Summary: Non-signatory the United States (US) sees military utility in cluster munitions and has taken no steps to accede to the convention. The US has never participated in a meeting of the convention, even as an observer. The US abstained from the vote on a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2018.

A November 2017 policy reversed a long-standing policy requiring the US to not use cluster munitions that result in more than 1% unexploded ordnance (UXO) after 2018. The US last used cluster munitions in 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 has only manufactured cluster munitions for foreign sales since then. Recipients of US cluster munitions must agree not to use them in civilian areas.

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 over the past decade because, in its view, cluster munitions provide “a vital military capability.”[1] In November 2017, the Trump administration replaced a July 2008 Department of Defense policy directive on cluster munitions issued under President George W. Bush.[2] The Trump policy abandons the requirement that the US no longer use cluster munitions that result in more than a 1% UXO rate by the end of 2018.[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) authority to approve employing 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]

Trump administration officials have not made any public remarks commenting on the new policy or cluster munitions more generally since the 2017 release.

Senators Dianne Feinstein of California called the 2017 cluster munition policy “unbelievable” and “a shame,” while Patrick Leahy of Vermont criticized the Pentagon for “perpetuating the use of an indiscriminate weapon that has been shown to have high failure rates, with devastating consequences for civilians.”[6] Human Rights Watch (HRW), chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), condemned the 2017 policy and called the US “embrace” of “notoriously unreliable cluster munitions…a gigantic step backward.”[7] A March 2018 Government Business Council report said that by continuing to rely on cluster munitions, the 2017 policy “exposes the US military to international backlash and hampers America’s ability to remain on the cutting edge of defense technology.”[8] The Heritage Foundation has recommended that Congress support the new policy.[9]

The US did not participate, not even as an observer, in the 2007–2008 Oslo Process that resulted in the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[10] 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).[11] A Congressional Research Service report found that “U.S. officials were concerned that early versions of the [draft treaty text] would prevent military forces from non-states parties from providing humanitarian and peacekeeping support and significantly affect NATO military operations.”[12]

The US has never participated in a meeting of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Eighth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2018.

In December 2018, the US abstained from the vote on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that urges states outside the convention to “join as soon as possible.”[13]

The US has abstained from voting on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015. In a 2015 explanation of the vote, the US said it considers the resolution to be “applicable only to those States Parties to this convention.”[14] The US argued that “when used in accordance with international humanitarian law, cluster munitions with a low unexploded ordnance rate provide key advantages against certain types of legitimate military targets and can produce less collateral damage than high-explosive, unitary weapons.[15]

During the 2018 session of the UNGA First Committee on Disarmament and International Security, the US repeated that it does not accept that the convention “represents an emerging norm.”[16]

However, the US has voted in favor of UNGA resolutions condemning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, most recently in December 2018.[17]

In previous years, Senators Feinstein and Leahy have introduced legislation encouraging the US to accede to the Convention on Cluster Munitions as soon as possible.[18]

The US is not a party to the Mine Ban Treaty, but since 2009 has participated as an observer in Mine Ban Treaty meetings. In 2014, the US banned production and acquisition of antipersonnel landmines as well as use, except on the Korean Peninsula.[19]

The US is a party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). The US has not proposed any further CCW work on cluster munitions since states failed to adopt a draft CCW protocol on cluster munitions in 2011.[20] This effectively concluded CCW deliberations on the matter, leaving the Convention on Cluster Munitions as the sole international instrument dedicated to ending the suffering caused by these weapons.

Use

Under the 2017 policy, any US cluster munition use that exceeds the 1% UXO rate must be approved by a Combatant Commander.[21]

The last significant US use of cluster munitions was during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. There does not appear to have been any US use of cluster munitions since then with the exception of a single attack in Yemen in December 2009.[22] Neither the US nor the Yemeni government has publicly denied US responsibility for the 2009 attack.[23]

According to a US Air Force spokesperson, neither the US nor other members of the international coalition used cluster munitions in the air war against the non-state armed group Islamic State in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.[24] The US has provided logistical and other support to a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of states that has used US cluster munitions in Yemen since 2015.

