While defined as “dual purpose,” the “hundreds of thousands” of cluster munitions the United States is sending to Ukraine have one but function: Annihilate everything within its 7.5-acre blast spread.
Used since at least World War II because of their low-tech efficiency and flexibility—and now banned by 123 countries—they can be launched from aircraft, drones, packed into missiles, and used to target men and machines in artillery strikes.
The dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs) that the Biden administration on July 7 formally agreed to send to Kyiv as part of an $800 million military assistance package—the 42nd authorized since Russia’s February 2022 invasion—will come from a 3-million round stockpile idling since the U.S. Army began phasing them out in 2016….