In recent days, as is now known, the US has given the go-ahead to send cluster bombs to Kiev, justifying the decision in question with the fact that the much proclaimed counter-offensive in Ukraine, which was supposed to drive the Russian army back beyond one's own national borders, it would instead not be having the desired effects.
It is a pity, however, that this type of devices is banned by an international convention, that of Oslo in 2008, which prohibits the use, production, transfer and storage of weapons: and this because of the devastating effects that such weapons can have, both in the immediate present and in the future.
Cluster bombs are designed and used to target people and vehicles, but also to destroy airstrips, power lines or to release chemicals. They are generally dropped from aircraft (fighters, bombers or helicopters) or, sometimes, launched by means of artillery, rockets and guided missiles, and contain a certain number of submunitions which are dispersed in the air, according to different methods, exploding when they come into contact with the ground.
The problem is that sometimes, indeed "often", they do not detonate immediately: as denounced by various international bodies (including the International Committee of the Red Cross), 40% of the cluster bombs released in some recent conflicts would not have exploded, constituting, as one can well imagine, a danger, on a par with real mines, even in a moment very far from their dispersion. The consequences are easy to understand: indiscriminate killing or mutilation.
Now, if at the normative level it is not believed that there could be any particular repercussions, as far as NATO as a whole is concerned (the USA, among other things, has not joined the Oslo Convention, above), at a political level some reaction would be necessary: the US is allegedly delivering weapons banned by a large part of the international community and, above all, by the United Nations. The latter, already at the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, had to condemn their possible use by the Russian Federation and today they have already expressed the same disappointment for the US decision.
Of course, as stated by some in the Biden administration, cluster munitions for Ukraine will be "carefully selected" to have a limited error rate, referring to the percentage of sub-munitions carried by each shell that would remain unexploded. But it is clear that this certainly cannot be enough to justify the use of such weapons, even if in response to their alleged use by Russia.
Indiscriminate attacks, including those using cluster bombs, are prohibited under international humanitarian law, one of the key principles of this regulatory system - it should be remembered - is that if the enemy does not respect what it establishes, this would certainly not authorize all the other parties involved to do the same.
How could Italy or France, or Germany, or Spain, politically justify such a situation?
And Ukraine itself, which has rightly denounced numerous violations of the law of war, especially concerning the indiscriminate killing of civilians, how could it consistently use this type of weapon, moreover on its own territory? Without considering the risk of escalation which could result, in view of what has been said.
Coming to Italy, in particular, it is among the 164 signatory countries of the above Convention (vice versa, there are 36 countries belonging to the UN that have not adhered to the aforementioned, including the USA, Ukraine and Russia - as well as Israel, China, India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, just to mention other States, albeit of direct or indirect interest, in the current international scenario, also with reference to the Russian-Ukrainian theater ).
By virtue of this, it should be excluded that Italy may, in the first person, one day send weapons of this type, also because, from a national point of view, our country - which has never been a producer of cluster munitions - completed in 2015 the destruction of equipment held by its Armed Forces.
But that's not all: in past years, Italy has always invested significantly in assistance programs that have focused in particular on the clearance of mines and unexploded ordnance, including cluster munitions, the destruction of existing deposits and the assistance to victims (among the countries that have benefited from this support are Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya and the Gaza Strip).
The same Convention mentioned above, moreover, was ratified by us in 2011 when he was Undersecretary of Defence, the one who later became its current minister, i.e. Guido Crosetto who, precisely in these hours, was keen to specify the Italian distance from this American decision. Comforted, closely, by the prime minister herself, Giorgia Meloni, who, however, was keen to reiterate the our country's full support for Ukraine and the Atlantic alliance.
And Zelensky? The latter, for his part, would have justified the future use of these weapons by saying that it would be limited in terms of methods and space, meaning, with this meaning, only the Ukrainian territory and not the Russian one: a "defensive" use, in short , in his view, and not already "offensive". A motivation that, even in terms of law, does not seem to convince.
With this reasoning, which would be dangerous to follow and to endorse, the question that may follow - certainly provocative, but certainly not exactly absurd - is whether one day it will not be possible to justify even sending to Kiev - perhaps at the end of forces and in the throes of a sort of defensive sadomasochism (absit iniuria verbis) - of tactical nuclear weapons, with the motivation of their use always on the Ukrainian territory (perhaps aimed at destroying enemy troops, vehicles and logistics) and not on the Russian one (moreover, that there is ammunition with depleted uranium, it is already equally well known, with all that, mutatis mutandiscan result in terms of human and environmental health).
The NATO summit in Vilnius will begin tomorrow: a good opportunity to set "limits" and to start demanding that other NATO countries, as well as Italy, finally adhere to important international conventions, so that the very just claim to respect for international not only is not in alternating phases and targets, but comes from actors who are the first to recognize the importance of certain principles, in theory and in fact.
Frame: US Air Force
