Linda Thomas-Greenfield, America’s voice at the United Nations, usually chooses her words carefully. “We have seen videos of Russian forces moving exceptionally lethal weaponry into Ukraine, which has no place on the battlefield,” she told the general assembly last year. “That includes cluster munitions and vacuum bombs – which are banned under the Geneva conventions.”
The speech can be read on the official website of the US mission to the UN. But it comes with a neat metaphor for how messy diplomacy can be. The transcript of Thomas-Greenfield’s remarks now has the words “which has no place on the battlefield” crossed out, and the word “banned” comes with an asterisk: she should have said “the use of which directed against civilians is banned under the Geneva conventions”.
Few asterisks carry such historical weight. On Friday, the US announced it will send Ukraine cluster munitions as part of an $800m security assistance package, a move Kyiv said would have an “extraordinary psycho-emotional impact” on occupying Russian forces.
When they detonate, cluster bombs spread dozens of tiny bomblets over a wide area, with a large number burying themselves in the ground rather than exploding. The weapons therefore effectively leave a field of anti-personnel mines in their wake, posing a lethal danger to civilians, often children.
By authorising their transfer, Joe Biden has arguably crossed a Rubicon, putting the political and military imperatives of the moment ahead of America’s already somewhat tattered moral reputation. In an interview to be broadcast on CNN on Sunday, the president said: “It was a very difficult decision on my part. And, by the way, I discussed this with our allies, I discussed this with our friends up on the [Capitol] Hill. The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.”
Human rights groups lambasted his decision. Some 123 countries have signed the 2008 Oslo convention banning production, storage, sale and use of cluster munitions (non-signatories include China, Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria and, of course, the US, which deployed them in Afghanistan and Iraq).
The White House argument is simple: that the end justifies the means. Ukraine is burning through its available supply of conventional artillery shells. Washington’s money pit is not bottomless and public patience is not inexhaustible. The clock is ticking on a presidential election that could put Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or someone else lukewarm on Ukraine in the Oval Office.
Furthermore, Washington has already provided Ukraine with grenade launchers, Howitzers and ammunition, air-to-ground missiles and Switchblade drones, with Abrams tanks to come. Cluster munitions might be seen as just the inevitable next step: a difference of degree rather than a difference of kind.
Leon Panetta, a former defence secretary and CIA director, said: “There isn’t a weapon used in warfare that doesn’t carry the risks of killing people. That’s what these weapons are all about.
“It’s also true that the Russians have used these munitions and have targeted civilian populations in attacks across Ukraine. When you’re facing an enemy that has no regard for the human costs involved, you have to figure out what step do you take to try to confront that kind of force?
“The Russians have got 180,000 Russians supposedly, combined with a huge number of mines that have been placed in the ground. They’re dug in, in defensive positions. From a straight strategy point of view, you have to find a way to break the Russian defensive position – and this is one of those ways.”
US allies have been delicately diplomatic in their response. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, performed some ethical hair-splitting on Friday by arguing that even signatories to the Oslo convention indicated that they understand the US decision and recognise the difference between the use of cluster munitions by Russia, the aggressor, and Ukraine, which is defending itself.
Sullivan also said Kyiv provided written assurances that it will use cluster munitions with care to avoid harming innocent people.
Sullivan noted that Russia has been using cluster munitions since the war began but denied this is a case of stooping to Vladimir Putin’s level. He said: “I’m not making an argument which says they do it, so we’ll do it. The argument I’m making is that Russia has already spread tens of millions of these bomblets across Ukrainian territory so we have to ask ourselves, is Ukraine’s use of cluster munitions on that same land actually that much of an addition of civilian harm, given that that area is going to have to be de-mined regardless?”
History is littered with such appeals expediency: what difference will a few more dollars/weapons/casualties make? US support for Ukraine has undergone its own kind of mission creep, with weapons Biden was initially unwilling to consider being introduced increment by increment, each one a win for defence contractors and the military industrial complex. The only apparently uncrossable red line is putting American boots on the ground.
Philip Crowley, a former assistant secretary of state, said: “There have been many lines drawn in this conflict, and just about every one of them has been crossed at some point in time.
“Weapons systems that initially were off the table got put on the table. Then they went from being on the table to on the battlefield. And this is just another example of where the Biden administration means what it says: it’s going to give Ukraine every opportunity to succeed, and that means using every weapons system in the conventional arsenal.”
The timing of this one is tricky for Biden, who will attend a Nato meeting in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, next week. His presidency sustained early damage from the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan but is now set to be defined by success or failure in Ukraine. His decision on cluster munitions, which drew scorn from progressives in Congress, is indicative of a sense in Washington that the war is reaching crunch time as Ukraine wages a slow but steady counteroffensive.
Panetta, co-founder of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, commented: “We’ve reached a point in this war when Joe Biden, and for that matter the allies, are looking very intently on whether or not this is a moment that can ultimately decide the fate of this war.”