“We have been thinking about DPICM for a long time,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday at the National Press Club. “Yes, of course, there’s a decision-making process ongoing.”
Dual-purpose improved conventional munitions (DPICMs) are surface-to-surface warheads that burst and disperse deadly multiple, smaller bomblets over a wide area. Many bomblets fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that can indiscriminately wound and kill, like landmines, for many years.
DPICMs can be fired from the U.S.'s howitzer artillery systems already provided to Ukraine. Ukraine has asked the U.S. for DPICMs since last year, but the idea has met resistance.
Over 120 countries, including 23 NATO countries, ban them under the Convention on Cluster Munitions treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits cluster munitions' use, production, acquisition, transfer, and stockpiling and requires the destruction of stockpiles.
The U.S., Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories to the treaty.
This week, in a letter obtained by POLITICO, 14 Senate Democrats wrote to Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan that “the humanitarian costs and damage to coalition unity of providing U.S. cluster munitions would outweigh the tactical benefits, and urge the president not to approve such a transfer.”
“They are indiscriminate, and they harm civilians,” said Washington director of Human Rights Watch, Sarah Yager told the Washington Post. “We are also talking about breaking a global norm against using cluster munitions, at least for countries that believe in humanity even in times of war.”