A significant moral threshold has been crossed, critics argue, following the confirmation that the U.S. has provided cluster munitions to Ukraine for deployment against Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine. Both Ukrainian and White House officials have validated this development.
John Kirby, national security spokesman, revealed last Thursday, “U.S.-supplied cluster munitions are in Ukrainian hands and being deployed in the field as part of Kyiv’s battle against Russia,” according to Reuters.
While Kirby maintained that the controversial weapons are making a positive impact in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, skeptics argue the administration is disregarding the indiscriminate harm these weapons can cause, marking a deviation from the long-held American principles of proportionality and discrimination in warfare.
Reuters noted that Ukraine has pledged to employ these weapons specifically against concentrations of Russian soldiers. This decision came in the wake of a contentious move by the Biden administration to supply the cluster bombs, triggering considerable backlash from press and international human rights organizations. Critics cite the indiscriminate harm these weapons can cause, and the residual threat of unexploded bomblets which pose a danger to civilians even years after a conflict ends.
President Biden, acknowledging the contentious nature of the decision, termed it a “difficult decision”. It is worth noting that over 120 countries have banned these weapons, but the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia have not joined the international treaty that prohibits their use.
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Despite this, Col. Oleksandr Bakulin, a Ukrainian commander, told BBC News his forces need these munitions to inflict “maximum damage on enemy infantry.” However, he conceded they would not solve all of Ukraine’s battlefield problems.
The Biden administration, in the face of criticism over the potential for “war crimes” due to the use of cluster bombs, has argued that the weapons transfer does not undermine America’s “moral authority”. However, critics, including some conservatives, question the validity of this stance, suggesting it could potentially place President Biden on a slippery slope towards being considered a war criminal.
National Security Council spokesman Jake Sullivan defended the administration, claiming their moral authority comes from “supporting a country under a brutal, vicious attack by its neighbor with missiles and bombs raining down in its cities, killing its civilians, destroying its schools, its churches, its hospitals.”
The Washington Post reported that the president’s decision bypassed U.S. law prohibiting the production, use, or transfer of cluster munitions with a “dud rate” of more than 1 percent. This term refers to the share of munitions that remain unexploded.
The Post wrote further: “Biden circumvented the law under a rare provision of the Foreign Assistance Act, which allows the president to provide aid, regardless of arms export restrictions, as long as he determines that doing so is in vital U.S. national security interest.”
This maneuver, coupled with the Biden administration’s defense of its decision, has drawn sharp criticism from conservatives and human rights advocates alike. While ammunition shortages plague the Western allies, the Pentagon reportedly has an abundance of these cluster bombs in stock. Critics assert that by sending these controversial munitions to Ukraine, the Biden administration may have crossed a moral line, potentially inviting charges of war criminality.
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