The controversy over the Biden administration’s decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions reminded me of my old boss William F. Buckley’s famous retort to the claim that the United States and the Soviet Union were morally equal because they both had nuclear weapons. and spent a lot on defense. . His wording varied, but here’s the gist: if a man pushes an old lady in front of an oncoming bus and another man pushes an old lady out of the way of a bus, it’s wrong to describe them both as the kind of men who push . old ladies around.

Now no one, except fringe Putin apologists, is arguing that we are no better than the Russians. But there is a strange claim to moral equality in the field of cluster munitions.

One thing needs to be said first: these can be terrible weapons and people who want to ban them have defensible arguments on their side. Cluster munitions, or cluster bomb, is a term for an entire family of weapons that can be dropped from aircraft or launched by artillery or missiles. Each device contains several, sometimes hundreds, of sub-munitions that spread over a relatively large area. These submunitions, if they work properly, explode on impact.

The key phrase works properly. A fraction, sometimes a large fraction, does not explode immediately. Instead, they lie dormant on or under the ground and grow small

landmines.

Thinking they are toys or souvenirs, children can pick them up only to be killed or mutilated. Farmers have been killed by them, sometimes years after a conflict.

More than 100 countries have banned them. The United States, Russia, China and Ukraine do not have that. The US rationale for keeping them is that there are circumstances in which they are superior, both in military effectiveness and in limiting civilian deaths to the alternatives. Yet in 2008, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates signed an order to phase out cluster munitions with a failure or dud rate above 1% after 2018. Trump’s Defense Department responded to that policy, promising to continue working to reduce the dud rate.

This is where the false moral equivalence comes into play. Russia uses cluster bombs at a dud rate of 30% to 40% as a policy issue. They have been using them since the beginning of their invasion of Ukraine. Not only that, but they also purposefully targeted civilian targets, including a hospital and playground. Attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime whether or not a country uses cluster munitions. But Russia, which has targeted civilians to terrorize the Ukrainian population into submission since the start of the war, sees the delayed carnage of cluster munitions as a feature, not a bug.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has also deployed cluster munitions, not on Russian civilians, but on the hardened battlefield positions of the Russian invaders.

If you take Vladimir Putin at his word, the Ukrainians he killed are actually Russians, as he claims that Ukraine is not a real country, but part of Russia.

So yes, cluster bombs are great. But the moral status of

Everything

weapons, like all wars, depend on the context. Using a gun to attempt to rape or kill is not the same as using a gun to defend yourself.

Ukraine has promised to use cluster munitions as sparingly and precisely as possible. Russia still lies about using them, Ukraine uses them to repel invaders on its territory. Russia uses them as a means of conquest. And, most relevantly, Ukraine has every interest in limiting civilian casualties because of the civilians concerned

are Ukrainians.

Progressive Democrats, including Representative Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), opposed Biden’s decision. Cluster bombs should never be used. That’s crossing a line, Lee told CNN. She says this will cost America its moral leadership.”

I agree that it crosses a line. But the whole point of leadership is knowing when an action is necessary and justified. If Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, send them

each

weapons would cross a border. But Russia lawlessly invaded Ukraine, and moral leadership requires Russia not to get away with it.

It took me a while to be convinced to do it, President Biden told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. But the most important thing is that they have the weapons to stop the Russians now or not. And I think they needed it.”

Biden is right.

My only criticism is that we sent these weapons because we’ve been too slow to deliver others. If Ukraine had access to F-16 jets, it might not need cluster bombs at all.

@JonahDispatch