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The Mundane Reason the U.S. Sent Controversial Cluster Munitions to Ukraine
In 2009, 108 countries signed the “Convention on Cluster Munitions” treaty which created a self-imposed ban on the use of cluster bombs.
Among the signatories, three countries were notably absent: The United States, Russia, and Ukraine.
A cluster bomb is a type of weapon that is designed to disperse smaller bombs over a large area. They are also known as cluster munitions, with the smaller bombs referred to as submunitions or bomblets.
In the U.S. military, cluster munitions are typically the M864 artillery shell with 72 submunitions each, and are fired from the 155mm howitzer — of which Ukraine has many. The U.S. nomenclature for this round is the dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM). They can also be fired from an MLRS or HIMARS with many more submunitions per round.
These submunitions are controversial for one reason: Their tendency to stick around long after the war has ended and explode when least expected.
The problem with cluster bombs is the submunition failure rate — referred to as the “dud rate” — which has varied from 10% to 40% in recent conflicts, (depending on the nation of origin). This has resulted in many war zones being infested with tens of thousands of unexploded time bombs.
