American liberals have generally been more stalwart in support of Ukraine than American conservatives. (In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 44 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the United States was sending too much aid to Ukraine, compared with only 14 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners.) Yet now progressives are balking at the Biden administration’s decision last week to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions. Liberals’ hesitancy is understandable but misguided — and inimical to the goal of protecting human rights in Ukraine.
Known in Pentagon argot as dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs, pronounced dee-pick-ems), cluster munitions are shells, rockets, missiles and bombs that spew out sub-munitions to penetrate armor and kill soldiers. The most likely DPICMs that the United States will provide are M864 and M483A1 shells for 155mm howitzers, which contain 72 and 88 sub-munitions, respectively. The United States could also provide DPICMs for multiple-launch rocket systems and other weapons it has previously given to Ukraine. By one estimate, the United States has nearly 3 million DPICM rounds in its inventory.
Cluster munitions could boost the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive. Jack Watling and Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute in Britain argue that DPICMs “greatly multiply the efficiency of artillery fire against entrenched troops” because each round saturates a much larger area than a unitary artillery shell can. During the Vietnam War, they write, killing an enemy soldier required 13.6 conventional U.S. artillery rounds but only 1.7 DPICM shells.
Even more important is that the use of cluster munitions will relieve the pressure on Ukraine’s limited stocks of unitary artillery shells, allowing the West time to ramp up ammunition production and helping negate Russia’s advantage in artillery ammunition. “This is vital,” Watling and Bronk note, “given Russia’s current strategy of attempting to dig in and prolong the conflict.”
So why are so many liberals who oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine also opposed to the provision of cluster munitions to Ukraine? Many express concerns about the potential of unexploded DPICMs to kill civilians long after the conflict has ended. The United States fired tens of millions of cluster munitions during the Vietnam War. In Laos alone, at least 25,000 people have been killed or injured by unexploded ordnance since the U.S. bombing ended.