Biden Says Yes to Cluster Munitions for Ukraine as Norway SWF Banned Companies That Make Them
Posted on 07/10/2023
Norway Government Pension Fund Global, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, has banned Textron Inc. and Poongsan Corporation due to their production of cluster munitions.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, drawing in Western powers and the U.S. Ukraine has struggled to make sweeping gains in its counteroffensive against Russia. Ukrainian troops have been burning trough stockpiles of munitions. The U.S. government is fighting a proxy war against Russia.
U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to send cluster munitions to aid Ukraine’s war effort for the first time. This was announced by the U.S. Department of Defense. The cluster munitions will be a part of a new US$ 800 million military assistance package for Ukraine. Since the war began, the Biden administration and the U.S. Congress have directed more than US$ 75 billion in assistance to Ukraine, which includes humanitarian, financial, and military support, according to the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
By providing the weapons to Ukraine, the U.S. is bypassing a law that prohibits the use or transfer of cluster munitions that have a failure rate higher than 1%.
Controversy
A cluster munition is a bomb that opens in the air and releases smaller “bomblets” across a wide area. The bomblets are designed to take out tanks and equipment, as well as troops. In previous conflicts, cluster munitions have had a high dud rate, which meant that thousands of the smaller unexploded bomblets remained behind and killed and maimed people decades later. Cluster munitions can fall often outside of the intended target range, with a risk of killing civilians decades after. There is a convention banning the use of cluster bombs that has been joined by more than 120 countries, which agreed not to use, produce, transfer, or stockpile the weapons and to clear them after they’ve been used. The December 2008 Convention of Cluster Munitions (the Oslo Convention) prohibits all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of cluster munitions. The Oslo Convention also explicitly prohibits all persons, businesses and corporate entities from knowingly financing cluster munitions.
The United States, Russia, and the Ukraine have not signed on for the convention banning.
The U.S. under President George Bush used its cluster munitions in battle in Iraq in 2003. However, as the war in Iraq grew to more urban areas, the U.S. stopped using them. For example, during the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s, Laos was bombed as a result of heavy aerial attacks. Around 20,000, around 40% of them children—have been killed or injured by cluster bombs or other unexploded items in Laos since the war ended.
War Effort
The U.S. is running short on munitions to supply to Ukraine. Russian tanks continue to make some progress in eastern Ukraine.
