Topic: Countering the Threat Posed by Improvised Explosive Devices
Country: Vietnam
Delegate Name: Hunter Davidson
School: Mattawan High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Vietnam position papers GLIMUN 2017 committees
As technology, and the world as we know it, get thrusted further into the future, new and deadly methods of enacting terror and conflict continue to emerge. People have been crafting makeshift bombs for decades, but the current threat of IEDs is larger than perhaps it has ever been in the past. Warfare continues to evolve into more isolated, guerilla-style fighting, and the threat of IEDs killing innocent civilians becomes more and more prevalent.
Vietnam has bore witness to a fair share of IED warfare. During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong employed a vast array of IEDs to wage war on their enemies; in fact, 33% of casualties from that war came from the use of IEDs and manufactured mines. Booby traps like Mason Jars filled with napalm, rigged with a tripwire, or grenades with a rubber-band pulley system were all utilized in a feared Viet Cong fighting force. The threat to defense personnel and police task forces in disposing of these IEDs is certainly great, but we also must express our grave concern for innocent civilians that suffer collateral damage from this guerilla warfare.
As a country that has witnessed the merciless destruction of Improvised Explosive Devices in the past, Vietnam feels incredibly empathetic towards the cause of removing IEDs in other countries. Vietnam is in full support of the UN funding and training a specialized Counter-IED (C-IED) task force. The quicker we can reach a solution to eradicate the threat posed by IEDs (specifically by terrorist groups like ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, etc), the quicker we can establish a safer global community.
