The American public, broadly, wants Ukraine to prevail in the war and sees Russia as an enemy. A Reuters survey in June found 81 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of independents favor supplying U.S. weapons to Ukraine.
But the news that President Biden has authorized the transfer of U.S. cluster munitions to Ukraine may complicate attitudes towards the war and the American role in it. For starters, it was Congressional Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services committees who most strongly favored sending cluster munitions, or in military jargon, “dual purpose improved conventional munitions.”
“We remain deeply disappointed in your administration’s reluctance to provide Ukraine with the right type and amount of long-range fires and maneuver capability to create and exploit operational breakthroughs against the Russians,” wrote the members. “Sadly, the immediate consequences of denying DPICM and other items in a timely manner to the Ukrainian Armed Forces are playing out on the battlefield in Bakhmut and elsewhere in Ukraine today.”
“Providing DPICM will allow Ukraine to compensate for Russia’s quantitative advantage in both personnel and artillery rounds, and will allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces to concentrate their use of unitary warheads against higher-value Russian targets,” the members continued.
“No individual munition or system will prove to be the key to restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity. However, we believe that DPICM could help fill a key gap for Ukraine’s military, and, in concert with other provided capabilities, continue to push Putin’s forces out of Ukraine,” the members concluded.
Meanwhile, all kinds of progressive and peace groups on the left oppose the use of these weapons entirely, and called upon President Biden to resist this change in U.S. policy. Ukraine had some cluster munitions in its arsenal before the war, and has used them; Human Rights Watch accused the Ukrainians of causing deaths and serious injuries to civilians by using them, and warned these weapons “will leave bomblets behind that will continue to [kill civilians] for many years.”
MSNBC’s Hayes Brown laments, “sending such weapons will not only undercut much of the moral high ground the West has taken in the conflict, but it will also threaten the safety of Ukrainian civilians. Those costs would make any victory against dug-in Russian forces a pyrrhic one.”
American allies like France, Germany, and Great Britain have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use, production, stockpiling or transfer of these weapons, declaring, “the fact that they cover a large range and are very sensitive make them a threat to civilian populations who are the leading victims of these weapons. The presence of active but unexploded cluster mines also hinders the economic and social life of certain areas which become inhabitable.”
But as the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies contends that the ongoing war, where cluster munitions have already been used, makes any increase in the risk to civilians moot.
The risk cluster munitions pose to civilians is not lost on Ukraine’s elected representatives. But Kyiv, facing an existential threat from Russia, believes the rewards outweigh the risks. The atrocities committed by Russian forces in places such as Bucha and Izyum demonstrate that the greatest threat to Ukrainian civilians comes from Russian territorial gains. Moreover, Ukraine would be firing DPICMs in areas that are mostly depopulated and already littered with UXO [unexploded ordinances].
Another complication is that in order to authorize the transfer, the Biden administration will “bypass” U.S. law prohibiting the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1 percent. As the Washington Post reports today, “in its last publicly available estimate, more than 20 years ago, the Pentagon assessed that artillery shell to have a “dud” rate of 6 percent, meaning that at least four of each of the 72 submunitions each shell carries would remain unexploded across an area of approximately 22,500 square meters — roughly the size of 4½ football fields.”
The decision to send cluster munitions, by itself, will not erode Democratic support for sending arms to Ukraine. But it may well increase grumbling on the left, as the tactics of the Ukrainians get slightly less distinct from the Russians.