The US used cluster munitions in several conflicts in the past: Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Vietnam (1960s and 1970s); Grenada and Lebanon (1983); Libya (1986); Iran (1988); Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia (1991); Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995); Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo (1999); Afghanistan (2001 and 2002); Iraq (2003); and Yemen (2009).[25]

Production

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.[26] The US last budgeted funds to produce new cluster munitions in 2007.[27] Since then, it has manufactured cluster munitions only for each foreign sales order in accordance with the 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.[28] In a 30 August 2016 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Textron said it 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.[29]

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

Alternatives to cluster munitions

The Air Force, Army, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense continue research and development activities at the applied research level to develop alternatives to cluster munitions.[30]

Lockheed Martin is producing the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System-Alternate Warhead (GMLRS-AW) for the US Army.[31] The GMLRS-AW has been manufactured for foreign military sales.[32]

The US Army initially awarded a $71 million contract in April 2018 to acquire 1,250 155mm BONUS artillery projectiles from a company in Sweden.[33] The BONUS projectile contains two sensor-fuzed submunitions and is not prohibited by the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Budget justification materials described the BONUS as “an effective bridging strategy to address critical capability gaps from the loss of DPICM and mitigates risks until the planned program of record is completed.” This procurement was expanded in March 2019 for the two subsequent fiscal years and now funds the acquisition of 2,274 projectiles for $186 million delivered through August 2022.[34]

The US Army has funded several research and development programs to “provide increased battlefield lethality with reduced unexploded ordnance (UXO) compliant with the Department of Defense (DoD) cluster munitions policy” such as the “Cannon-Delivered Area Effects Munitions (C-DAEM) Program.”[35] The C-DAEM program aims to replace the current US stockpile of 155mm DPICM “with DoD policy compliant munitions and address anti-armor and extended range capability requirements.” A total of $6 million was spent on C-DAEM in 2018–2019, while the Fiscal Year 2020 budget has requested $25 million annually for the system through 2024.[36]

In 2018, the US spent $2.5 million testing the 155mm M999 “Advance Anti-Personnel Munition” containing M99 explosive submunitions produced by Israel Military Industries.[37] In October 2018, an IMI official told The New York Times that each M999 shell contains nine submunitions with self-destruct features.[38] It is unclear if this weapon complies with the ban convention.

Transfer

Export moratorium language has been included in the annual budget each year.[39] 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.”

On 19 May 2011, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA)—the US government agency that administers weapons transfers—issued a memorandum on 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).”[40]

The last congressional sales notification for CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons was in July 2015. Congressional notifications show that the US has concluded agreements from 2008 until 2015 to sell CBU-105 to India,[41] Oman,[42] Saudi Arabia,[43] Singapore,[44] South Korea,[45] Taiwan,[46] and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).[47]

In May 2016, a senior Department of Defense official said the end-use provision of its 2012 agreement with Saudi Arabia and “a handful of other cases” was “incomplete.”[48] The use of US-manufactured and -supplied CBU-105 in 2015 and 2016 raised serious questions about whether the transfer requirements were being met.[49] In May 2016, the Obama administration suspended transfers of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia after reports of their use in civilian areas in Yemen.[50]

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, South Korea, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, and the United Kingdom (UK).[51]

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.[52]

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 about 728.5 million submunitions, as listed in the following table. That number does not appear to be a full account of cluster munitions available to US forces, as it apparently does not include US cluster munitions stocks located in foreign countries or stockpiled as part of the War Reserve Stocks for Allies (WRSA).[53]

While outdated, the 2004 list remains the most detailed public account of US cluster munition stocks.

US stockpile of cluster munitions (as of 2004)[54]

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.

The now-reversed 2008 policy required that the Department of Defense relinquish more than 99.9% of its cluster munition stocks by the end of 2018, as only the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon met the less than 1% percent UXO requirement.

According to a March 2019 Department of Defense budget request “Currently, there are approximately 93,766 tons of cluster munitions” in the demilitarization account known as ‘B5A.’” The document states that an additional 203,024 tons of cluster munitions remain in CONUS outside the B5A, while another 91,362 cluster munitions are “OCONUS” or not scheduled for destruction.

Recent funding for the destruction of cluster munitions (millions of US dollars)[55]

Note: FY = Fiscal year.

Previously, US budget materials released in February 2018 stated that there were “approximately 122,083 tons of cluster munitions in the demil stockpile” and another “188,787 tons remaining in [the continental US] outside the B5A and another 127,972 [outside the continental US].”[56]

US company General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems has described its US-based demilitarization facility as “the largest cluster munitions disposal facility in the world.”[57] In 2013 and 2015, the company was awarded contracts to demilitarize US cluster munitions and other weapons.[58] In June 2014, General Dynamics completed the destruction of Canada’s stockpile of 12,597 M483A1 projectiles and 1,108,536 DPICM submunitions at its facility outside Joplin, Missouri.[59]

Since 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 the Letterkenny Munitions Center in Pennsylvania. The army requested $109 million for the destruction of 98,904 M26 MLRS rockets from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal year 2012.[60]

