Why the US is sending cluster bombs to Ukraine

Cluster munitions which can launch hundreds of little killer bomblets over the battlefield have an unarguable value for a military commander who wants to disrupt enemy defensive positions. They have already been used by both sides in the war in Ukraine. But a delivery of thousands of the American versions would give Kyiv a significant, albeit controversial, advantage in clearing the massive dug-out trenches and minefields that have seriously slowed Ukraine’s counter-offensive advances in recent weeks. The Pentagon’s view is that cluster munitions are legitimate weapons with clear military utility. In Ukraine they will also be used to attack Russian troop formations on the move, as well as disabling mechanised vehicles. Above all, they will help compensate for the Russian advantage in both troop and artillery numbers. The perceived value of cluster bombs on the battlefield is why the US has so far failed to join the 123 countries, including the UK, which have signed up to the convention banning production and deployment of these munitions. The US last used cluster bombs in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 but began phasing them out in 2016 because of the danger posed to civilians when munitions landed without detonating. Children have been killed and maimed by picking up half-buried cluster bombs, attracted by their yellow parachutes attached. During Nato’s intervention in the civil war between Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, for example, thousands of bomblets dropped by alliance aircraft failed to explode. Human Rights Watch claimed up to 150 civilians, many of them children, were killed by the munitions. However, the Pentagon delayed the phasing-out programme because it failed to find a suitable weapon system to compare with the cluster bomb’s effectiveness without leaving the fatal legacy for future generations. Today, the majority of the US military’s estimated three million forward-deployed cluster munitions are in and around South Korea in case of an attack by North Korean troops and armour across the demilitarised zone. But they are also located on American and allied bases in Europe. The bombs heading for Ukraine are called dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICM) which are part of the stocks that had been phased out. They will be fired principally from US-supplied 155mm M777 howitzers. Every canister launched by the artillery pieces will contain 88 bomblets, capable of covering an area of about 30,000 square metres. They could also be fired from the American high-mobility artillery rocket system (Himars).The decision to send cluster munitions, following repeated requests from Kyiv, could bring forward an agreement in Washington to deliver another weapon on President Zelensky’s longstanding shopping list – the long-range US army tactical missile system (Atacms) which can also fire cluster munitions.