Why US sent ‘immoral’ munitions to Kiev

When the US Department of Defense (DoD) declared additional security assistance to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defence needs, it meant that the country is pushing the latter deeper into a crisis. It also meant that the US not only cares about Ukraine but also about the world.

The decision simply meant supply of a type of cluster munition along with additional air defence munitions, anti-armour weapons, artillery systems and vehicles etc.

The world was left aghast over this controversial move. Transferring of dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) has been banned under the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). Even allies of the US like Germany, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Spain are in a quandary now. The irony is that while these countries are signatories to the Convention which outlawed any use, production, storage and transfer of the same, the US, Ukraine and Russia are not signatories to it.

The US officials claim that Ukraine has promised ‘responsible use’ of the cluster munitions and that there is a difference between Russia using it and Ukraine making use of it. Does Joe Biden even understand what he is doing? Will some guy in the US administration put some sense into his chick-pea brain? No doubt, age has destabilized his thinking faculty!

There is still much that is unknown or uncertain regarding cluster munitions worldwide, the Human Rights Watch had stated sometime back referring to the stockpiling of weapons. It was clear that information regarding the complete composition of any country’s stockpile of cluster munitions is generally not publicly available, nor is there any transparency requirement for such data in any international treaty or agreement.

It should be noted that the US is party to CCW but has yet to ratify the required protocol. It is a major producer and exporter of cluster munitions. It has used cluster munitions in Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) in the 1960s and 1970s, Persian Gulf (Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) in 1991, Yugoslavia (including Kosovo) in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and Iraq in 2003.

In the face of objections to the use of cluster munitions, the double standards of the country only got enhanced when it stated “With respect to the suggestion by some that the use of cluster munitions is a humanitarian crisis and that their use may be indiscriminate in their effect, we join those who call for increasing reliability of cluster munitions through improved fusing and self-destruct mechanism.… Enhancing the reliability of munitions systems is an important goal from a military as well as a humanitarian point of view”.

Cluster munitions are weapons that open in mid-air and disperse smaller sub-munitions into an area which can be delivered by aircraft or from ground systems, such as artillery, rockets and missiles. They contain sub-munitions or bomblets that detonate on impact with the ground. They could also be fused to create an air burst at a prescribed height from the ground. (A typical Cluster munition ordnance, depending on its design, can release explosive sub-munition ranging from several dozen to over 600, experts suggest).

The DPICM being supplied to Ukraine are equipped with GPS guidance for precision and are said to be lethality-enhanced ordnance and there is nothing to believe in what Zelensky says about responsible use of the stockpile. Ukraine is unable to make a significant counteroffensive or for that matter launch any major offensive. (The fact that it sought cluster munitions from the US disproves all the stories planted by the Western media in this regard).

Moreover, it is also facing a shortage of munitions and it is rationing its usage. If armoured battalions need to push forward, Ukraine needs to break Russian formations. Why will Russia sit back and enjoy a cluster shower on its forces and territories? Secondly, cluster munitions bring on the people. Monitoring agencies and experts have always cautioned the world against the use of cluster munitions as a lot many of them are left behind unexploded in the area of its usage.

The US is known to have exported or transferred cluster munitions to at least 27 other states: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Denmark, France, Greece, Honduras, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.

The following US companies are associated with the current production of cluster munitions and their submunitions: Aerojet, Alliant TechSystems, General Dynamics, L-3 Communications, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Textron Defense Systems.

Now you understand why the supply of the munitions to Ukraine is important to the US?