---
title: "Defending Democracy Includes Sending Cluster Munitions to Ukraine ?"
type: "post"
post_id: "4048"
slug: "defending-democracy-includes-sending-cluster-munitions-to-ukraine"
canonical: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/03/28/defending-democracy-includes-sending-cluster-munitions-to-ukraine/"
markdown_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/03/28/defending-democracy-includes-sending-cluster-munitions-to-ukraine.md"
json_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/03/28/defending-democracy-includes-sending-cluster-munitions-to-ukraine.json"
txt_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/03/28/defending-democracy-includes-sending-cluster-munitions-to-ukraine.txt"
published: "2023-03-28T16:40:53+00:00"
modified: "2023-03-28T16:40:53+00:00"
author: "penny2"
categories:
  - "Uncategorized"
tags:
  - "NATO"
  - "perception management"
  - "Russia"
  - "state sponsored terrorism"
  - "Ukraine"
  - "US"
site_name: "PFYT2"
publisher: ""
language: "en-US"
generator: "easyPress Markdown"
generator_version: "1.0.6"
---
**As if the depleted uranium shells weren’t bad enough!**

**[U.S. Should Send Cluster Munitions to Ukraine](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/03/28/us-should-send-cluster-munitions-to-ukraine/)**

> **The top Republicans on the House and Senate foreign affairs and armed services committees sent a [letter](https://armedservices.house.gov/sites/republicans.armedservices.house.gov/files/03-21-23_dpicm_letter%20(1).pdf) to President Joe Biden last week urging him to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions,** **specifically the Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition** (DPICM). **While not without risks, providing DPICMs could ease Kyiv’s artillery ammunition shortage, which undermines Ukraine’s ability to repel Russian advances and may hamper its upcoming counteroffensive.**
> 
> **The DPICM is a type of warhead that releases smaller explosive submunitions, increasing lethality.** Most relevant for Ukraine are **the [M483A1](https://www.bulletpicker.com/projectile_-155mm-he_-m483a1.html) and [M864](https://www.bulletpicker.com/projectile_-155mm-extended-ran.html) artillery shells, which Ukraine’s Western-made 155mm artillery systems can fire.**
> 
> **As the lawmakers note, DPICMs “are highly effective against personnel — both enemy troops in the open and entrenched infantry — and mechanized vehicles. `The United States relied on similar cluster munitions during the Cold War as a means of offsetting Soviet military advantages in manpower, artillery, and armored vehicles.” `Russia today possesses similar numerical advantages against Ukraine, using some of the same Soviet-era vehicles that DPICMs were originally intended to defeat.**
> 
> **`Cluster munitions are controversial because some of their submunitions <span style="text-decoration: underline;">typically fail</span> to detonate, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">leaving behind unexploded ordnance</span> (UXO) that can harm civilians or friendly forces. `**Like Washington, neither Kyiv nor Moscow has joined an international [convention](https://www.clusterconvention.org/) banning cluster munitions. (Nor has Poland or Romania, through whose territory the munitions would be delivered.) Both [Russia](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61778433) and [Ukraine](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/world/europe/ukraine-forces-cluster-munitions.html) have already used cluster munitions in the war.

**If the cluster bombs “typically fail to detonate” it seems most likely that is a desired feature of these munitions. Or else that problem would have long been addressed**

> **Kyiv has been [asking](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/07/politics/ukraine-cluster-munitions-us-war-russia/index.html) Washington for U.S.-made cluster munitions since [last summer](https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/10/turkey-cold-war-cluster-bombs-ukraine/). But the Biden administration has [demurred](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/09/biden-administration-ukraine-cluster-munitions-00073316), perhaps fearing political blowback at home and in parts of [Europe](https://www.yahoo.com/now/germany-criticises-ukraines-request-cluster-154339487.html).** U.S. law generally prohibits the transfer of cluster munitions with a “dud” rate of over 1 percent, but the president can waive this prohibition under Section 614 of the [Foreign Assistance Act](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-1071/pdf/COMPS-1071.pdf). Some of the DPICM rounds in the U.S. arsenal have a dud rate of just above 1 percent, [according](https://warontherocks.com/2023/02/backing-ukraine-against-russia-with-colin-kahl-and-derek-chollet/) to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl.
> 
> **DPICMs would ease Kyiv’s dangerous shortage of artillery ammunition. This “shell hunger” has already [undermined](https://kyivindependent.com/national/ukrainian-soldiers-in-bakhmut-our-troops-are-not-being-protected) Ukraine’s ability to repulse Russian advances around the eastern city of Bakhmut and may worsen as Western stockpiles continue to [dwindle](https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-reaches-deep-into-its-global-ammunition-stockpiles-to-help-ukraine-8224d985?redirect=amp).** Unless resolved, this shortage would likely hinder Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive — in which Washington and its allies have invested billions of dollars — later this spring.
> 
> **DPICMs offer an untapped source of supply.** According to the lawmakers, **the United States possesses nearly 3 million DPICM rounds. Some are likely past their shelf life or otherwise unsuitable for Ukraine.** **(They’ll send the unsuitable and past their shelf life munitions)** But even a few hundred thousand could make a critical difference to Ukrainian forces, who are currently [firing](https://www.ft.com/content/75ee9701-aa93-4c5d-a1bc-7a51422280fd) around 3,000 to 4,000 artillery shells per day.

**Read entirely at the opening link**

##### **Regarding depleted uranium munitions**

> [Britain To Send Depleted Uranium Shells For Ukraine’s Use](https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/03/21/britain-to-send-depleted-uranium-shells-for-ukraines-use/)