The cluster munitions divestment example seems plausibly somewhat more successful in the West, but not elsewhere (e.g. the companies that remain on the “Hall of Shame” list). I’d expect something similar here if the pressure against LAWs were narrow (e.g. against particular types with low strategic value). Decreased demand does seem more relevant than decreased investment though.
If LAWs are stigmatized entirely, and countries like the U.S. don’t see a way to tech their way out to sustain advantage, then you might not get the same degree of influence in the first place since demand remains.
I find it interesting that the U.S. wouldn’t sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but also doesn’t seem to be buying or selling any more. One implication might be that the stigma disincentivizes change/tech progress: since more discriminant cluster munitions would be stigmatized as well. I presume this reduces the number of such weapons, but increases the risk of collateral damage per weapon by slowing the removal of older, more indiscriminate/failure prone weapons from arsenals.
While in principle, you could drive down the civilian harm with new smaller bomblets that reliably deactivate themselves if they don’t find a military target, as far as I can tell, to the degree that the U.S. is replacing cluster bombs, it is just doing so with big indiscriminate bombs (BLU 136/BLU134) that will just shower a large target area with fragments.
The cluster munitions divestment example seems plausibly somewhat more successful in the West, but not elsewhere (e.g. the companies that remain on the “Hall of Shame” list). I’d expect something similar here if the pressure against LAWs were narrow (e.g. against particular types with low strategic value). Decreased demand does seem more relevant than decreased investment though.
If LAWs are stigmatized entirely, and countries like the U.S. don’t see a way to tech their way out to sustain advantage, then you might not get the same degree of influence in the first place since demand remains.
I find it interesting that the U.S. wouldn’t sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but also doesn’t seem to be buying or selling any more. One implication might be that the stigma disincentivizes change/tech progress: since more discriminant cluster munitions would be stigmatized as well. I presume this reduces the number of such weapons, but increases the risk of collateral damage per weapon by slowing the removal of older, more indiscriminate/failure prone weapons from arsenals.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/09/02/why-the-last-u-s-company-making-cluster-bombs-wont-produce-them-anymore/
While in principle, you could drive down the civilian harm with new smaller bomblets that reliably deactivate themselves if they don’t find a military target, as far as I can tell, to the degree that the U.S. is replacing cluster bombs, it is just doing so with big indiscriminate bombs (BLU 136/BLU134) that will just shower a large target area with fragments.