Cluster Munitions to Ukraine
You may have seen on the news lately that the U.S. plans to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. Something that their allies are not happy about. So, why was the response so negative from the US’ allies and what’s the greater context and implications of this major event?
The U.S.’ allies have cited their reasons for concern being primarily the potential of these devices to hurt civilians. Most notably among these reasons is the fact that these weapons tend to have a lackluster track record of effectiveness. The cluster bombs are designed as one large bomb with many smaller explosives to be deployed and detonate over a wide area. However, it seems that many of these smaller devices fail to detonate and can leave an area with unexploded ordinance for years to come, hence why the U.S.’ allies are concerned. They do not want civilians to one day be wandering through a Ukrainian field only to find a live bomb that might go off right in front of them. Although, that is only one way that the allies of the U.S. express concern. They also imply that because of the large blast radius of these weapons it could lead to indiscriminate killing, including of the aforementioned civilians over an area, should Ukraine choose to use those weapons in a populated area. But there may be more to this negative response than this one reason, if we explore some of the context we might see the implications and possible consequences behind these events.
Let’s first look at the concerns that the U.S.’ allies have expressed outwardly; The concern for unexploded ordinance and civilian safety. It is entirely possible and likely that cluster munitions will have unexploded ordinance scattered throughout the Ukrainian countryside. However, this would be true of any ordinance and there have already been reports of unexploded rockets fired by Russia that have had to be disarmed and removed from cities and the countryside, so this would be nothing new for the warzone. Additionally, it is highly likely that whenever this war ends there will be either a NATO commission or a Ukrainian commission established purely to scout out and removed unexploded ordinance from the country.
Next, the concern of citizen safety in a Ukrainian attack. This is a much more farfetched statement of concern. Ukraine has thus far orchestrated their war in a very precise manner. Most Ukraine strikes that you read about in the news are of single small drone strikes at a very specific point or small targeted raids on a particular area. There has been no widespread or indiscriminate attacks, bombardments, or shelling of large areas by Ukraine on any area remotely close to the civilian populace. More importantly, the allies of the U.S. that make this statement would already know this. So, why make that criticism or assumption with objectively little basis?
I would say that the main fear or concern of the U.S.’ allies isn’t so much their stated reasons but more the implications of what cluster bombs being sent to Ukraine really means. It is the next step in a recent pattern of escalation in the scale and caliber of weapons being provided to Ukraine. The significance of this particular decision is that the nature of the provision is not to increase the precise capability of Ukraine but rather the broad capability to do widespread damage instead of isolated incidents. I believe that the worry of the U.S.’ allies is less about what Ukraine will do with these weapons and more about how Russia will respond.
Up until now Russia has faced an enemy with no real ability to do widespread harm to their war effort or troops within a short time frame. Now, they could have weapons that could impart great effect on a frontline offensive or a weapons depot or any other military installation that Russia has in the region. So what will they do? They could likely introduce similar or more severe weaponry, fire retaliatory strikes on civilian targets, finally follow through on repeated threats to use low yield nuclear devices, etc. No one knows for sure, but one could be fairly confident that it will be a rather significant escalation in retaliation. This would follow the pattern of their increased scale of bombardments on military and civilian targets after other incidents of setbacks so far in their war.
TL;DR
U.S. Allies say they worry about cluster munitions because of civilian safety but I most likely think their worry stems from a fear of Russian escalation and being caught in a loop of growing escalation in the conflict.
Links
If you’d like more of the raw information used to make this article you can find it all in the following links:
Reuters - Russia says it may use similar weapons if U.S. supplies cluster bombs to Ukraine
BBC - Cluster bombs: Unease grows over US sending cluster bombs to Ukraine
