He was asked about it and he’s chosen his words carefully to make the softest criticism possible, and he did not criticise the US or Ukraine directly. I expect privately he supports it – as I do. Not with any enthusiasm of course, but given the fact Russia are already using them, and their cluster bombs have a much worse failure rate than the US ones, it’s a unique situation where the ends will hopefully justify the means. (Failure rate means the likelihood they don’t detonate on impact and so can cause injury to innocents a long time afterwards.)
i would say cluster bombs shouldn’t be used because they don’t fit in with the western method of accuracy. with our weapons’ we want to be able to kill that person unlike the russia method of flatting a whole field in hope of coming close to hitting that person.
more shadows less cluster bombs
Hard to expect anything else from country that signed 1997’s Ottawa Treaty banging cluster munitions in signatory countries like Uk and others (most of european countries) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions)
UK cant simply do 180 on it now, even if really wanted to , it would mean on international stage that GB isn’t keeping on their written promises and potentialy strain its standing on global stage by doing that.
I don’t doubt UK would love to flood UA with muntions, but its far simpler to admit you are against or discourage usage of cluster bombs on ideologic/moral basis,just not to admit publicly you simply do not have it, nor are you willing to go through all required the international backblast and whinging to get it.
While US has to pay for demobilization and disposing of cluster munitions quite real amounts of [$$](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-expected-provide-cluster-munitions-ukraine-nyt-2023-07-06/) for said process , when they litteraly have stores stuffed sky high with that type of 155mm rounds and other ammunition, unlike with normal 155 needed for US Army stocks in far greater quantities than its overstocked cluster variants still gathering dust and rust in some ammo depo , most either way would endup in disposal process in this decade and DOD $$ would have to be wasted on it,namely most of post cold war stocks of it.
3 comments
He was asked about it and he’s chosen his words carefully to make the softest criticism possible, and he did not criticise the US or Ukraine directly. I expect privately he supports it – as I do. Not with any enthusiasm of course, but given the fact Russia are already using them, and their cluster bombs have a much worse failure rate than the US ones, it’s a unique situation where the ends will hopefully justify the means. (Failure rate means the likelihood they don’t detonate on impact and so can cause injury to innocents a long time afterwards.)
Russia is predictably playing the victim and acting outraged, even though [they’ve been using them all along](https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1677598872602902529).
i would say cluster bombs shouldn’t be used because they don’t fit in with the western method of accuracy. with our weapons’ we want to be able to kill that person unlike the russia method of flatting a whole field in hope of coming close to hitting that person.
more shadows less cluster bombs
Hard to expect anything else from country that signed 1997’s Ottawa Treaty banging cluster munitions in signatory countries like Uk and others (most of european countries) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions)
UK cant simply do 180 on it now, even if really wanted to , it would mean on international stage that GB isn’t keeping on their written promises and potentialy strain its standing on global stage by doing that.
I don’t doubt UK would love to flood UA with muntions, but its far simpler to admit you are against or discourage usage of cluster bombs on ideologic/moral basis,just not to admit publicly you simply do not have it, nor are you willing to go through all required the international backblast and whinging to get it.
While US has to pay for demobilization and disposing of cluster munitions quite real amounts of [$$](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-expected-provide-cluster-munitions-ukraine-nyt-2023-07-06/) for said process , when they litteraly have stores stuffed sky high with that type of 155mm rounds and other ammunition, unlike with normal 155 needed for US Army stocks in far greater quantities than its overstocked cluster variants still gathering dust and rust in some ammo depo , most either way would endup in disposal process in this decade and DOD $$ would have to be wasted on it,namely most of post cold war stocks of it.