Cluster Munitions

 The Biden Administration has elected to send cluster munitions to Ukraine. They have done so at Ukraine's repeated request. There are some, both within Congress and within the larger non-profit sphere who are criticizing this decision. The BBC opined that this would lead to the US "losing the moral high ground." Others, who have worked to eliminate these weapons entirely have protested the move.

Sure, cluster munitions are bad, because they don't all explode and they can lay in wait for years and then explode and kill people. The fundamental distinction that this is Ukraine's choice on Ukrainian territory seems to elude those who are protesting this move. The Spring Offensive never materialized, becoming the Summer Probing Attacks. The Russians are well dug in and have extensive mine fields. Cluster munitions are uniquely effective against these defenses. If Ukraine is willing to risk the long term dangers of unexploded ordnance on their own land, then armchair sanctimony seems to miss the point by a good margin.

Cluster munitions are awful, but they are essentially conventional weapons in smaller form and greater numbers. A normal howitzer shell can fail to explode, too. On the week when the US finally eradicated the last of its chemical weapons' stockpiles, it seems to lack context to compare cluster munitions with truly indiscriminate WMD. And if cluster munitions - which Russia has used freely - are bad, it's because war is bad, and this war is the responsibility of Russia. Ukraine must have the weapons it needs to defend itself. 

Using these weapons is THEIR choice. Providing them those weapons follows naturally from that.