LogFAQs > #974751040

I'd be fine with not providing Ukraine with cluster munitions if we were, instead, providing them with the materiel needed to establish air superiority (like F-16s and the associated crew), rendering the need for such munitions moot. Since we're not doing that (and since doing so would be difficult without getting more directly involved), cluster munitions are the necessary stopgap.

Ozmose posted...

So where's the cut off? Nerve agents? Napalm?
Cluster bombs aren't restricted because a country uses them out of malice, they're restricted because they tend to leave a bunch of small unexploded munitions all over the place. The kind kids end up finding decades after the fact. Often with tragic results.

This argument would carry more weight if Russia hadn't already mined and booby-trapped the shit out of the occupied territories (to the point where they've literally booby trapped toys in the hopes that children will get maimed/killed by them). The entire region is going to need to go through an extensive demining phase *anyways*, because of Russia's activities (which, notably, include the use of cluster munitions, meaning the area is already going to be facing that danger); additional cluster munitions aren't going to appreciably change the calculus of that.

As well, the reason cluster munitions were originally banned was because of a high dud rate that left lots of unexploded ordinance. You can see this with Russia's cluster bombs, which have a dud rate of roughly 40%. The dud rate of modern-era American cluster munitions is ~1%.