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.[61] The UK announced in 2010 that there were now “no foreign stockpiles of cluster munitions in the UK or on any UK territory.”[62]

The US has stockpiled and may continue to store cluster munitions in countries including Convention on Cluster Munitions States Parties Afghanistan, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain, and in non-signatories Israel, Qatar, and perhaps 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.[63]
• 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.[64]
• In Israel, US cluster munitions are “considered to be under U.S. title” until they are transferred from the War Reserve Stockpiles for use by Israel in wartime.[65]
• 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.”[66]
• 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.[67]
• The US may store clusters munitions in Kuwait, according to a May 2007 cable.[68]

Policy

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

On 21 January 2020, the US Department of Defense announced that President Donald Trump ordered the rollback of US prohibitions on landmine production and use.[1] The new policy allows the US to develop, produce, and use landmines as long as they are “non-persistent,” that is, equipped with self-destruct and self-deactivation features. The policy abandons the previous constraint on using antipersonnel mines only on the Korean Peninsula and instead permits the US to use them anywhere in the world.

Previously, in 2014, President Barack Obama announced new US landmine policy measures banning production and acquisition of antipersonnel mines as well as halting their use by the US anywhere except the Korean Peninsula.[2] While the Obama administration brought US policy further in line with the Mine Ban Treaty, it did not take any measures towards US accession.[3]

Under the 2014 policy, the US committed to not use antipersonnel landmines outside of the Korean Peninsula and not to assist, encourage, or induce other nations to use, stockpile, produce, or transfer antipersonnel mines outside of Korea.[4] It also committed to no future production or acquisition of antipersonnel mines.[5]

The 2014 policy announcement followed more than two decades of efforts by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and NGOs organized under the US Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL).

The US was the first country to call for the “eventual elimination” of antipersonnel mines in September 1994 and it participated in the Ottawa Process that led to the creation of the treaty, yet did not sign it in 1997. After the treaty was adopted in 1997, the Clinton administration set the US goal of joining it in 2006, but the Bush administration then reversed that objective in 2004.[6]

In 2009, the US participated as an observer in the Mine Ban Treaty’s Second Review Conference in Cartagena in 2009 and since then it has attended the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014, the Fourth Review Conference in Oslo in November 2019, and every Meeting of States Parties. The US also participates in the treaty’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, most recently in June 2019.

On 12 December 2019, the US abstained from voting on UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 74/61 calling for universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty, as it has done for every Mine Ban Treaty resolution since 1998.

The US is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. It submitted its annual national report for Amended Protocol II on 12 April 2019, as required under Article 13.

Use

The last US use of antipersonnel mines was in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991 with the exception of the use of a single antipersonnel mine in Afghanistan in 2002.[7]

US forces in Afghanistan reportedly used Claymore directional fragmentation mines in 2009 and 2010, which are not prohibited under the Mine Ban Treaty if used in command-detonated mode.[8]

The current Trump administration policy allows for use of “non-persistent” landmines anywhere in the world, replacing the 2014 policy restricting US use of antipersonnel landmines to the Korean Peninsula. The new policy states that the US views “area denial systems” as a key component in strategy against “near-peer adversaries.”

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. Moreover, 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. If the US were party to the Mine Ban Treaty, this means the US would violate the Mine Ban Treaty’s prohibition on assisting any prohibited activities.[9]

Numerous retired US military officers have questioned the utility of antipersonnel landmines in South Korea and elsewhere, citing the overwhelming technological superiority of other weapons in the US-South Korean arsenal in comparison with North Korea’s as sufficient to compensate for not using mines. In addition, a former commander of US forces in South Korea, the late Lt. Gen. James Hollingsworth, said in 1997 that antipersonnel landmines’ “minimal” utility to US forces is “offset by the difficulty…[they] pose to our brand of mobile warfare…Not only civilians, but US armed forces, will benefit from a ban on landmines. US forces in Korea are no exception.”[10]

After two South Korean soldiers on patrol were maimed by antipersonnel landmines that South Korea accused North Korea of laying in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in August 2015, Major General Koo Hong-mo of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff described the mine-laying incident as “unthinkable for a normal military.”[11]

The US maintains no minefields anywhere in the world. The landmines already emplaced in and near the DMZ between North and South Korea are the responsibility of South Korean forces and not the US. The US cleared and destroyed the landmines laid around its Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in 1999.[12]

Transfer

Since 23 October 1992, US law has prohibited any exports of antipersonnel mines through a moratorium that has since been extended multiple times.[13] The 2020 Trump administration policy states that it “will not seek to transfer landmines except as provided for under US law.”

