A lot of digital ink has been spilled on DailyKos of late, attempting to justify the transfer of US-made cluster bomb stockpiles to Ukraine. The arguments tend to go as follows — Cluster bombs are tactically necessary to uproot Russian defensive positions, cluster bombs are needed to turn the tide, Ukraine requested them so we are obligated to provide them, Ukraine is choosing to use these bombs, therefore their use is justified, the bombs are actually much better now than they have been in the past so it is morally justified to use them, Russia has used them therefore it is justified, Russia is kidnapping Ukrainian children therefore using cluster bombs is justified, cluster bombs will somehow significantly shorten the duration of the Russian occupation of Ukraine, and so forth.
My hope is that readers will actively question the arguments made in support of these weapons and President Biden’s decision to send them to Ukraine, and the arguments made by posters here with an agenda of whitewashing the harm these weapons will cause and the moral and ethical quagmire they present. We ought to be better than this.
1) Ukraine needs cluster bombs to turn the tide.
There is no concrete evidence that cluster munitions have a profound strategic or tactical impact in modern conflicts. They did not turn the tide in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, or any other place in which they have been used. While the war in Ukraine is not the war in Afghanistan, it isn’t clear that the differences between these conflicts will somehow make cluster bombs the thing that turns the tide against the Russians. What we do know is that these weapons do more harm to civilians than any other group of people.
The truth is that cluster munitions do not do what their proponents claim they do. Here’s a solid article that makes these arguments very clearly. This article argues that the transfer of such munitions to Ukraine is counterproductive. I agree. From the linked article —
“The limited military utility and the substantial humanitarian dangers of these weapons are among the key reasons why the Defense Department halted using them in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003, and has chosen to invest in alternative munitions. It is why, in 2008, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates issued an order to phase out by 2018 cluster munitions with an unexploded ordnance rate of greater than one percent, and it is why, in 2011, the Obama administration affirmed this policy. It is why Congress, in 2018, enacted a series of export restrictions on cluster munitions with a failure rate in excess of one percent.”
Limited military utility. Substantial humanitarian dangers.
As recently as 2022, our own UN ambassador described cluster bombs as a violation of the Geneva Convention, and claimed they had no place on the battlefield. Her statement happens at 5:14, which is where this video should begin at. In this she makes it absolutely clear that these weapons are unacceptable. So, if they have no place on the battlefield, if these weapons are a violation of the Geneva Conventions as she contends, why are we supplying them to Ukraine?
It should be noted (as mentioned in the above article) that Ukraine allegedly used these munitions in Eastern Ukraine a decade ago and it did not deter or stop the Russian advance. In other words, they seeded their own soil with unexploded bomblets and they did not stop the enemy from conquering Eastern Ukraine.
The people who most die to these munitions are not soldiers or even armor – it’s civilians, mostly women and children. The tactical benefits of these bombs in Ukraine is not proven, and history seems to indicate that these weapons will not turn the tide of this war, but will instead claim many hundreds if not thousands of civilian lives over the course of many years.
2) Ukraine asked for this, so we must provide.
Ukraine asking for a thing does not obligate US taxpayers to provide that thing. We know this because we have already refused to supply them with many weapons and systems they have begged us for. This New York Times article discusses just how many weapons requests the United States has demurred on. This list includes long-range missiles, battle tanks, and advanced drones (not to mention a long delay on supplying Patriot Missile batteries, of which we have only supplied one, to the best of my understanding).
There are reasons given for each of these decisions, but what seems irrational to me is why we would be willing to supply Ukraine with cluster bombs — weapons with limited military utility and substantial humanitarian danger — but not long range precision munitions which would be more effective and less likely to cause harm to Ukraine’s people in the years to come. It’s clear that Russia is not the global threat we once thought it to be. The risk of escalation is a nuclear boogeyman that is unlikely to ever come to pass. If our true goal is to liberate Ukraine, then we should be fulfilling this wishlist ASAP.
Furthermore, the logic of the argument fails a clear moral test when we try to apply that thinking to other hypothetical requests. If Ukraine demanded we provide them with the means to begin torturing detainees (means we very much have at our disposal), we would be in the moral wrong to provide those means. Asking us for chemical or biological weapons would also be morally unacceptable. Cluster bombs pose severe risks for civilians, and we know that, which is why we started trying to phase them out of our arsenal decades ago. Now we are handing them to Ukraine.
3) Cluster munitions have got much better and pose significantly less threat to civilians.
The data does not support this argument. Even if we assume a dud rate that aligns with the policy Donald Trump repealed in 2019 (phasing out all such munitions with a >1% dud rate. We have not done that, and battlefield data shows that in Afghanistan it’s more like 5%) that’s still thousands of unexploded bomblets sewing the fields of Ukraine for decades to come.
Furthermore, we are not supplying Ukraine with our most modern cluster bombs (which have dud rates that are officially classified, so we have know way to know if they come in anywhere near 1%). We’re sending them our old supply. The official dud rates for those munitions is double or more than double the 1% target we set almost 20 years ago. In Afghanistan we dropped 1200 cluster bombs, and those bombs spread a quarter million bomblets across the country.
4) The US is requiring Ukraine to track all attack sites, so therefore this is OK.
What we ask our allies to do and what they are able to do or ultimately do are two different things. Ukraine signed off on this, and may make efforts in this direction, but this conflict happens in time, and as time drags on, kids return to mined fields, and they get blown to pieces. Every inch of ground seeded with these bombs is a family tragedy waiting to happen.
5) Russians are using Cluster Bombs, so Ukraine is justified in using them.
This is irrational on its face. Russians are also engaging in mass rape and torture. Their war crimes do not justify war crimes in return. Ukraine must keep the moral high ground in order to sustain long term support from allies in Europe. Use of cluster munitions threatens that moral high ground. If, as our ambassador said to the UN in 2022, cluster bombs had no place on the battlefield, then they have no place for Ukraine, either. Find a better way.
6) Ukraine is choosing to use them on their own land, therefore this is justified
It’s baffling to think this is considered to be a logical argument. If Ukraine began carpet bombing their own cities in order to root our Russian soldiers while their civilians were in danger, we would be rightly appalled. The difference between that scenario and what Ukraine is choosing to do with regards to cluster bombs is merely time. We know that cluster bombs will kill civilians at an alarming rate, mostly women and children. It’s not in doubt. Ukraine is still choosing to use them in a way that threatens not only their own advancing soldiers, but their people as well.
7) Opposition to cluster ammunition in Ukraine makes you a “tanky” or makes you pro-Russia, etc.
No, it doesn’t, and this should go without saying. I support military assistance to Ukraine and would support direct US military intervention there (and think such an intervention is inevitable and necessary and that Ukraine will not be able to achieve victory without it). That doesn’t mean I have to support the use of these weapons, or any other equally barbaric, senseless weapon in their war. Just because they’re the good guys doesn’t mean they get a pass on cluster bombs. I certainly loathe the idea of funding those bombs with my tax dollars. All of us will have the blood of every child that loses a limb to a bomblet squarely on our palms — not Russia’s. Ours. The US is not in the moral right to keep these weapons and to stockpile them. We should be signatories to the convention against them, we should operate in alignment with what our UN Ambassador said (that these weapons violate the Geneva Convention), and we should lead the world in disarming all nations of these barbaric weapons.