Weapons that scatter grenade-size bomblets over a wide area. They are brutally effective but may maim and kill civilians for years when bomblets fail to explode. More than 124 countries, including Britain, have forsworn the production, transfer, stockpiling or use of cluster munitions by treaty. Sixteen countries, including America, China and Russia, as well as one-quarter of NATO allies, have never signed the convention.
Evidence from Ukraine suggests that cluster munitions are four times more effective, per round, than conventional high-explosive shells. That is largely because bomblets can still destroy a target even if poor intelligence or last-minute jamming sends the round slightly astray. America gave dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs) to Ukraine in 2023 to help parry Russian infantry assaults.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a think-tank in London, has noted that the munitions are "highly effective" against radar sites and electronic-warfare systems, and that any army short of firepower "should probably prioritise cluster munitions for its artillery". A RUSI paper concluded that without cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines, European armed forces "risk lacking both the required lethality to fight effectively, and the ability to reduce enemy mobility sufficiently to allow that lethality to be brought to bear".
According to Cluster Munition Monitor, more than 95% of people (whose status was recorded) killed and wounded by cluster bombs in 2022 were civilians. Children made up 71% of casualties. Bosnia-Herzegovina declared itself free from residual cluster munitions only around 2023, three decades after the end of the Bosnian war.
In March 2025 Lithuania became the first signatory to leave the cluster-munitions convention. The convention, like the Ottawa Convention barring landmines, was signed in a period when humanitarian protections took precedence over military utility. The return of high-intensity warfare in Europe has shifted tactical considerations to the fore.
When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.