The_Capt

Do not get me wrong - the discussion on this forum has been positively scholarly and gentile compared to other corners of the internet right now. I think we have some leanings among the group, some stronger than others. I do tend to want to ensure that any discussion around stuff like this be given the broadest treatment possible. So for example if we are going to start doing maths, let's do all the maths. If we are going to argue for human security issues, lets call spades, 'spades' and underline the inconsistencies. You will remember that I was just as hard on the whole warcrimes discussions that hijacked us last year. The "firmly against DPICM" has not occurred here, it occurred places like my own government. I am just not a fan of it taking root here without being challenged anymore than the even more distasteful topics we have had to cover. I am firmly in JonS's camp on "why dumb DPICM, when we have HE PGM?" Further, I am also in the "PGM DPICM with a 100% (or at least comparable to dumb HE) dud rates" camp. The issue is that context appears to have changed and we should change with it. When I start to hear "DPICM bad no matter what because it makes baby Jesus (or certain Canadian political parties) cry", that would be when I start to push back and call out hypocrisy when I see it. There are weapons that should (and are) universally outlawed - chemical, biological and nuclear/radiation are at the top of that list. Finally my own biases are showing when I hear from preachy political parties that basically did nothing to deter Russia from this war, even after 2014, beyond harsh language and finger waving. "But now that Ukraine is using cluster munitions well we had better speak up!" How about we worry less about which munitions are being employed in a war and work harder on stopping the wars before they start in the first place? Perhaps that is my preachy windmill on a hill of sand to tilt at.

Well it kinda does change the rationale. The fact that you are seeing this as a hard "pro" or "against" DPICM situation is evidence that this entire thing has been hijacked by slippery principle as opposed to reality. I for one am highly against the use of DPICM in urban areas on a low-level conflict/counter insurgency, such as Southern Lebanon. I am, however, for their legal use in Southern Ukraine when the UA is running out of ammunition and needs to sustain an offensive to keep momentum or risk stalling out into a frozen conflict. See that? I can actually have two opposed opinions on the use of these weapons based on context. Anyone who is able to do that is living in the real world as we try and balance the hope and desperation. If, however, one stands on principle regardless of context, then they are "pearl clutching" and being self-righteous in my opinion. Tossing around "but the children!" arguments that lead to hypocritical cul de sacs is just as bad as blood thirsty genocidal sentiments we have also clamped down on. Of course being someone who has had spent their adult life going out into the world and dealing with the worst while 99.9% of my home population is more worried about whether Taylor Swift is going to do a concert in Toronto has likely jaded me somewhat.

It would be the part when you stepped on the slippery slope of seeming to suggest that an older persons life was worth less than a young persons life. I don't even disagree but is opens up a major hypocrisy hole in the position of the "think of the children!" side. If the value of life is indeed transactional in nature (e.g. old people are going to die soon anyway) then that universal principle applies across the board. The loss of children itself become transactional as well = relative morality. In reality landmines, napalm, cluster munitions and fully autonomous "killbots" are less about the cost/danger/morality of warfare, and more about political power. If it were about existential danger of weapons in warfare then we would have banned all nuclear weapons years ago. There is even a treaty from 2017 but as you will notice even though 92 states signed on there is a whole lot of cricket sounds coming out of the Western world on this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_Nuclear_Weapons https://www.icanw.org/signature_and_ratification_status I am pretty cynical about all this considering that the real existential threat to human survival - and yes that would be all the children - cannot get traction from anyone but the global South/3rd world. Maybe this is a work in progress so starting small is the plan but considering our current situation the entire thing really feels hollow. The landmine and cluster munitions treaty did exactly zero to prevent the Russian invasion, nor did it stop Russia for a millisecond in using these weapons with wanton abandon. This should be a big hint that soft power/collectivism/whatever-the-hell-they-go-on-about is not a real thing without hard power to actually back up enforcement because people are the worst. Our better angels have pointy tales and horns and no amount of pontificating or posturing is going to change that. And here is the rub and why this whole thing is likely really upsetting so many in the liberal humanism/human security camp - if we were in Ukraine's position how long would our moral high ground be sustained? Maybe, just maybe, our righteous (and preachy) house is built on sand in the face of the old red gods. We have just been rich enough and safe enough, for long enough to forget this.

