When it comes to weapons of war, munitions don’t get much uglier than cluster bombs.
Dropped from an aircraft or fired from land or sea, these deadly canisters contain a mix of explosive charges designed to destroy anything in their path.
Some ‘submunitions’, as they are called, destroy vehicles, while shells that explode to spread sharp blades and ball bearings lacerate ‘soft targets’: soldiers, civilians and any other living things in the target area.
Since each bomb’s fuse is activated as it falls, they detonate on the ground rather than on impact, with the alarming consequence that large numbers of what are often called “dumps” lie unexploded.
These serve as land mines, lying in wait for the unwary to step on. While this so-called “double tap” effect prevents enemy detachments from returning to the area, it also discourages medics and firefighters.
When it comes to weapons of war, munitions don’t get much uglier than cluster bombs.
Let’s be frank: war is about killing. Ukraine is clearly the victim of open aggression by Russia, but even a “good war” is a very unpleasant thing.
But perhaps the most tragic aspect of cluster bombs is that many of their victims die after the war ends, as the unexploded ordnance presents a danger to civilians returning to occupy the battlefield in peacetime.
And most poignant of all, children often make up a disproportionate number of the resulting victims. Lured by the colored ribbons attached to the bomblets by the manufacturers to make it easy for soldiers loading the canisters to visually identify the different types, from Afghanistan to Kosovo, the youngsters were dying under gruesome circumstances.
So, you may ask, why are the Americans offering cluster bombs to the Ukrainians? President Biden blurted out the reason in an interview on Sunday: “This is a munitions war. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re down.’
That is the scale of the war in Ukraine: it is so big that it has almost absorbed the Pentagon’s arsenal.
To keep Ukraine fighting, Washington has dug into its only remaining stockpile: cluster bombs. But these are weapons that Britain and most of America’s other allies have banned as cruel and indiscriminate, just like land mines.
Rishi Sunak has avoided a public disagreement with the president, but the legal and ethical issues raised by the White House decision are inescapable. The Kremlin is already exaggerating Western ‘hypocrisy’. Then there is the risk that countries that followed Britain’s lead in banning cluster munitions and landmines will think better of it.
Nations in the world’s many dangerous regions live in a constant state of high anxiety, and it will be tempting for them to say: ‘If Ukraine needs you for defense, so do we.’
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of cluster bombs is that many of their victims die after the war ends.
Most poignant of all, children often make up a disproportionate number of the resulting victims.
Let’s be frank: war is about killing. Ukraine is clearly the victim of open aggression by Russia, but even a ‘good war’ is a very unpleasant thing.
Stopping Russian aggression by any means necessary might well prevent the kind of atrocities that Vladimir Putin’s army has committed in the territory it has occupied, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that cluster bombs are a cavalier way of winning.
President Zelensky obviously feels that in order to save his country, he has to say: ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy.’
Many of us would come to the same conclusion if our own country were invaded by a brutal and murderous regime.
But giving Ukraine what it thinks is militarily necessary is not something to brag about. Decades of Western complacency on military spending have caused our less dire arms reserves to dwindle dangerously.
Victory, or at least forcing Putin to agree to terms by these terrible means, might save Ukraine from the worst, but it should not save our consciences.
