Back to Cluster Munitions

The Left Was Wrong, Wrong, Wrong on Cluster Munitions, with Steven Groves, Daily Signal, July 13, 2023. "For well over a decade, the Left has waged war on cluster munitions. Left-wing nongovernmental organizations and other groups have demonized them, liberal U.S. administrations have downplayed them, and the left-leaning media have exaggerated the civilian casualties they cause. But now, in a complete about-face, the U.S. has agreed to supply cluster munitions to the embattled forces of Ukraine in its war against Russia.That’s the right decision. But in coming belatedly to it, the Biden administration has effectively admitted that the Left’s case against cluster munitions was baseless."

Norms v. National Security

Obama Says No to Landmines, with Steve Groves, National Review Online, September 29, 2014. "On March 6, 2014, America’s highest-ranking military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, called anti-personnel landmines (APLs) “an important tool in the arsenal of the armed forces of the United States.” Yesterday, President Obama banned the armed forces from using them. Why? To comply with a treaty — the Ottawa Convention — that the United States hasn’t even ratified. The U.S. Senate has not given its advice and consent to the treaty, but the Obama administration still feels compelled, in the words of a State Department spokesman, to “underscore its commitment to the spirit and humanitarian aims of the Ottawa Convention.”

The Case Against the U.N.'s Arms Trade Treaty

The U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty: A Dangerous Multilateral Mistake in the Making, co-written with Steven Groves, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2309, August 21, 2009. "The treaty contemplated by the U.N.’s October 2008 arms trade resolution would be a license to almost all states, no matter how irresponsible, to buy and sell arms. It would endanger U.S. arms export control policy, clash with the Constitution, offer a dangerous justification for dictatorial rule, and make it illegal under international law for the U.S. to support freedom fighters abroad."