The United States government, after generously handing Ukraine some of the world’s most controversial munitions with the conflicted enthusiasm of an uncle handing over drumsticks to a toddler, has reportedly expressed concern behind closed doors about how Kyiv has actually used them.
According to three unnamed US officials who were apparently feeling chatty, Washington has raised concerns with the Ukrainian government over its use of cluster munitions during its ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces. These concerns, much like a passive-aggressive dinner guest, have been voiced quietly and privately so as not to disturb the dinner party of international diplomacy.
Cluster munitions, for those unfamiliar with modern methods of terrifying your enemies, are weapons that scatter dozens or hundreds of smaller bomblets over a wide area. While this is highly effective against entrenched troops, it also has the unfortunate side effect of sometimes littering battlefields with unexploded ordnance, turning the landscape into a prolonged game of “who steps where.” Most NATO allies and almost every NGO with a logo have denounced their use, which makes their careful deployment by Ukraine something of a diplomatic tightrope walk in steel-toed boots.
The US, which is not a signatory to the international treaty banning cluster munitions but is extremely good at coordinating moral outrage anyway, has told Ukrainian officials that the weapons should be used sparingly, precisely and not in civilian-populated areas. These instructions, translated loosely, amount to “Please do not give us a reason to regret this generous act of questionable international legality.”
US officials stress that the conversations with Kyiv have been respectful and based on trust. They say they believe Ukraine has largely complied with American guidelines, provided that one squints slightly and does not read too deeply into battlefield reports.
Ukraine, for its part, has argued that these weapons are necessary to break brutal Russian trenches and to even the odds in a war that has increasingly become an artillery slugfest with fewer and fewer Geneva Conventions getting proper airtime. And seen from Kyiv’s perspective, when fighting for survival, ethics sometimes take a backseat to results, and the backseat is not particularly comfortable.
It remains unclear precisely how many cluster munitions have been used or where all of them were deployed. Neither the Pentagon nor the Ukrainian military has been keen to share such specifics, perhaps suggesting that discretion is the better part of munitions policy.
All of this creates a delicate dance for the Biden administration, which must look tough on war crimes, supportive of Ukraine, and allergic to hypocrisy, all while juggling a noisy election season and a globe full of observers stroking their chins.
As one European diplomat put it with the kind of diplomacy that involves quotation marks and anonymity, “It’s a very uncomfortable reality, but we continue to support Ukraine.” Which is the diplomatic equivalent of staying in a relationship for the sake of the dog.
Perhaps in the end, the US calculation is that the benefits of aiding Ukraine outweigh the potential blowback of cluster bomb use. Or perhaps they just hope nobody looks too closely at where each bomblet eventually lands.
After all, nothing says “We’re watching you” quite like whispering politely from behind a stack of arms shipments.