“To those rightly raising questions about the US decision to send cluster munitions to 🇺🇦, your concerns about “war crimes” & international law today would have had a lot more credibility if you raise
“To those rightly raising questions about the US decision to send cluster munitions to 🇺🇦, your concerns about “war crimes” & international law today would have had a lot more credibility if you raise
“To those rightly raising questions about the US decision to send cluster munitions to 🇺🇦, your concerns about “war crimes” & international law today would have had a lot more credibility if you raised similar concerns the previous 499 days about 🇷🇺 using such weapons against 🇺🇦.” Michael McFaul
#Ukraine
Absolutely! Those who are raising quetions about Ukraine having access to cluster ammo were silent when Russia has been using cluster ammunitions against Ukrainian civilians.
Land mines are also already incredibly prevent in the areas that the cluster munitions will be used. The area will already need to be extensively demined to be made safe, the cluster munitions will do little to increase that workload
I get the need for the cluster munitions, but it really is going to make the southeast of Ukraine extraordinarily dangerous to do any sort of rebuilding after the war. Not a big fan of it, but it's not like we're giving the go-ahead to launch nerve gas agents against Russians.
I get the need for the cluster munitions
I liked the way Michael Kofman put it some months back -- that using cluster munitions is a way to compensate for a lack of standard HE munitions being available, and if we could provide Ukraine with sufficient HE munitions, they wouldn't need to use cluster munitions -- and that would be preferable. I think that he made a good point -- obviously, given the options, Ukraine would prefer not to deal with UXO cleanup. But, apparently Ukraine didn't consider the available HE munitions to be adequate.
And I have difficulty second-guessing Ukraine's position. It's them that have the most skin in the game on this decision. As long as we've given them as much information as we can on the costs of the munitions, so they understand what they're dealing with, then I think that Ukraine should be the one to make the call.
it really is going to make the southeast of Ukraine extraordinarily dangerous
I mean, there have already been a bunch of cluster munitions used in the war, not to mention a shit-ton of landmines laid. Hell, naval mines even. And even non-cluster munitions do have a dud rate, though it's less of an issue than with cluster munitions.
I mean, there's going to be a very considerable amount of UXO cleanup work to do after the war regardless.
If Ukraine was given fighter jets and sufficient anti-air capacity about 499 days ago there would be much less need for artillery. That isn't what happened. These weapons will leave that portion of Ukraine uninhabitable for decades if not longer.
These aren't like the cluster munitions the Soviet Union used in Afghanistan. These have a lower failure rate and aren't camouflaged.