Sending cluster munitions to Ukraine makes sense
President Biden has proposed giving cluster bombs to Ukraine. That is the clearest indicator that the summer counteroffensive has hit a wall. NATO and the U.S. have given virtually everything possible to Ukraine, mountains of munitions, Western tanks and armored vehicles, combined arms training for tens of thousands of soldiers, even NATO F-16 fighter jets. Yet now, Ukraine’s army is stuck in the mud, battling it out, field by field, like the U.S. Army struggling in the hedgerows of Normandy during World War II.
What happened to the Ukrainian offensive? Could “carefully used” cluster munitions be a game-changer? Colonel Markus Reisner, an astute Austrian Army analyst of the war, states that the thousands of drones on the battlefield have revolutionized the defense. The Russians are defending in depth, with their artillery hidden far behind the lines, and several lines of minefields, barbed wire, and other obstacles in front. In order to break through Russian lines, engineers have to clear a path through the minefields and obstacles; then the armored forces push their way through before they are detected.
Small groups of observers using drones have been able to detect the breakthrough attempts and call in Russian artillery fire to stop it. The Russians can also fire rockets with cluster mines that put mines right back in the area that was cleared. Ukrainian forces have also been badly hit by Russian KA-52 attack helicopters flying behind the trees, rising above to fire missiles at tanks, then dipping back down, thus avoiding being seen by air defenses.
The Ukrainians, according to Reisner, have adapted by sending in small groups to fight for each woodline and clear away the observers before moving ahead. This is very much like the hedgerow fight in Normandy after the D-Day invasion that was very slow moving before the German Army broke and fled back to Germany. Currently, the fight is roughly a stalemate, and ground is taken and won back.
Could cluster bombs be a war-winner, especially in light of the almost worldwide prohibition of their use? Perhaps. The classic example for why the U.S. kept them in its inventory is their usefulness in defending against armored attack. Imagine cluster bombs hitting that 40-mile-long Russian convoy in the first week of the invasion. A small number of cluster bombs would have devastated that target. But this is currently a war of dispersed infantry observers and hidden artillery with strong air defenses and attack helicopter airfields deep behind enemy lines. The Ukrainian Air Force has not necessarily shown that it can easily penetrate Russian defenses to hit either the artillery concentrations or the attack helicopter airbases, which are two logical targets to strike in support of a breakthrough. However, the HIMARS rocket artillery systems can also fire cluster munitions. When firing cluster munitions, they can devastate 1 square kilometer. This could make a significant difference by suppressing or destroying batteries of Russian artillery at the point of a breakthrough. HIMARS outrange most Russian artillery and are highly mobile, so this seems likely to be successful.
Cluster munitions are internationally banned by over 100 countries. This ban is based in large part on the experience of the Vietnam and Afghanistan conflicts, where the U.S. and Soviets frequently used cluster munitions and then withdrew, leaving the civilians living in those areas to contend with large areas of unmarked minefields. This is because not every bomblet in a cluster munition explodes. A common rule of thumb is a 10% dud rate for munitions. So if 200 bomblets are dropped, 20 would not explode and would essentially turn into mines.
However, neither the U.S. nor Russia has signed on to this convention. This is because cluster munitions are not inherently immoral; rather, they are an effective weapon of war when used responsibly. Responsible usage would involve tracking all areas where cluster munitions are used and then de-mining those areas once the conflict has ended. Thus, providing cluster munitions is not a hare-brained proposal, but rather an example of military staffers providing a reasonable response to a hard military problem.
That said, it is remarkable that there is yet no serious discussion of ceasefire talks. The fighting season will likely last roughly until mid-October, when the ground will turn too muddy, with another short window from mid-November, when the ground may freeze hard until winter weather makes fighting impractical. One can only hope that at the end of this offensive, both sides can sit down and discuss stopping the conflict.
Image credit: YouTube screen grab, (cropped).