This article is written with references to authoritative information in combination with personal opinions, and at the end of the text, the source and screenshot have been ordered, please be aware.

In 2023, Ukraine used cluster bombs against Russia, and the United States, as a supplier of this weapon, has been widely criticized by the international community.

This has to be reminiscent of the scene when Norway, Sweden and other countries jointly launched the International Convention on the Prohibition of Cluster Bombs more than ten years ago.

At that time, more than 100 countries, including Britain and France, signed the agreement, but China, the United States and Russia rarely moved in unison and did not sign the agreement.

So, what kind of weapon is it, and how terrible is it?

Convention on Collective Bombs

In 2006, armed conflict broke out between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

During the war, Israel dropped more than four million bombs on Lebanon, including a large number of cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs not only caused a large number of casualties among Lebanon people, but also many duds left behind after the war exploded, causing secondary injuries to the Lebanon people.

It is precisely because of this that the international community has re-examined the bullets.

Starting in May 2008, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and other countries, in order to maintain world peace, began to promote the International Convention on the Prohibition of Cluster Bombs, calling on the countries of the world to sign the convention.

Under the convention, countries signing the convention must destroy all their cluster bombs within eight years and can no longer produce such destructive weapons.

By December 2008, 107 countries had signed this convention, including big European countries such as Britain, France and Germany.

As a permanent member of the Security Council, China-U.S.R. has agreed that the convention is not within the framework of the United Nations, but should agree on the use and production of cluster guns through the United Nations Convention on Specific Conventional Weapons, so it is more binding.

It is worth mentioning that Israel, which caused the tragedy in 2006, did not sign, nor did Ukraine, which later used cluster munitions against Russia.

It can be seen that this treaty organization ended up signing a lonely contract.

02How scary are cluster bombs?

What kind of weapon are cluster bombs and why are they worth the hope of more than 100 countries around the world to destroy them?

Cluster bombs are not so advanced weapons, long in the Vietnamese self-defense counter-attack, China has captured the unexploded CBU-20 cluster bomb.

This bomb was produced in the United States. In 1979, US fighter jets appeared on the border between Guangxi and Vietnam in my country. This cluster bomb also landed in Guangxi. Fortunately, it did not explode.

Later, after dismantling and studying by our country's military experts, it was found that the bomb weighed 209 kilograms, and there were 247 sub-bomblets embedded inside the bomb.

If they had been successfully detonated at that time, the 247 subbombs would have shown a scattering pattern, causing a large-area explosion.

Moreover, the most evil thing about cluster bombs is that they are not guided, which means that during the scattering explosion process, they may be affected by wind and other factors, and they can easily migrate to populated areas, causing a large number of casualties.

Another thing is that in the dispersed sub-bombs, there will inevitably be a certain proportion of mute bullets, and these mute bullets often attract children because of their strange shape, which will cause unintended post-war injuries.

In addition, the explosives used in cluster bombs are very destructive to the land and will be difficult to restore to the original soil conditions in the next few years or even decades, making them very harmful to cultivated land.

Therefore, it is widely accepted internationally that cluster bombs are destructive weapons with great destructive effects and long consequences, in violation of humanitarian principles.

03 The attitudes of China, the United States and Russia

The reason why the United States refused to sign the convention is, to a large extent, that the United States did not want to lose its status as a producer of cluster bombs, except that it was not within the framework of the United Nations.

After all, the United States as a military-industrial exporting power, the military-industrial giants behind the US government could not agree to stop the production line of bullets, which is equivalent to breaking their financial path.

On the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, the cluster bombs used by Ukraine against Russia came from the United States.

For Russia, both the United States and Ukraine refused to sign, from a strategic point of view to rationality, once Russia signed the convention, it would be equivalent to losing the qualification for use and production of cluster bombs, with NATO's continuous expansion to the east, would Russia be willing?

However, China has different positions from the United States and Russia. Although my country has also produced cluster bombs, cluster bombs, like other weapons, have more of a deterrent effect on national defense strategies for my country.

What's more, China has long stated that it will never take the initiative to fire the first shot. In other words, this is called: I will not attack unless others attack me!

Whether it is cluster bombs or other weapons, they all have the same effect on our country: just because I don't use them, it doesn't mean that I voluntarily abstain and wait for the enemy to be qualified to come and provoke them.

However, my country has long been working hard to restrict the use of cluster munitions, and has repeatedly emphasized that it hopes to use the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to make an agreement rather than start a new plan outside the framework of the United Nations.

References:

1, Jinan Times: more than 120 countries banned, the United States will provide cluster ammunition to Ukraine!

Hangzhou Network: China calls for balance and proper handling of global cluster ammunition issue

3. Baidu Encyclopedia: Type 1 Cluster Bomb

People's Information: More than 100 countries joined forces to pressure us to destroy key weapons, China's eight words of hegemony refused

Encyclopedia: Convention on Collective Ammunition