• lemmyshmemmy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The US cluster munitions have a lower failure rate than the Russian versions, and also aren’t camouflaged. Also, it’s Ukraine’s choice. They probably made a difficult decision concluding they can save more lives by using them now.

    • zephyreks
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      1 year ago

      It’s the US’s choice to hand them out and puts the US’s allies (Canada, etc.) in an awkward position because the treaty we signed gives us the international obligation to sanction anyone using cluster munitions.

      It’s just difficult to fathom that the largest economy in the world with the greatest amount of military spending in the world doesn’t have enough manufacturing capacity to build more normal bombs than a failed Russian state.

      • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It’s just difficult to fathom that the largest economy in the world

        Using GDP PPP as measure, the size of China’s economy surpassed that of the USA as far back as 2014. It is currently about 25% larger.

        • zephyreks
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          1 year ago

          Built on top of an artificially stimulated real estate industry. It’s not necessarily useful GDP, although I do agree that China’s economy is likely larger than the true GDP numbers indicate solely because of the RMB’s centralized control deflating Chinese currency value.