that was readily available. And so, wisely in some ways, the US paid for significant efforts to try to clean a lot of that up. Again, that was self-interested in some ways, but it had a tangential impact on the civilian population that was positive. And I think there's a lack of long-term strategic thinking in that regard.

Mark Williams: One of the more striking aspects of Matthew's research and work in the disarmament field could also be one of the least appreciated. When it comes to the legacies of military weapons, there's a tendency to view these as problems that only people living over there, so to speak, have to deal with. But the reality is different. Whether it's landmines, cluster bombs, or even nukes, the dangers that military weapons can leave behind and expose civilians to long after a conflict ends aren't confined only to regions that once were war zones. And as Matthew points out, nor is the US as insulated from the environmental consequences of military weapons as some might believe.

Matthew Bolton: The United States is not isolated from the world as much as we might think we are. And I think actually as we sit here in Vermont, looking out over the beautiful setting that might not seem like it is anywhere connected to minefields in places of conflict, the role that Vermonters have played in the campaign to ban landmines, in the allocation of resources in Congress to mine victims, indicates that no place is disconnected from the rest of the world. And even here in the United States, we underestimate the way that there is military pollution here too. So in New York City where I teach, there are sites that were contaminated by the Manhattan Project and the nuclear weapons project after that, that continue to be cleaned up now.

Mark Williams: Really?

Matthew Bolton: Yes.

Mark Williams: To wrap things up, I'm wondering if we could take a sort of a broader view, perhaps do a little speculating. As the Trump White House seems to be really intent on ending US foreign aid more broadly and not just in the demining area, I'm wondering in what ways could this new policy affect, do you think, US influence, US power, prestige, or strategic interests?

Matthew Bolton: By stepping back from international institutions, you're not in the room, right? If you step back from providing assistance, someone else might step in. By walking away from obligations and promises, it makes it harder for people to believe you next time. And I think there are obviously really crucial humanitarian and human rights reasons to engage in foreign assistance, to help people who are in need, who the US is in a position to assist and offer solace and satisfaction and assistance in various ways, offers an image of the United States as a friend, as an ally, as a protector, that is being abandoned. There was always some problems with that image to begin with. I find myself in the uncomfortable position of defending the importance of US foreign assistance, which I have been critical of for so long. Many Americans underestimate how little money was being spent on foreign assistance.

Mark Williams: True. They think it's a great deal of money, and comparatively speaking, it has never been a great deal of money since perhaps the Marshall Plan.

Matthew Bolton: Right. And I think the goodwill that money and human presence has offered to the world, never mind the information that is received through engaging with societies outside of the United States, was invaluable. And I really urge the United States to re-engage in a meaningful and earnest way and a good faith way. For those who are not in the Trump White House but are in positions of political power, they need to stand up for why this is important. And those of us who are not in positions of political office need to push them to do that, to make sure that we don't step away from our obligations and also opportunities that emerge from engagement in the world.

Mark Williams: Well, this has been a really fascinating discussion. Matthew Bolton, thank you so much for being a scholar in residence here at Middlebury and for visiting us here on New Frontiers.

Matthew Bolton: Thank you so much for having me.

Mark Williams: This episode of New Frontiers was produced by Margaret DeFoor and me, Mark Williams. Our theme music is by Ketsa. If you like the show, leave us a rating or review on Spotify, Amazon, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This can help others to find us too. We’ll be back with another episode of New Frontiers.