By Jonathan Marcus BBC defence correspondent

The US decision to end the use of long-lasting anti-personnel landmines and switch to weapons that go inert in a matter of hours or days indicates that the Department of Defence still believes that these weapons have a role on the battlefield.

Pentagon believes that landmines still have a role in the battlefields

But that is a view that is increasingly contested by informed military opinion outside the Pentagon.

Modern warfare is about speed and manoeuvre and landmines can pose as many hazards for friendly forces as they do for an enemy.

Anti-personnel landmines have been banned by international convention, but the United States has refused to join the treaty regime insisting that there are still a limited number of cases - like the boundary between North and South Korea - where these weapons still have a vital role to play.

The classic use of landmines is to deny territory to an enemy, effectively channelling his forces into designated kill-zones where they can be engaged by other weapons.

Anti-personnel mines were used in such situations to stop the more important anti-tank or anti-vehicle mines being lifted.

Humanitarian disaster

But the wholesale and indiscriminate use of these weapons in guerrilla struggles and small-scale wars around the world has caused a humanitarian disaster.

The weapons lie dormant long after the fighting has ended killing and maiming civilians - more often children or farmers seeking to work their land. That is why the weapons were banned by most major military nations.

And defence analysts generally believe that the same "area-denial" function can be achieved by other means.

Multiple-launch rocket systems can swiftly engage targets over an area the size of several football fields for example.

The argument is that the United States - as the most sophisticated military power on earth - should be able to find alternatives to anti-personnel landmines.