The Biden Administration has decided to supply these terrifically destructive weapons to Ukraine. Cluster munitions are largely banned under international law because of the damage they do to civilians. Of course, Russia's behavior also does not conform to international standards so there's that. I'm in no position to second guess the Biden Administration but this decision seems to me to be a significant escalation of the war. I don't know what the next steps will be by either side but I'm worried.
Well, Russia has been using them from the start. And against civilians. Ukraine only wants to use them against the Russian army. More than fair, IMO.
Wiki: "How many soldiers has Russia got left." "In terms of active-duty personnel, they are the world's fifth-largest military force, with 1.15 million and at least two million reserve personnel. Russia plans to expand its active personnel force to 1.5 million by 2026, which will make it the third largest in the world, after China and India." Please send Ukraine ALL the cluster-bombs you can, Mr. Biden. They're gonna need 'em.
Russia is not happy and threatening to cause a tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean that will flood most cities along the coast. Since Putin invaded Ukraine, his propagandists have continued to threaten the UK with a nuclear holocaust - and the rhetoric has continued to escalate in recent months. Just yesterday, retired Russian general Yevgeny Buzhinsky urged Putin to launch Poseidon - still said to be in testing - that he said would destroy Britain. And also the underwater torpedo can destroy US East coast.
Yesterday, I've read a British "Daily Mail" article that nicely described my own country's way of handling these type of threats; rearmament. You can look it up here; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/prince_charles/article-12276633/ANDREW-NEIL-Poles-rearming-breathtaking-rate-Europes-rising-power.html Quote: "If you want to have good relations with the Russians,’ a senior figure in the Polish government told me yesterday on a brief visit to Warsaw, ‘then you have to be ready to fight them'"
My understanding is that we wouldn't be sending the cluster bombs to Ukraine if we had the 155 non-cluster ammunition to send them. They need the 155 ammunition to keep the summer offensive from stalling. The danger with the cluster bombs is that not all the cluster bomblets explode. Civilians can then be in danger from the unexploded ordinance. This is Ukrainian territory. The Ukrainians already have to deal with unexploded cluster bomblets from Russian fired ordinance. The percentage of unexploded bomblets from American ordinance is supposed to be much lower than Russian.
Here's a pretty good article about the 155 ammunition in Ukraine. https://apnews.com/article/155mm-howitzer-ukraine-ammunition-russia-7d966c85046b73db2b013f93c51af2a5
Putin/Russia is always going to claim that anything short of ceding Ukraine to Russia is antagonistic/escalating. Then give them Moldova or they'll bomb everyone. Poland looks nice, so give them that land, too. And so on and so forth. Appeasement doesn't work. Russia will always demand more.
Again, I'm not worried about anything except this looks like escalation to me. Not a threat to escalate; an actual escalation.
What makes cluster bombs controversial is the bomblet duds. The duds can explode if civilians touch them after reentering the area. Here's some Google search information: What is the dud rate of a typical cluster bomb? Russian cluster munitions reportedly have a "dud rate" of 40%, meaning large numbers remain a hazard on the ground, whereas the average dud rate is believed to be close to 20%. The Pentagon estimates its own cluster bomblets have a dud rate of less than 3%. 2 days ago Russia civilians should not be put in significant increased danger by this decision. First because the dud rate is much smaller for our cluster bombs. Secondly and much more important, there should not be a significant number of Russian civilians running around in Ukraine. I would not really consider this much of an escalation.
I. Don't. Care. I don't care militarily. I don't care politically. I don't care sociologically. I don't. I really, really don't. Russia is a criminal organization posing as a nation.
At least some of the Russian weapons being used are particularly insidious because they resemble TOY AIRPLANES. The unexploded ones are extremely attractive to children as a result. Granted, they're mines and not explode-on-contact cluster munitions, but if we want to be concerned about civilians then this is what one should be concerned about. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/08/04/who-dropped-thousands-of-antipersonnel-butterfly-mines-on-donetsk/amp/ In contrast, my understanding of the US cluster munitions is that it's essentially a shell packed with grenades. An unexploded grenade may still look like a plaything to a bored child, but much less so. It is much more obviously a bomb, and so much less likely to get touched by an adult. Significantly less danger to civilians, IMO. Regular grenades are already being used and I'm sure that a non-zero number of those have failed to go off. This would just be more of the same.
