There is growing bipartisan opposition in Congress to Joe Biden’s plan to give cluster munitions to Ukraine. Rep. Sara Jacobs’ (D-Calif.) amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act has already picked up support from a dozen House Democrats as well as several conservative Republicans, including Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).
Congress watchers give Jacobs’ amendment little chance of being successful, given the pro-war slant in both parties. But this is definitely one issue that the pro-Ukraine lobby in Congress needs to take a second look at.
Cluster munitions are no more or no less brutal and inhumane than any other weapon of war. It’s what happens to those munitions after the war is over that makes them problematic.
The hundreds of small explosive bomblets that make a cluster munition so effective also make them deadly to civilians who accidentally come across them after the war. U.S. bomblets have a failure rate of about 3.4%. Contrast that rate of bomblets failing to explode with the 6% failure rate during the Vietnam war where, 50 years after the conflict, civilians are still accidentally digging up those unexploded munitions and getting injured and killed.
The primary victims of those who find the unexploded ordnance are children.
It’s U.S. law that we won’t supply another nation with cluster munitions unless the failure rate is 1%. Biden has thumbed his nose at the law and will supply Ukraine with cluster munitions with a failure rate more than three times the legal limit.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said the weapons were crucial to his country’s defense. “We need it to win this war,” Yermak said. Meanwhile, on February 28 of last year, the White House was saying that the use of cluster bombs was a “potential war crime.”
Biden also says the cluster bombs are necessary.
“The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition, the ammunition that — they used to call them 155-millimeter weapons. This is a — this is a war relating to munitions, and they’re running out of those — that ammunition — and we’re low on it. And so what I finally did, took the recommendation of the Defense Department to — not permanently — but to allow for [their use] in this transition period,” he said in the interview, conducted Friday with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.
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Ukraine has its own cluster munitions and, according to Human Rights Watch, has used them in their war with Russia. This raises the question of why the United States should make itself a party to war crimes committed by its ally, Ukraine.
Biden is correct in stating the ammunition shortage is threatening Ukraine’s progress in the war. But are cluster munitions the best way to ease the “transition” back to regular munitions?
Biden and the Defense Department don’t much care if there’s a better way. Zelensky wants cluster bombs, so he’s going to get cluster bombs. And the Senate appears to be poised to go ahead and give Biden what he wants — just as they have every other time he’s asked for weapons for Ukraine.
Just as the Senate’s position on NATO membership for Finland and Sweden hasn’t meaningfully changed since it passed accession protocols for both countries by a vote of 95-1 in August, the upper chamber has been consistent when it comes to approving new weapons for Ukraine. Hawkish lawmakers may chide the president for failing to use his authority more aggressively, but they are generally supportive when he does decide to act.
And those who disagree with the administration’s decision—such as Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Ben Cardin—can do little besides express disapproval. The security assistance package that includes the munitions comes from the president’s drawdown authority, which was established by Congress in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and allows for transfers of Pentagon weapons stocks in crisis situations.
“There’s not a good example of cluster munitions fundamentally changing a conflict,” said Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio). “And at a great cost, I think, to our moral leadership — which I’ve heard a lot is the reason we’re [supporting Ukraine].”
The U.S. has little “moral leadership” anymore. That is a phrase politicians trot out when they oppose a president’s course of action. Regardless, giving cluster bombs to Ukraine is wrong and only makes the United States look hypocritical for doing so.