1. I have seen no unbiased studies that support the claim that cluster munitions kill more children. A whole lot of heat and light has been put on these incidents but I would like to see some actual statistics. Cancer kills across demographics and age groups but does lean into the older demographics. Traffic accidents and many other public health issues do not, like drug overdoses. The reality as a public health issue the 185k dud DPICM from the US supply is a limited risk when compared to other risks. The economic risk would appear the higher issue. 2. The munitions will be used on non-contaminated areas no doubt, but again we are talking fairly limited (see 1 munition in 5 football fields). The risk to life and limb is less than the fact that those fields need to be cleared. However, as we saw in France and Belgium, farmers will likely use the fields anyway and accept the risk in order to make their livelihoods. 3. Considering that Ukraine is also using AT mines and they require recording by LOAC, they will also likely be required to record DPICM usage…even in “the heat of battle”. Also considering that a lot of artillery systems are computerized and linked into GPS this is something that will more likely happen automatically. 4. Considering that upwards of 25% of agricultural land may be contaminated by Russian actions, along with loss of other industries. I think the Ukrainian leadership determined the cost escalation was simply far too low when compared to the risk to military operations. Of course if contributing nations wish to only fund clearances of Russian DPICM and leave Ukraine to foot the bill for US supplied munitions they can sit on that righteous hill after the war. Of course perversely any children killed by US supplied DPICM will also be a “good thing” as it will sure teach those Ukrainians and US a lesson on how evil cluster munitions really are. We will all feel bad for the children killed by Russian cluster munitions however…because morality is relative after all.

While I do not dismiss the UXO/ROW of side of this debate, if we are going to use maths: - On a 200 km front with 50km depth (basically the central frontage from Zap to Donetsk) we are talking 10,000,000,000 sq meters of real estate - it is late so check my math (200,000 m x 50,000 m). 185,000 duds across that sort of area comes to roughly 1 UXO for approx 54,000 sq meters (about 500 x 100 m area, or 5 football fields.) Of course there this will not be uniform distribution, there will be areas of high concentration of UXO, here battlefield recording will be key. High res records of each DPICM shoot will need to be kept so that contamination can be tracked. The good news on DPICM is that they are technically surface laid unlike mines; however, that is not a guarantee as they can and will be covered up by vegetation etc. - This will also render roughly 7.2 million live fully functioning submunition rounds able to do no small damage to both RA mech and infantry forces if applied properly. That is the payoff as it relates to utility. In regard to these weapons usage, as there is no legal issue, it is a Ukrainian decision as to whether the risk is worth the payoff. Clearly the Ukrainian government has decided that “yes” it is worth the risk. Further given the context, post-war these munitions will fall under a public health/hazard risk. Currently in Ukraine roughly 102/100,000 people die every years from cancer. Out of nation of roughly 44 million that is around 45k deaths every year. Every one of those 185k duds would have to kill someone at that 45k rate for about 4 years to match the hazard of cancer as a disease. https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/GO.22.00123#:~:text=According to the Globocan database,927.6%2F100%2C000 in the country. More realistically these UXO will fall much lower, likely lower than vehicle accident death rates pre-war (around 5k depending who you ask): https://www.roadsafetyfacility.org/country/ukraine Again if every one of those 185k duds kills a civilian it will take about 37 years before they are all done, at the same rate as traffic accidents. Of course not every dud is going to kill a civilian, in fact with education and clearance over those “185 years” the death/injury rate will likely be well below traffic deaths. The major cost is loss of land usage: Worst case is about 925k football fields of land that will be unusable due to these duds (1 per 5 fields until cleared - basically that entire 200 x 50 km strip. Ukraine has about 579k sq kms of land that had value in 2017: https://www.ceicdata.com/en/ukraine/land-use-protected-areas-and-national-wealth/ua-land-area That strip of land we are talking about is roughly 10k sq kms - so roughly 1.7%, not counting whatever they have lost to Russian UXOs and mines. Which is pretty has already (could be as high as 25%) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/soils-war-toxic-legacy-ukraines-breadbasket-2023-03-01/ Of course right now the loss of that land to Russian occupation is also likely the greater threat. However mitigation during post-war reconstruction will definitely be a consideration. However is we are going to reduce this to strictly dollars and land, if these munitions result in similar gains as we saw last Fall, the losses in land due to US supplied DPICM will be far out stripped by the economic gains of re-taken lands being back in Ukrainian hands. So What? Well in this case the risk/cost calculus is a national decision, not one of international law. There is a moral/ethical angle but again so are things like legalization of drugs and nation states reserve the right to weigh these issues internally. Ukraine has likely done the math and decided that the risk is worth it. The value of land retaken is worth more than land lost due to use of these weapons, even in non-contaminated areas. Further the public health risk is also likely considered manageable and mitigable, again doing the math. In the harsh calculus of war, I can see how this all makes sense to Ukrainian decision makers. In fact the worst case is if they use the DPICM and the offensive fails anyway the contamination will likely remain on occupied RA territory, which at this point may be viewed as a positive in this upside down world we live in now.

