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“President Joe Biden [last] Friday defended what he said was a ‘difficult decision’ to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, a move the administration said was key to the fight and buttressed by Ukraine’s promise to use the controversial bombs carefully…
“The decision comes on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania, where Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the U.S. would send a weapon into Ukraine that more than two-thirds of alliance members have banned because it has a track record for causing many civilian casualties.” AP News
The right generally supports the decision, arguing that the weapons will help Ukraine win the war.
“Russia and Ukraine have already been using cluster munitions. Ukrainian officials say they avoid striking civilian targets, though their cluster munition strikes reportedly killed eight in occupied Izium last year, according to Human Rights Watch. Russian cluster bomb attacks have damaged homes, hospitals, and schools, and killed more than 58 civilians at a crowded train station in April 2022. The unexploded ordnance—plus unmarked landmines across swaths of Ukrainian territory—will require expensive cleanup even without additional cluster munition supplies.”
Declan Garvey, Esther Eaton, Mary Trimble, Grayson Logue and Jacob Wendler, The Dispatch
“In a perfect world, we would ban all munitions. Differences between nations could be settled in a court or on a soccer field. But that world doesn’t exist. A nation so pointlessly attacked as Ukraine should be able to do everything to defend itself. Americans would likely consider doing the same if we were attacked…
“One nation, and one nation only, gets to determine whether to use cluster munitions on its land — Ukraine. Its interest in using these controversial weapons is to destroy the Russian invaders while minimizing the loss of its own citizens’ lives. It will likely be as judicious as possible while inflicting as much damage on the enemy as possible. And Ukraine’s defense minister has vowed not to use the munitions in Russia. Yes, Kyiv will live with the scars of war, but ultimately, these munitions will save Ukrainian lives.”
Adam Kinzinger, CNN
Some argue, “the American response to Ukraine is entirely out of proportion for a country long acknowledged not to implicate core U.S. interests. It’s also potentially catastrophic: Gradually escalating is all fun and games until a nose-bloodied and humiliated Putin lobs the first tactical nuke in Ukraine or launches a massive conventional strike on, say, Poland, and then the world as we know it comes to an end…
“As the Biden administration conceded recently, one reason Washington is turning to gruesome cluster munitions to bolster Kiev is that America’s military-industrial base isn’t keeping up with the war’s demands—itself a symptom of a generational, bipartisan abandonment of U.S. manufacturing. If the ‘pittance’ of a war in Ukraine is stretching the Pentagon’s conventional stockpiles, imagine the industrial incapacity that a confrontation with China over Taiwan might reveal.”
Sohrab Ahmari, American Conservative
The left generally opposes the decision, arguing that cluster munitions should never be used.
The left generally opposes the decision, arguing that cluster munitions should never be used.
“Twenty-thousand Laotians, almost half of them children, have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance since the Vietnam war ended. It is half a century since the US stopped bombing Laos, having dropped more than 2m tons of cluster munitions; decades on, people then unborn are still paying the price. On one estimate, it will take another 100 years to fully clear the country. This is the true cost of cluster munitions…
“The argument is that, however significant the risks and long-term costs of using cluster bombs, civilians will pay a far higher price where Russian forces prevail. Cluster munitions are effective in combating dug-in ground troops, like the Russian forces along the vast frontline…
“But the same, of course, could be said for chemical weapons, and the US rightly finished destroying its remaining stockpile of those on Friday. Efficacy is why bans on such arms are needed in the first place. Russia’s use of them is not a reason to further drag down international norms.”
Editorial Board, The Guardian
“To suggest that cluster bombs can be used discretely against military targets in Ukraine is an illusion. The lesson from Laos and the consensus of all nations who have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions is that there is no responsible use of cluster bombs. This consensus emerged out of intense research and study of the actual failure rates of cluster munitions in warfare. Any use of cluster bombs in Ukraine by any of the parties to the conflict will extend the human suffering well past the end of military hostilities.”
Titus Peachey, USA Today
Some argue, “Let's get real: Ukraine’s democratically elected leaders, whose relatives, friends and neighbors are in the line of fire, are more mindful of minimizing Ukrainian casualties than are self-appointed humanitarians in the West watching the war on television… We need to respect their decision…
“Cluster munitions remain a lawful instrument of warfare for countries that haven’t signed the 2008 convention, and Kyiv has shown itself a responsible steward of all the Western weaponry it has received. Zelensky and his generals are, in fact, so worried about needless loss of life that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is progressing too slowly for the liking of some observers in the West. Unlike the Putin regime, the Zelensky government is not willing to butcher its own men in human-wave attacks. Using cluster munitions has the potential to save the lives of many Ukrainian soldiers.”
Max Boot, Washington Post
A libertarian's take
“The sheer number of weapons and war materials we've sent to [Ukraine] heightens the risk that a significant portion of that aid will be diverted to unsavory paramilitary groups and criminal organizations. A government watchdog report from last month found that U.S. military personnel were failing to adequately account for thousands of pieces of equipment…
“Earlier this year, Pentagon officials told Congress they've seen ‘no evidence’ that weapons sent to Ukraine are ending up in unintended hands. Perhaps that's true. As the war rages on, the Ukrainian government has a huge incentive to get weapons into the hands of frontline soldiers. It doesn't answer the question of what happens once the war in Ukraine ends, or at least winds down to something resembling the low-intensity conflict that persisted in the country's East prior to the Russian invasion. A government with long-running corruption issues sitting on a lot of U.S.-supplied weapons it doesn't need as much anymore is a recipe for many of those weapons falling into the wrong hands.”
Christian Britschgi, Reason
