Abstract In 2014, the Obama administration announced that the United States would almost entirely adopt the global ban on antipersonnel (AP) mines, despite longstanding military and political opposition. To explain this puzzling outcome, I expand upon recent accounts of rhetorical entrapment in which norm-promoting actors seek to compel change in a target actor by exploiting tensions between the target’s words and actions. Tracing US policy change over the past 25 years, I show how transnational civil society and domestic political elites strategically deployed factual and normative claims to draw US officials into an iterative debate concerning the humanitarian harm of AP mines. Successive US administrations have sought to mitigate external critique by gradually conceding to the discursive framing of pro-ban advocates without endorsing the international treaty prohibiting the weapons. These rhetorical shifts stimulated a search for alternative technologies and incremental changes to military doctrine, tactics, and procurement that constrained US policy choices, culminating in the effective abandonment of AP mines despite ongoing military operations around the globe.

中文翻译：

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诱捕格列佛：美国和杀伤人员地雷禁令

摘要 2014 年，奥巴马政府宣布，尽管长期存在军事和政治反对，美国将几乎完全采用全球对杀伤人员地雷的禁令。为了解释这个令人费解的结果，我扩展了最近关于修辞陷阱的描述，其中规范促进行为者试图通过利用目标行为者的言行之间的紧张关系来迫使目标行为者改变。追溯美国过去 25 年的政策变化，我展示了跨国公民社会和国内政治精英如何战略性地部署事实和规范性主张，以吸引美国官员参与关于 AP 地雷的人道主义危害的反复辩论。历届美国政府都试图通过在不支持禁止武器的国际条约的情况下逐渐让步支持禁令倡导者的言论框架来减轻外部批评。这些言辞上的转变刺激了对替代技术的探索以及对限制美国政策选择的军事学说、战术和采购的渐进式改变，最终在全球范围内持续进行军事行动的情况下有效地放弃了 AP 地雷。