This is like going to see a Dentist about a heart problem… This guy has zero idea what he is on about. You could try and saturate a breach but you would wind up needing to plough a lane anyway and then prove it. If you need to do that then signalling to the planet where you intend to breach by wasting thousands of DPICM before for you have to do a breaching operation regardless makes little sense. Surface laid mines maybe but then you have no idea is surface is all that is there so we are back to breaching operations. There are no shortcuts when it comes to high density minefields - one either has to do a detailed opposed breaching op, or kill everyone who is providing overwatch and covering fire of the things. Take all those cluster munitions and drop them on Russians, far better use for them.

Good lord where in the sweet seven hells did this stupid sand/hourglass crap come from? Yes, I expect they are going to be doing saturation as well. Going to be interesting to see if it works.

There are days… https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-condemns-use-of-cluster-munitions-following-u-s-decision-to-send-weapon-to-ukraine-1.6471584 So my read is poopy faces and preaching. But I seriously doubt we are going to cut aid as that would be an incredibly politically provocative thing to take on.

One has to remember that military systems are highly redundant and over-engineered (yes, even Russian ones). So if the UA is effectively eroding the RA system of defence we are going to be seeing different indicators of this. Also we need to be watching for stuff we are not seeing but should be. So stuff like: - Russian logistics and artillery losses that lead to observable shortfalls - Lack or shortfalls in RA c-moves. Or RA c-moves that look like scrambles or dyke plugging (these lateral shift cause enormous disruptions) - continued denial and loss of AirPower assets. - RA loss of high profile and high value systems - EW, ISR and Engr - Indicators that RA morale is flagging - desertions and surrenders. - shortfalls in the RA medical support system All this (and more) need to add up over time in order for the RA system to buckle. Once it fails though it has to fall into a lower energy state in order to sustain and avoid a cascade failure. We normally call these fall-back positions. Corrosive warfare is not just attrition warfare. Attrition warfare is a grinding of the front end of a system until exhaustion sets in. Corrosive warfare needs ISR and precision to hit the entire operational system at key nodes of capability - you are essentially de-constructing their operational system. You need to do this at a rate that those nodes cannot be re-built or shifted. It takes time do this and compared to rapid manoeuvre and annihilation seems like it may be going nowhere. However, compared to real attrition warfare which can take years it appears it may happen much faster in the contemporary context. (ie months)

So how are we defining “gains”? If it is by ground re-taken, yes, very limited. If they are measured by strain and erosion of the RA I suspect they are doing a lot better. The question is “will the erosion be enough to force collapse?” And right now we do not know. In fact we do not even know if offensive warfare still works as we knew it. We could be at stalemate or this could just be a how offensive warfare works now. If it is stalemate, well ok then the conflict will likely freeze and have to end by other means. Everyone will point fingers as to why the thing has gone stalemate but the most likely reason will be that we have entered into an era of Defensive Primacy - not the first time this has happened.

Can’t read it now that Twitter has gone all club house. I suspect their significance is that the UA will not run out of ammunition for long range fires. They already have a significant ISR advantage and DPICM are - on paper at least - anywhere from 3-5 times more effect per round shot when compared to dumb artillery rounds. Or at least they were before modern fire control etc. The UA has been doing very well with dumb arty and PGM is next level of course. DPICM is very effective against mech and armor. It is supposed to be effective against dug in troops but there I am less sure. The stuff will definitely take out logistics and C2 nodes. I suspect it will definitely keep things going. Also no one ever planned to use a lot of DPICM, it was rarely more than about 15% of war stocks during the Cold War. So if the UA starts using a lot of this in a saturation type approach we in new territory as to what the systems can do. I personally do not think they are a game changer, they allow the game to continue to be played which is pretty important at this point. The holy trinity of this war has been indirect fires, ISR and infantry. So this keeps that first one going.

Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they are talking about. But seriously can we not jump on the “THIS WILL SWEEP THE RUSSIANS FROM THE EARTH!!!” band wagon again. And then when they do not result in immediate Ukrainian victory over a weekend we don’t have to do the “OMG Ukraine is DOOOMED because my favourite weapon/system/vehicle of the week is not chasing the Russians back to Moscow!!”

