Cluster bombs would be ‘very effective’ for Ukraine, NATO commander says
Joel Gehrke
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Ukraine could make “very effective” use of so-called cluster munitions that the United States has declined to provide, according to the top U.S. military officer in Europe.
“We call it dual-purpose because it releases bomblets, some of which are anti-personnel fragmentation grenades and some of which are shaped charges that attack vehicles from above,” Army Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, the commander of U.S. European Command and supreme allied commander of NATO, told the House Armed Services Committee. “It’s very effective munition.”
UKRAINE HAS ALMOST ALL PROMISED MILITARY VEHICLES, NATO SAYS
Cavoli struck a balance between affirming the utility of the weapons and avoiding any specific recommendations about whether they should be given to Ukrainian forces. The munitions have been banned by more than 100 countries on humanitarian grounds, and U.S. and European states have declined to grant Ukrainian requests for the controversial ammunition, although some policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic favor their use in this conflict.
“The U.S military has over 3 million cluster munitions that can be fired from [155 mm howitzers] currently in Ukraine’s possession,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) said during the hearing.
Yet those munitions are among the most controversial in Western arsenals, in part because of the rate at which they leave “dud” bomblets on the battlefield. The U.S. is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans signatories from using the weapons or transferring them to other countries, but the U.S. government largely stopped using cluster bombs in 2003 and has a parallel restriction on their transfer.
Rogers is one of four senior Republican lawmakers to urge President Joe Biden to pull the cluster munitions out of storage for Ukraine.
“The United States relied on similar cluster munitions during the Cold War as a means of offsetting Soviet military advantages in manpower, artillery, and armored vehicles,” the lawmakers — including Sens. James Risch (R-ID) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) — argued in March. “Providing [dual-purpose improved conventional munitions] will allow Ukraine to compensate for Russia’s quantitative advantage in both personnel and artillery rounds, and will allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces to concentrate their use of unitary warheads against higher-value Russian targets.”
The GOP quartet suggested that the U.S. wouldn’t be taking an unprecedented step in this war. “Other countries have already supplied these weapons, which did not result in any meaningful Russian escalation,” they argued without identifying the other countries. “We understand other allies are also considering supplying cluster munitions and urge you to facilitate these efforts as well.”
Estonian officials have acknowledged their interest in sending German-made cluster bombs to Ukraine, but that move would require Berlin’s approval — and Germany has embraced the cluster munitions ban.
“We’ll have to see what agreements between our forces we reach with Ukraine,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pavkur said in January. “And we’re trying to secure the various authorizations we need. And then maybe we can comment further on what we’ve provided and what we haven’t.”
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Cavoli avoided commenting on the political or policy calculations that shape a decision to provide or withhold a given weapons system. But he made clear that the cluster bombs would be an effective counter to Russia’s attacks around Bakhmut.
“It’s very effective against mixed targets of personnel and equipment, especially when those targets are gathered into dense formations,” the general said. “It is happening in Bakhmut, sir, and it happens on most battlefields when one force goes into the offense. So, as a strictly military matter, it is a useful and very effective munition.”