The United States, China, Russia, Israel, and a few others, are right not to join the 110 countries in signing the treaty to ban cluster munitions from the battlefield.

Cluster Bombs are a potent weapon that the U.S. military should continue to use whenever necessary. Human rights organizations which are of course championing this ban are not taking into account new technologies in cluster munitions.

The biggest complaint by human rights groups is the tendency of cluster bombs to leave unexploded bomblets scattered across a wide area. Years after a conflict has ended these bomblets remain lethal and can detonate at anytime and frequently kill civilians.

This is a legitimate concern and one the U.S. military has already addressed. The U.S. has recently begun using a brand new cluster bomb called the CBU-97 SFW. The SFW stands for “Sensor Fused Weapon” and it contains dozens of “smart” bomblets.

When the bomb is dropped, the outer casing comes apart and releases the sub-munitions (bomblets) across a wide area just like a traditional cluster bomb. The difference with the new SFW is that each bomblet has a sensor inside it that immediately scans the area and hones in on a target and kills it.

However, if the bomblet scans the area and fails to find a target it simply self-destructs in mid-air leaving behind a “clean” battlefield.

A single CBU-97 SFW can kill everything inside in area roughly the size of a football field and leave no unexploded bomblets behind.

This new cluster bomb is only the beginning of the technologies we’ll have in the future, so there is simply no reason to join in any kind of ban on cluster bombs.

-Chris Jones

Israeli military prosecutors have decided not to take any legal action over Israel’s use of cluster bombs during last year’s war in Lebanon, the army said Monday, closing an investigation into a practice that has drawn heavy criticism from the U.N. and international human rights groups. The investigation determined that Israel’s use of the weapons, which open in flight and scatter dozens of bomblets, was a “concrete military necessity” and did not violate international humanitarian law.

In a statement, the army said its chief investigator, Maj. Gen. Gershon HaCohen, determined “it was clear that the majority of the cluster munitions were fired at open and uninhabited areas, areas from which Hezbollah forces operated and in which no civilians were present.”

It said cluster bombs were fired at residential areas only “as an immediate defense response to rocket attacks by Hezbollah” and that Israeli troops did everything possible to minimize civilian casualties.