Well conveniently Poland is also not a signatory to the convention. So unless European nations want to wholesale ban US military transport overflights - which would be a bad idea. I would say that everyone is going to simply turn a blind eye. What will get interesting is if the damn things work out too well and member nations like Lithuanian start backing away from the convention. Of course it is freaking 2023, why we cannot produce sub-munitions that have a 100% neutralizing capability is beyond me. I mean making the fuses electronic on batteries alone will mean that they go inert when the juice runs out. I suspect we will see PGM sub-munitions (if they are not out there all ready).

Well the idea is that the international community would enforce the law, hence all the fuss about Ch 6 & 7 etc. Of course this all falls apart when someone gets a veto and can play exceptionalism cards. But it is what we have, otherwise it is anarchy of states and rule of the gun, and if everyone is getting upset over cluster munitions just wait and see that happens when we all decide to go all Genghis Khan.

Some good points but also only half the story. I would buy into this line of thought if we had the same framework of inaction. “(Or refuse to)”. We in the West have a very bad habit of pointing fingers and passing judgement on “bad actions” but we also tend to quickly grab the remote and change the channel when our own inaction causes immense suffering - Rwanda anyone? Syria? The only real thing we can rely on that is not solely “opinion” is the law - which in reality is a floating point of agreement at best; however, it is what we have to base some level of objectivity upon. In this case the use of cluster munitions is not against the law of armed conflict (obviously with all the “proper military use” provisions). Further neither party involved in this current situation, US and UA, are parties to the cluster munitions treaty. So unless other Western nations want to try and extort a forced acceptance of that treaty by withholding other military aid to Ukraine - which frankly in the middle of an existential war is one helluva dick move - while at the same time conveniently ignoring the consequences of pulling that support (ie inaction), then beyond making poopy faces and trying not to think about how fast we would likely abandon that same treaty were we in Ukraine’s position then we are where we are. If Ukraine did start using chemical weapons or dropping napalm on civilians then we do not need an opinion, we have the LOAC to point to and say “hey that is illegal”. Which then raises the spectre of support to an unlawful war…something Iran and China appear to have no problems with.

A solid point on PGM. DPICM was really a better way to distribute lethality before PGM. With PGM a few rounds can do the damage of many dumb, even DPICM. However, what we do not know is the ammo situation of PGM in this war, nor that of dumb rounds either. I doubt this decision ( if it is indeed not just a rumour) was taken on a whim “Oh hey, that’s right we got all those DPICM rounds” *slaps forehead*. I suspect that this decision is an offset to another development, shortfalls in PGM ammo most likely. So What? Well the calculus is clearly between bad and worse, and they have gone with bad. The terrain in the break in battle is already highly contaminated so this is fairly incremental risk at this point - I.e. happy rose cheeked Ukrainian children will not be frolicking in these fields for about a century regardless of UA DPICM or not. So in order to keep the momentum of the grinding a hard decision was made…and here we are. One thing this war has demonstrated is that when facing the harsh realities of long duration high intensity conventional warfare a lot of idealistic and aspirational ideas we had before the war have become strained. The “quick clean weekend war” was the first one. Facing existential conflict the dirty fact is that every nation on earth will likely abandon principles for interests and survival given enough pressure. War is once again a race to the bottom. Something to keep in mind on the whole unmanned debate.

That sounds more like FASCAM, not DPICM. DPICM from the old days had some pretty bad dud rates but that are not going to stop armor/mech based on duds alone. Newer stuff is designed for much better dud rates, likely an order of magnitude better than whatever the RA is lobbing around. I think we went around the tree a few times on this subject before. DPICM are not a great solution but they are a solution. They are also legal under the CCW and US and Ukrainian law. So while quite a few people are not going to like it, this is all above board. Mitigation is very careful record keeping of where those DPICM shoots are occurring. DPICM is much better at killing mechanized forces but that does not seem to be the main threat in this war. Not sure how they will fair against dug in troops. Although I suspect this may have more to do with ammo shortages. Once again this will not sweep the RA off the field but it may make up for ammo production shortfalls in supplying Ukraine - which may have gotten quite bad to take on this hot potato.

Fair point. It was more a shot at LLF who I get the sense is used to being the smartest guy in the room…until he got into this one. I know I am not either because I can barely keep track of what is happening let alone why. I mean we are about 90 seconds to midnight in a good day, Russians are using tanks as VBIEDs and our Prime Minister just tweeted Taylor Swift FFS.

