The U.S. should not provide cluster munitions to Ukraine

To glimpse just how far the moral compass of many members of Congress has declined, consider a recent little-noticed statement by the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, Adam Smith (D-Wash.), on the subject of cluster munitions.

You might remember news coverage of those weapons when American media decried their use by Russian forces during the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Back then, the front page of the New York Times described “internationally banned cluster munitions” as “a variety of weapons — rockets, bombs, missiles and artillery projectiles — that disperse lethal bomblets in midair over a wide area, hitting military targets and civilians alike.”

Days later, the Times reported that NATO officials “accused Russia of using cluster bombs in its invasion,” and the newspaper added that “anti-personnel cluster bombs … kill so indiscriminately they are banned under international law.”

But now, Rep. Smith, a highly influential Democratic voice on a wide array of military policies, says that shipping cluster munitions to Ukrainian forces is “something I’m open to.”

Cluster weapons often gruesomely shred the bodies of civilians. Human Rights Watch has flatly declared: “All countries should condemn the use of these weapons under any circumstances.” But Rep. Smith sounded favorable notes during his May 16 presentation to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Asked whether the U.S. should supply cluster munitions to the Ukrainian military, Smith gave an answer that indicated he’s leaning toward the idea. “The big advantage” of sending cluster munitions to Ukraine, he said, “is we have a lot of them. To the extent that we’re unable to provide sufficient ammo in other areas, they could certainly fill that gap.” Smith went on: “If our cluster munitions could bring the war to a conclusion sooner, it’s something I’m open to.”

Smith added: “The administration is concerned about how it would impact the coalition. You know, Europeans are against cluster munitions. A number of them have signed a treaty. And also, we’re concerned about the coalition in Congress. So, conversations are going on about that, but I could certainly see myself in this particular circumstance, you know, seeing that this might be something we need to do.”

Part of Smith’s rationale was that the Russian military has already used cluster munitions in Ukraine, so the U.S. might as well enable Ukrainian forces to do the same. That approach boils down to a tacit assumption that Washington should not lag behind Moscow in a race to the bottom.

An implicit corollary is that America should get a pass on wartime actions that it has justifiably condemned other nations for doing. Such approaches fit into patterns of evasion that hide the actual human toll of U.S. military choices. (I assess those patterns in my new book, “War Made Invisible.”)

As a leading Democrat on military matters, Rep. Smith is putting forward an attitude toward cluster munitions that could have notably pernicious effects. But he’s hardly alone. The moral corrosion — reflected in the current Capitol Hill discourse on cluster munitions — is distinctly bipartisan.

In the early spring, four powerful Republican voices on military affairs and foreign policy weighed in on the side of aiding Ukraine to disregard the cluster-munitions ban treaty that 123 countries have ratified or signed. (Russia, the U.S. and Ukraine are not among them.) The chairs of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Michael McCaul (R-Texas), joined with the ranking members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), to sign a letter to President Biden urging him “to immediately provide cluster munitions … to the Ukrainian Armed forces.”

Either it’s acceptable to use cluster munitions or it isn’t. Selective moral outrage — in effect, telling the world “Do as we say, not as we do” — is unlikely to be persuasive to other nations in the long run.

The United States has an extensive history with cluster munitions. As the Congressional Research Service documented, “U.S. and British forces used almost 13,000 cluster munitions containing an estimated 1.8 million to 2 million submunitions during the first three weeks of combat in Iraq in 2003.”

Amid outrage over Russia’s use of those weapons in Ukraine, the New York Times was accurate when it reported that they “disperse lethal bomblets in midair over a wide area, hitting military targets and civilians alike.” The members of Congress now pushing to ship cluster munitions to Ukraine are dodging that truth.

Norman Solomon is cofounder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His book “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine” is being published this month.