From minefields to minespace: An archeology of the changing architecture of autonomous killing in US Army field manuals on landmines, booby traps and IEDs

Since WWI, militaries and armed groups have used remote and autonomous explosive traps - landmines, booby traps and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - as a kind of deadly architecture to reengineer terrain inhospitable. Until recently, minefields remained analog, static, and fixed. But technological development and changes in the nature of war have made remote and autonomous violence increasingly mobile, dynamic, and robotic and, rather than being contained in a bounded Cartesian plane, diffused through the very spaces and flows that sustain civilian life. Such “unmanned” weapons are increasingly able to navigate, communicate with each other, identify targets and even kill with minimal human involvement. Mirroring broader changes in the spatial configurations of war, the architectural form of remote and autonomous killing is thus shifting from the two-dimensional minefield to multi-dimensional minespace. This poses challenges to those engaged in humanitarian efforts to demilitarize space. To illustrate these changes, the paper draws on Derek Gregory's notion of “Everywhere War” and engages in a discursive “archeology” of the minefield as described by US Army mine, booby trap and IED warfare field manuals.