Really? "Operational System"? "ChatGPT - why can't we have nice things?" "LongLeftFlank"

So if Putin gets the cat, who gets the CD collection? Gotta be the best 80s synth stuff around. And we all know they are keeping keys.

Meow! Someone didn’t get his pistachio pudding today.

This one is nuts. You can see the electrical grid melting down as transformers on power poles start to go (the blue flashes). That probably did more damage than the loss of ammunition.

Well it will definitely be viewed as an escalation, the question is “how much”. I think that Russia having some sort of escalation dominance has been a myth since the beginning of this thing. Repeatedly, Russian escalation has 1) been underwhelming and 2) resulted in a Western escalation that Russia cannot counter. I am less worried about Russia “thinking they can get away with it”because of western inaction at this point - we already have far too much sunk cost in this thing to back off now. NATO is securing the next decades worth of defence spending, industry in the west is ramping up - “war is business and business is f#cking booming baby!” We are talking trillions here and it all needs a scary enemy to point at. Russia was dumb enough to put up its hand up in Europe and we are talking ourselves into China one way or the other. Russia thinking it can get away with WMDs is one helluva leap to make for a below threshold action right now. My concerns are the other way - Russia figuring out that they have nothing left to lose, or simply losing control of the WMDs in the end. The end results we are debating are on opposite sides of a spectrum but have the same result…a lot of bad. So what are we doing…navigating the middle until there is no middle left. Outpacing escalation can actually drive us out of viable escalation room. Say we do start green lighting strikes into Russia…what do we have left? Someone said “strike the Russian Navy and take it out” while an escalation, it is not viable in the current strategic context. In fact it would be WW3 at that point and we would not stop at the Russian Navy. Your concern is valid: are we boiling them or are they boiling us? As this war has unfolded I was more concerned in the early days than I am now. While the West has been restrained, Russia has shown itself full of BS. No massive mobilization - millions of Russian troops pouring over the border were a no show. No carpet bombing of cities, just spiteful lobbing of a mess of a missile campaign which is only demonstrating their weaknesses. No WMDs, just some crappy flooding and maybe some sort of nuclear “whoopsie” that is just as likely to drift into Russia. None of this is the ”shock and awe” everyone was going on about a year ago. As to “silence”, well US Congress made a bilateral statement which in this day and age is a freakin unicorn. I also suspect that red phones are going off all over the place, the greater worry is that someone in Russia is actually picking up. As to war damage to Ukraine, Russia does not need to throw a radiation tantrum, great swaths of Ukraine are a century problem right now with RoW and mines. As I have said repeatedly the Reconstruction will need to be historic or there was no point. We are talking economic sector re-wiring epic, like Japan post WW2. And if Russia wants back into any sort of club and not wind up an Eastern European North Korea it is going to have to foot a portion of the bill. You, and others appear to be pointing out the glass if half empty. I am not saying the glass if half full. I am saying it is a freakin Christmas miracle that the bar is still standing and we are well past worrying about stupid glasses. This war has become a great power shaping and positioning exercise in many dimensions. The stakes got really high, really fast and we are pretty much committed at this point.

That is not really how it works. Anything short of nuclear weapons in Ukraine is not going to give strategic deterrence. Ukraine is waging an epic war right now but no weapons we can give Ukraine are going to deter Russia from the big nasty stuff. What is deterring Russia from the use of nuclear weapons on Kyiv is that it would raise our level of uncertainty about Russia as a rational state to a crisis point - the worse thing any revisionist power can do is get the West to get off the couch. If we are being brutally honest, we in the West would feel very bad about Kyiv on the receiving end of a nuclear device but that is not what would cause the reaction…it would be the uncertainty of nukes in New York or Toronto (well maybe not so much Toronto). That uncertainty would demand a response, and even Russia does not want to see what that would look like. We brought them to their knees in a proxy war with a small power that was supposed to fall in a few days. Do you think that maybe what happens if we really get involved isn’t in the Russian calculus? I argue that the evidence that they have tied themselves into knots to avoid direct escalation with NATO proves that they are very concerned. I do not think Russia has outpaced anything. They are on the freakin defensive right now while managing whatever that freakin thing was a couple weeks ago. No one serious is talking about Russian victory, we are too concerned with Russian full blown collapse. They are barely able to conduct coherent anything right now, let alone a game of escalation dominance. Most of the energy is trying to figure out how to prevent a Russian spiral, up or down because they are a complete hot mess. Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, we talked ourselves into a status quo lie, that much is true. We embraced our certainty to the point that it became a blindfold. Russia’s biggest mistake, and it is one for the history books, was tearing that blindfold off with this war.