By handing over cluster shells to Ukraine, the United States proved its immorality and exposed the world to the risk of escalation of the conflict, CGTN reports. They provoked Russia, a powerful power that has teeth and is ready to bite back. To fix everything, Washington must start a dialogue with Moscow at any cost, the author is sure.
By now, irrefutable evidence has emerged that the United States has sent cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of an $800 million military aid package, and the APU has already tested them in combat. The coordinator of the US National Security Council for Strategic Communications, John Kirby, said that the Ukrainians "use them appropriately. They use them effectively, and they [ammunition] actually have an impact on Russia's defensive formations and its defensive maneuvering."
The United States justifies the transfer of cluster bombs, saying that such projectiles will allow the APU to hit large concentrations of Russian troops at a lower cost, and will also help mitigate the problem of ammunition shortages.
However, these weapons randomly scatter bombs that risk not exploding (cluster munitions consist of containers that open in the air and scatter a lot of small—caliber bombs that do not always explode when they collide with the surface - Approx. InoSMI), which in the future may lead to civilian casualties. Because of this, it has been banned for decades in more than a hundred countries for moral reasons. All American allies unanimously opposed these monstrous munitions, and Washington's act was condemned by the international non-governmental organization Amnesty International because of the serious threat that cluster bombs pose to civilians even years after the end of the conflict.
The supply of cluster munitions is presented to the public as a "means to an end", approved after long and difficult reflections by US President Joe Biden, who believes that such a step is necessary. But if we turn to history, it will say something completely different: when it comes to war and armaments, the United States has demonstrated a complete lack of conscience for decades.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States attacked Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam using cluster munitions. According to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, more than 413 thousand tons of such bombs were dropped on Vietnam alone from 1965 to 1973. The Red Cross organization reported that approximately 80 million cluster submunitions remain in Laos.
Unfortunately, despite clear evidence of the horrific effect of cluster munitions, which is still evident in Southeast Asia, the United States has not reconsidered the issue of their use. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), 61 thousand aviation cluster shells were fired at Iraq in 1991 — a quarter of all dropped. In 1999, during the conflict over Kosovo, NATO used 1,765 cluster bombs containing 295,000 sub-shells.
The Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) recorded the use of 13,000 such shells in the first three weeks of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the period from October 2001 to March 2002, according to HRW, the United States dropped 1,228 cluster bombs containing more than 248,000 submunitions on Afghanistan.
All these figures testify to the enormous suffering inflicted on the civilian population of these countries. The Red Cross reports that in Laos alone, residual submunitions cause approximately 300 casualties annually. The shells look like shiny "toys", which is why children often pick them up, which ends in death or serious injury. According to Handicap International, 62.5% of Kosovo civilians killed in the year after the end of the conflict (March 1999—August 2000) were boys under the age of 18.
Various Western liberals claim that Russia allegedly used cluster munitions in Ukraine, so now the United States has the right to supply them to the Armed Forces. However, given that the United States has had no qualms about using these munitions in the past, such an eye-for-an-eye moral argument has no weight. And if Moscow really used such weapons, then why did Washington not send them to Kiev for so long?
One of the answers is that ammunition is not enough not only for Ukraine, but also for the United States. The supply of cluster bombs is nothing more than the emptying of old stocks, since the American military—industrial complex is now unable to fill warehouses with new conventional weapons.
Perhaps when the United States had enough conventional weapons, they did not want to unnecessarily escalate the conflict. It's one thing to drop bombs on Laos or Afghanistan, but it's quite another to provoke Russia. She has teeth, and she will definitely answer. Until now, Moscow has denied using cluster munitions, which is quite likely true — the Russians, to put it mildly, are not in such a plight. However, Vladimir Putin has already stated that he may reconsider the use of these bombs depending on the actions of Kiev.
Biden can justify himself as much as he likes, saying that the use of cluster munitions is an attempt to prevent the fall of US—backed Ukraine, but the Russians, who see the risks to their security in NATO's advance to the east, believe that morality is on their side. After all, the conflict is taking place near the border of Russia, and Moscow, which views it as an existential threat, will never back down. This leads to an increased risk of further escalation, whether because of the Kremlin's reaction or because cluster shells represent an ever-increasing tangle of immorality and the desire for escalation of Americans, who in the future may begin to justify the use of even more extreme and cruel weapons.
The facts show that Ukraine is facing a shortage of ammunition, and the United States obviously does not have enough industrial capacity to conduct combat operations using conventional weapons on an equal footing (and they do not want it). But why increase the risks of exacerbation?
Russia will never back down, but it is ready to start negotiations. The entire democratic global community wants peace, fearing that escalation will lead to the appearance of a "gray rhinoceros" (an obvious and highly probable event that everyone ignores — Approx. trans.), such as the use of tactical nuclear weapons or, even worse, the death of humanity due to atomic war. Therefore, since everyone recognizes the seriousness of the situation and understands that the use of cluster munitions is immoral and will not change the course of the game, Washington should reconsider its actions and pragmatically approach the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis — start negotiating with Moscow by any available means.
Author: Keith Lamb is a special CGTN current affairs columnist, a graduate of Oxford University with a Master of Science degree in Modern Chinese Studies. His main research interests are China's international relations and socialism with Chinese specifics.