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

Production

The US last produced antipersonnel mines in 1997.[14] Under the Trump administration policy, the US may acquire “on/off” area denial systems that can be remotely activated to address an imminent or probable threat and de-activated when the threat subsides. US defense officials commenting on the new policy told media that the US has a sufficient inventory of so-called smart landmines that there is no need to restart production immediately.

No antipersonnel mines or other victim-activated munitions are being funded in the FY2021 ammunition procurement budgets of the US Armed Services or Defense Department. 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 $120 million. The last non-self-destruct antipersonnel mines were procured in 1990, when the US Army bought nearly 80,000 M16A1 antipersonnel mines for $1.9 million.

Previously, the 2014 policy announced a detailed study of alternatives to antipersonnel mines that was completed in 2018 and formed the basis of the Trump administration policy, according to the Department of Defense.

The US had previously announced that it was modernizing its Volcano vehicle and helicopter landmine dispenser system and from 2023 it intended to field a “Gator Landmine Replacement” networked munition system to “use non-lethal means to keep civilians away from dangerous areas.”[15] Both systems reportedly comply with the Mine Ban Treaty. The 2020 policy does not appear to abandon the search for alternatives to antipersonnel mines, as it states that “the Military Departments should explore acquiring landmines and landmine alternatives that could further reduce the risk of unintended harm to noncombatants.”

Stockpiling

In 2014, the Department of Defense disclosed that the US has an “active stockpile of just more than 3 million anti-personnel mines.”[16] This is a significant reduction from the previous number reported in 2002 of approximately 10.4 million antipersonnel mines.[17]

The US stockpile consists mostly of remotely-delivered mines that are scattered over wide areas 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 mines are stockpile according to the following table, which is significantly out of date.

US stockpiles of antipersonnel mines in 2010[18]

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

Stockpile destruction

The shelf-life of existing antipersonnel mines stockpiled by the US decreases over time in part because batteries embedded inside the mines deteriorate as they age. The 2014 policy precludes the US from extending or modifying the life of the batteries in its stockpiled antipersonnel mines.[19]

A Defense Department 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.”[20] In 2014, a US official said the US would not extend the shelf-life of existing systems, for example, by replacing their batteries, which have a shelf-life of 36 years.

According to the 2020 policy, the Department of Defense will “maintain a robust stockpile surveillance program to ensure the operational quality and reliability of landmines, particularly the reliability of self-destruction mechanisms and self-deactivation features.” A Department of Defense fact sheet claims that “reliability of safety features of the landmines in the operational inventory is very high.”

The previous 2014 policy committed the US to destroy its antipersonnel mine stockpiles “not required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.” In 2015, the Secretary of State said the US “will begin destroying its anti-personnel landmine stockpiles not required for the defense of the Republic of Korea.”[21] It is unclear how many landmines were destroyed prior to the 2020 policy change.

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.[22] The estimated completion date was June 2020 according to Maxam, the multinational company that owns Expal.[23]

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.[24] The destruction process started in December 2004 and was supposed to conclude by June 2018, but it is unclear if this deadline was met.[25]

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.[26]

Retention

In 2020, the US said a small quantity of “persistent mines” (non-self-destructing) are retained for demining and counter-mine testing and training.[27]

In 2017, the United States (US) contributed more than $309 million to 24 countries.[1] US funding doubled from 2016.

More than half of the US contribution ($169.6 million) went to mine action projects in Iraq and Syria. In comparison, this is $17 million more than its 2016 total contribution of $152.4 million. The US provided $106.6 million to activities in Iraq aimed at clearing Islamic State explosive remnants of war (ERW) in order to facilitate the restoration of critical infrastructure and services, as well as the safe return of displaced populations. This represents a tripling in its contribution to this country compared to the $30.9 million provided in 2016. In addition, the US contributed $63 million to support clearance in areas liberated from Islamic State in northeast Syria, as well as risk education activities. This is six-times higher than US funding provided to this country in 2016.

US support to mine action was distributed among the following regions: the Middle East and North Africa ($197.5 million, 64%), East and South Asia and the Pacific ($69.3 million, 22%), the Americas ($21 million, 7%), Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia ($6.5 million, 2%), and Sub-Saharan Africa ($5.3 million, 2%). A further $9.5 million (3%) designated as global was not earmarked for any state or area or region.

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

Contributions by recipient: 2017

From 2013–2017, the US contribution for mine action totaled approximately $847 million, this represents two-fifths more than the $599.1 million provided in the previous five-year period from 2008–2012.[2]

It is the ninth-consecutive year that the US support has totaled more than $100 million.

Summary of contributions: 2013–2017[3]