No Moral High Ground on Cluster Bombs.

Approximately 123 countries are signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a treaty that outlaws the production, possession and use of cluster munitions (bombs). The United States has not signed on to this treaty and has recently sent thousands of these weapons to Ukraine for use against the Russian invaders. There has been much hand wringing in the press and among politicians that somehow the United States should have taken the high road and declined to furnish Ukraine with these weapons. But to think that the United States is a principled player in the use of weapons of war is to refute history. 

The United States relinquished the moral high ground in warfare with the fire bombings of Dresden and Tokyo, followed by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The extensive use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War is still plaguing civilians and war veterans.

The United States starting using napalm during World War II but its true horrors were not revealed to the world until the Vietnam War. Cluster bombs were added to the arsenal during the Vietnam War, and tens of thousands were dropped on Southeast Asia.  Unexploded munitions from these bombs have victimized civilians living in these areas ever since. 

Cluster bombs were used by the United States in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and we still have a massive stockpile. The United States won’t eliminate these weapons from its arsenal for the simple reason that Russia and China also have huge stockpiles of various types of cluster munitions. Russia has demonstrated its willingness to use them indiscriminately in Ukraine, targeting both military and civilian targets since the beginning of the war in early 2022.  

Russian troops are well dug in within occupied Ukrainian territory in the east and south near Crimea. In order to protect against Ukrainian attacks in these areas, Russia has built extensive mine fields between 3 and 10 miles deep. There are now hundreds of miles of eastern Ukraine that have been turned into “no-man’s-land” because they are densely mined with antitank and antipersonnel mines, as well as trip wires. Some of these areas of Ukraine have been rendered off limits to civilians for generations to come.

With conventional munitions running low, Ukraine’s military was desperate to get cluster bombs to use against Russia’s well defended positions.  

The Ukrainians have given the United States assurances that the recently supplied cluster bombs will be used only within Ukraine’s territory against Russian military targets, and with strict accountability. Let’s hope so. ​

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Thanks,
Armchair American