On Friday, the U.S. announced that it will be providing the Ukrainian army with cluster bombs to use against invading Russian forces, bringing condemnation from Russia apologists and anti-Americanists, and much handwringing from pro-Western countries that are among the 111 signatories of a 2008 pledge not to use these weapons. Benny Avni notes that the Convention on Cluster Munitions was prompted by Israel’s use of these weapons in its 2006 war with Hizballah:
Cluster munitions, which break into hundreds of bomblets, have been used in battle since the Vietnam War to hit wider areas than other artillery or aerial-dropped bombs. Critics have long zeroed in on the weapons’ high rate of unexploded munitions, or duds, which pose dangers to civilians, including children, well after wars end. While human-rights groups have long raised such concerns, the push for banning the munitions gained crucial speed following the 2006 war, in which Hizballah shelled Israeli cities daily from missile launchers placed inside villages and towns in southern Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces’ use of cluster bombs to neutralize the threat led to criticism at the United Nations and in Congress. Unlike when NATO employed cluster bombs against Serbia a few years earlier, or when the allies used those arms in Iraq and Afghanistan, the IDF was widely accused of violating the rules of war.
Israel’s Winograd commission that investigated the IDF’s conduct in the war criticized the army command’s lack of clarity on when and where cluster bombs would be used. Yet, the IDF’s top legal official, Avichai Mandelblitt, ruled that the army was acting according to the rules of war relating to proportionality.
The cluster munition is a useful weapon of war that can help the Ukrainian army defeat a well-dug-in Russian force. Countries that never fathom fighting wars tend to frown on almost any weapon that kills. Those who do fight wars face a much more complex decision-making process.
Read more on New York Sun: https://www.nysun.com/article/expect-criticism-of-biden-cluster-munitions-decision-to-be-tame-in-comparison-to-derision-of-israel-for-use-of-weapon