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The Good, The Bad, and The False Equivalent: Ukraine, DPICMs, and Iraq. [1]
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Date: 2023-07-12
I find some of the arguments in opposition to sending DPICMs a bit disingenuous on a couple of counts. They tend to overplay the backlash and wring their hands as they feed a narrative in a self fulling prophetic manner. They minimize their effectiveness, and the necessity of supplying them in order to sustain the success of Ukraines counter-offensive. They employ false equivalence to bolster the moral argument against transferring them.
I doubt the transfer of DPICMs will have all that much of an effect on NATO's unity when it comes to arming Ukraine, or going forward for that matter. The military case for their use is compelling, as well as for the necessity of providing them.
So long as the debate is dispassionate, and not dominated by conversation stopper absolutism, there is no reason for disagreement to effect common interests that drive the unified NATO front towards Ukraine. After all, Ukraine isn't even a NATO member state, so neither their use of them to date nor the transfer of them for Ukraine's use reflects poorly on NATO.
It's not like US use in Iraq was corrosive, at least no more than the decision to attack Iraq the second time around in the first place.
So the question becomes, as with any weapon system, military necessity versus morality of use.
Let's set aside the straw man that DPICMs were unnecessary for victory in the Iraq war. Of course they weren't necessary. We had air superiority, and countless other more effective munitions at our disposal.
They were, however, effective against entrenched forces, more so than unitary munitions. That's the problem at hand for Ukraine, and they do not have enough more effective munitions at hand.
It's pretty much common sense. Instead of having to zero in unitary rounds, which takes something like five shots to drop them in a slit trench before firing for effect, each DPICM will be effective as they are walked in.
If one bomblet out of 88 from an airburst DPICM has slim odds of landing in or near enough to a slit trench to kill the occupants, what are the odds for a unitary munition? One of the most devastating rounds already in the Ukrainian arsenal are the 155mm and GMLRS munitions that rain down 182,000 tungsten balls.
The economy of rounds is of particular importance because we simply do not have sufficient unitary rounds in our stockpiles to sustain Ukraine's counter-offensive. By sending DPICMs, of which we have millions stockpiled, that problem no longer poses a threat to Ukraine's success.
I opposed their use in Iraq on the general priniciple that using them on foreign soil in any circumstance other than an existential struggle is wrong. As a general policy, DPICMs should not be supplied to foreign militaries regardless of dud rates. No matter what assurances given that they are for defensive purposes, the transferees always find a way justify using them on the territory of another country, and there's little we can do to stop them.
On the other hand, the situation in Ukraine is exactly that which justifies an exception to that policy, again, regardless of dud rates. Ukraine is in an existential struggle. Their foe is committing atrocities and using cluster munitions on Ukrainian forces and population centers on Ukrainian territory. Ukraine will use them on military targets on their own territory to accelerate liberating that territory, the quintessential definition of defensive use. The trade off between the consequences of their use and those of prolonged occupation for their citizens is a decision for them to make.
Ukraine has honored its commitments not to use US artillery systems to hit targets on Russian soil. Any transfer should include a proviso that after the war is over, and Ukraine has ejected all of Putin's forces from their territory, Ukraine agrees to return any unused DPICMs.
Our debate over acceptable dud rates is meaningless in light of the military necessity of Ukraine. Without them, Ukraine will run out of munitions.
Ukraine knows the data. It's their call when and where to use them.
Besides, the occupiers have strewn mines across tens of thousands of square kilometers of Ukrainian territory. These are going to be no go zones for civilians for years to come. Duds from DPICMs will be confined to a far more restricted area.
The sooner the occupiers are driven out, the sooner the clearing operations can begin. Instead of handwringing over duds from all the types of munition fired back and forth on top of the mines, we should be training up as many mine clearing and bomb disposal teams as possible for deployment once this is over.
IMHO, morality comes down on the side of providing them. The means Russians are employing to exterminate Ukraine are so abhorrent, less desirable means of stopping them have become necessary.
If we had acquired the bomb a couple of days after D-Day when we were bogged down in bocage country while Germany was exterminating millions of jews and gypsies, not to mention the disabled, would we have said using it to hasten putting an end to that genocide was immoral?
Yes, there are legitimate reasons for opposing their use but in the end, the absolutist virtue signaling over DPICMs ignores the genocide Russia is carrying out in occupied territory. Ukrainians will cease to exist there before too long.
The Russian occupation poses an existential threat to the Ukrainian people living there, as in the existence of Ukrainians there, and the existence of Ukrainian children in particular there.
Duds do not.
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