As Russia's war in Ukraine drags on, Germany finds itself confronting yet another of its weapons taboos. Previously, German officials had hesitated over how much firepower to give Ukraine. Now, misgivings over the US decision to send  cluster munitions have more to do with legal principle.

Germany is one of more than 100 states that are party to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which "prohibits all use, production, transfer and stockpiling of" the weapons.

Other NATO members that have signed this convention have also distanced themselves from the US's decision. Many human rights and arms control groups consider cluster munitions a violation of international law. They can contain hundreds of bomblets that, like a shotgun, splatter explosive shards across a wide area. That makes them effective at taking out a concentration of enemy forces, but also poses a particular threat to civilians.

Cluster bombs are imprecise, and what doesn't detonate on impact can lie around for years, maiming or killing people, including children, who come across them. Some cluster bombs have a "dud rate" of up to 40% — meaning huge numbers of bomblets remain dangerous for years.

Principled wiggle room

German officials can largely sidestep the issue, calling the US delivery a "sovereign decision of the United States," as Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the Social Democrats (SPD), did during a news conference on Monday with his Australian counterpart in Berlin.
The SPD likes to view itself as an anti-war party, and Bundestag Deputy Michael Roth said he hoped that cluster munitions would see little action. "Ukraine finds itself in an exceptional situation and desperately needs the ammunition," Roth told WDR, a public broadcaster.

Relying on single projectiles would require a huge boost in producing them. Ukraine is firing thousands of rounds every day, according to White House estimates.

Germany, one of the world's biggest arms exporters, could provide many of the bullets and shells that Ukraine needs, but it has been unable to ramp up production. Essentially many shells in one, a cluster bomb serves as a deadly stop-gap measure to fill that need.

Those production "failures" preclude Germany from criticizing the US's decision, Jürgen Hardt, a lawmaker from the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU), told the public broadcaster NDR. "It would be pretty rich of us if we now said that cluster munitions can't be used," he said.

During the NATO summit this week in Vilnius, Lithuania, Germany announced another package of arms for Ukraine totaling €700 million ($770 million).

Support, within international law

The Greens, a junior partner in the SPD-led coalition government, may find themselves with the least rhetorical room to maneuver. The party has roots in West Germany's peace movement of the 1970s and 1980s, but its top officials have been the most vocal supporters of arming Ukraine and standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the US.

Given the country's leading role in the alliance arming Ukraine "for as long as necessary," as Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said, Germany cannot remain completely silent when its bigger ally across the Atlantic wants to deliver a weapon that it is on record opposing.

Still, the Greens rebuffed Ukraine's previous calls for cluster bombs, and many still oppose delivering the weapons on the grounds that they are prohibited by the convention. "It is rightly banned," Anton Hofreiter, a Greens lawmaker, told the German news agency DPA.

That echoes earlier statements from Baerbock, a former Green Party leader, who has said backing Ukraine must comply with international law.

That has angered German pacifists, who see the war in Ukraine as an escalatory spiral between Russia and the West, and are calling for a more forceful condemnation of banned weapons from their erstwhile anti-war allies in politics.

"Crimes committed by Russia do not release Ukraine from its international obligations," Jürgen Grässlin, a spokesperson for the German Peace Society, an anti-war group, said in a statement.

Different weapon, same debate

The ambivalence of many German policymakers amounts to a lot of "yelling and screaming," Jack Janes, a resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told DW.

Ultimately, however, there is little that Germany can do, and it will always fall in line with US action. "There will be some heavy-duty moralizing on one side of it," the long-time Germany observer said, "At the same time, what is the effect? How does it help the other side of the goal, which is to break through?"

Janes was referring to Ukraine's counteroffensive, which has so far been slow going against dug-in Russian positions. US officials have acknowledged that the decision to provide cluster munitions is to give Ukrainian forces a boost.

The use of banned and controversial weapons is one reason for Ukraine's battlefield difficulties. Both sides are making use of mines, especially those designed to kill foot soldiers, which are also prohibited by international treaties that Germany has signed.

Nuclear weapons, armed drones and arming others against common enemies are all US policy tools that have long made German officials queasy. Cluster bombs are the next iteration of an old debate.

"It's just going to be one of those discussions where people will quietly reach a conclusion that they can say: 'Oh my goodness, this is terrible. The war is terrible,'" Janes said. "And then get back to the question of how to win the war."

Edited by Ben Knight

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