Provision of Cluster Bombs Harms Legitimacy of Support

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has decided to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs. Furnishing inhumane weapons undermines the legitimacy of the military support and could leave behind a big problem.

In cluster bombs, a parent bombs contains from tens to hundreds of child bombs; the parent bomb explodes mid-air, widely scattering the child bombs. After wars end, there are many unexploded bombs, which give rise to tragedies in which private citizens, especially children, become victims. Cluster bombs were used in the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars.

According to a report written by the Cluster Munition Coalition, an international federation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), from midway through the 1960s to the end of 2021, there have been about 23,000 casualties worldwide from cluster bombs. Over 18,000 of those resulted from unexploded ordnance. It can be said that cluster bombs are weapons of indiscriminate bloodshed.

Over 110 nations, including Japan, are participants in the Convention on Cluster Munitions, an international treaty that totally prohibits the use and production of cluster bombs, but the big three nations of China, Russia and the U.S., as well as Ukraine, are not participants.

The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch is appealing to both Ukraine and Russia to halt the usage of cluster bombs that lead to civilian casualties.

Nevertheless, Ukraine is running out of conventional munitions and was asking the U.S. to provide cluster bombs. A counteroffensive will be difficult, and while small sacrifices may be necessary to face pressing problems, unexploded bombs will become a major hurdle during postwar recovery. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration had better understand the high risk of bloodshed that this course poses for his fellow compatriots.

The U.S. is also running out of conventional munitions stock, leading to a dearth of supply to offer Ukraine. The Biden administration explains that providing the cluster bombs is a stopgap measure until the U.S. is prepared to increase production of conventional munitions and furnish small cluster bombs with no misfire rates.

But the U.S. government itself has decried the usage of cluster bombs, as a press officer said it could “potentially [be] a war crime.”

The West has been in lockstep in its support of Ukraine because overlooking Russia’s aggression could lead the world back to a period of survival of the strongest.

If support is provided in a way that is on the wrong moral path, when justice should be carried out, then that sense of morality will fade.

Western countries that participate in the Convention on Cluster Munitions have also expressed their objections to the U.S. There is concern that solidarity will be disrupted. We want to urge Biden to reconsider.