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cluster bombs
Dec. 3rd, 2008 10:12 pmTo those people visiting my LJ because of my post over in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bradhicks's LJ, welcome!
To everyone else, please forgive the digression. An LJ acquaintance let me know that he was "surprised to see Brad and I channeling [a well known LJ conservative rascal]." So for background, let me assert that I am rather leftist in the traditional sense, having little use for either governments or corporations, who are jointly conspiring to screw the public. Pro individual rights, pro weak government, pro small business. It's awfully lonely on my corner of the political chart. I am fervently anti-war but I know how omelets are made.
The law of unintended consequences states that for every action there will be a reaction, and that often this reaction will be contrary to the intended goal.
Action: over 100 nations have gotten together by treaty to ban cluster bombs. This does not include the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel or Pakistan (notable producers and/or users of these munitions.)
Reaction: not what you would expect.
The Problem: cluster bombs contain from dozens to hundreds of smaller bombs, which rain outward and spread death and destruction. This is of military utility because they are more effective for the same payload, and are very effective against hasty and field fortifications. With variable timer settings, they are just the thing to close roads and airfields, wreck logistics and wreak havoc. The only feasible alternatives are napalm (heavy, bulky and horrifying), white phosphorus (just plain horrifying), or thermobaric rounds (nasty lung-rippers.) Even then, these don't stay dangerous for hours or days.
Afterwards, however, anywhere from 2-3% of the bomblets all the way up to 20% or more (we'll get to these figures again soon) have failed to detonate and are still there. Like little yellow grenades, they sit until disturbed by some small child, larger child or adult looking for metal scrap, or would-be sapper looking for UXO to make IEDs with. They are so unsafe that the accepted demining method is to blow them up with more explosive from a safe distance, which makes removing them dangerous and expensive.
One proposed solution is to require that all of the bomblets detonate themselves later on, after the battle but before civilians are put at risk. This requires smarter submunitions and is a nontrivial engineering challenge. (First priority is that the bomblets not go off in storage, or on the plane's bomb rail, etc.)
Another proposed solution is to ban cluster bombs by treaty. This has now been done, except that the major players refuse to play. Those evil Americans / Russians / Israelis / Chinese / Indians / Pakistanis!
The unintended consequence is that the high technology powers will no longer be selling cluster bombs to anyone else. Most of the research on improved cluster bomblets has been going on in the United States (that 3% figure I mentioned), and without a foreign market, the money for research and development is a lot less, and tied up in US military procurement schemes which are painfully complex and slow. Therefore this life-saving technology (bomblets smart enough to detonate themselves later despite internal failures, or that will work right the first time) is unlikely to mature further.
Enter China, stage right. When land mines were banned by treaty, China immediately captured a huge chunk of the world's land mine market. Sophisticated mines with self-disarming features (a Western commodity) became much less popular in the face of cheap Chinese antipersonnel mines any government or large insurgency could afford. This made the world a lot less safe for peasants and demining operations alike.
The same is now happening in the cluster bomb market, except that with Chinese quality controls, we are now looking at up to 20% failure rates as Western cluster bombs are supplanted by Chinese ones for most of the nations that are actually using them. (The US claims not to have used them since 2003 in Iraq, NATO claims not to be using them in Afghanistan, Israel just used a bunch over Lebanon in 2006, Russia only uses its own manufactures and that rarely, so most of the actual use is by the smaller war-torn countries.)
That means (3% vs 18%) six times as many actual bomblets on the ground actually murdering children. This while various nations who have nothing to do with the problem (such as Norway) get to pat each other on the back and complement each other on their civilized natures.
Whoops. Unintended consequences.
bradhicks's LJ, welcome!To everyone else, please forgive the digression. An LJ acquaintance let me know that he was "surprised to see Brad and I channeling [a well known LJ conservative rascal]." So for background, let me assert that I am rather leftist in the traditional sense, having little use for either governments or corporations, who are jointly conspiring to screw the public. Pro individual rights, pro weak government, pro small business. It's awfully lonely on my corner of the political chart. I am fervently anti-war but I know how omelets are made.
The law of unintended consequences states that for every action there will be a reaction, and that often this reaction will be contrary to the intended goal.
Action: over 100 nations have gotten together by treaty to ban cluster bombs. This does not include the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel or Pakistan (notable producers and/or users of these munitions.)
Reaction: not what you would expect.
The Problem: cluster bombs contain from dozens to hundreds of smaller bombs, which rain outward and spread death and destruction. This is of military utility because they are more effective for the same payload, and are very effective against hasty and field fortifications. With variable timer settings, they are just the thing to close roads and airfields, wreck logistics and wreak havoc. The only feasible alternatives are napalm (heavy, bulky and horrifying), white phosphorus (just plain horrifying), or thermobaric rounds (nasty lung-rippers.) Even then, these don't stay dangerous for hours or days.
Afterwards, however, anywhere from 2-3% of the bomblets all the way up to 20% or more (we'll get to these figures again soon) have failed to detonate and are still there. Like little yellow grenades, they sit until disturbed by some small child, larger child or adult looking for metal scrap, or would-be sapper looking for UXO to make IEDs with. They are so unsafe that the accepted demining method is to blow them up with more explosive from a safe distance, which makes removing them dangerous and expensive.
One proposed solution is to require that all of the bomblets detonate themselves later on, after the battle but before civilians are put at risk. This requires smarter submunitions and is a nontrivial engineering challenge. (First priority is that the bomblets not go off in storage, or on the plane's bomb rail, etc.)
Another proposed solution is to ban cluster bombs by treaty. This has now been done, except that the major players refuse to play. Those evil Americans / Russians / Israelis / Chinese / Indians / Pakistanis!
The unintended consequence is that the high technology powers will no longer be selling cluster bombs to anyone else. Most of the research on improved cluster bomblets has been going on in the United States (that 3% figure I mentioned), and without a foreign market, the money for research and development is a lot less, and tied up in US military procurement schemes which are painfully complex and slow. Therefore this life-saving technology (bomblets smart enough to detonate themselves later despite internal failures, or that will work right the first time) is unlikely to mature further.
Enter China, stage right. When land mines were banned by treaty, China immediately captured a huge chunk of the world's land mine market. Sophisticated mines with self-disarming features (a Western commodity) became much less popular in the face of cheap Chinese antipersonnel mines any government or large insurgency could afford. This made the world a lot less safe for peasants and demining operations alike.
The same is now happening in the cluster bomb market, except that with Chinese quality controls, we are now looking at up to 20% failure rates as Western cluster bombs are supplanted by Chinese ones for most of the nations that are actually using them. (The US claims not to have used them since 2003 in Iraq, NATO claims not to be using them in Afghanistan, Israel just used a bunch over Lebanon in 2006, Russia only uses its own manufactures and that rarely, so most of the actual use is by the smaller war-torn countries.)
That means (3% vs 18%) six times as many actual bomblets on the ground actually murdering children. This while various nations who have nothing to do with the problem (such as Norway) get to pat each other on the back and complement each other on their civilized natures.
Whoops. Unintended consequences.
