An act of self-harm
Lithuania’s withdrawal from the Convention on Cluster Munitions is a big deal, with far-reaching consequences for the country’s reputation and ability to defend its people against the horrors of war.
As Russia’s war against Ukraine turns ever more vicious and inhumane, it shouldn’t, perhaps, have come as a surprise that other European countries would begin to question their own principles. Already one year ago, in August 2023, Arvydas Anušauskas, Lithuania’s former Defence Minister, suggested on Facebook that his country “should withdraw from” the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM)—an international treaty placing cluster bombs in the unappealing category of prohibited weapons due to their nasty propensity for killing children and other civilians.
Whilst Anušauskas’ Facebook comment—made amidst the controversy surrounding the transfer of U.S. cluster bombs to Ukraine—received little international attention at the time, the Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda initially attempted to push back.
A “withdrawal would be very complicated, and it would raise a lot of questions in the international arena”, Frederikas Jansonas, an adviser to the Lithuanian president, commented the following day. “We have to bear in mind that Lithuania joined this convention in 2010 and withdrawing from international treaties has an impact on international prestige, always”, a second presidential adviser, Asta Skaisgirytė, attempted, a week later, as it became clear that Defence Minister Anušauskas had no intention of backing down.
Merchants of death
But lurking in the shadows, Dan Rice, President of the American University Kyiv, was egging the Lithuanian parliament on. A self-described “primary advocate for Cluster Munitions in Ukraine”, Rice has launched a campaign against the CCM over the last year that appears to be taken straight out of the playbook from Merchants of Doubt. In March, Rice urged Lithuania and other Nato members to “abandon the Cluster Munitions Convention”, arguing that “cluster munitions are a good thing on the battlefield” because they are “much, much more deadly”.
In the end, the allure of a “much, much more deadly” weapon appears to have carried greater weight amongst Lithuanian lawmakers than any concern about reputational damage. On 18 July, 103 of the Lithuanian parliament’s 141 members voted in favour of the defence ministry’s proposal to leave the Treaty.
In the palace intrigues of Vilnius, President Nausėda had been outmaneuvered, it would seem, by his own ministry. Perhaps sensing where the wind was blowing, the President conceded, in a statement delivered ahead of the parliamentary vote, that the CCM “limit the defence capabilities and combat power of Lithuania and its allies operating on its territories, and reduce the effectiveness of deterrence”. Nausėda, it seemed, had already given up.
Bad company
Leaving a treaty that most people have never even heard about may seem like a small matter. After all, who thinks about treaties these days? But President Nausėda, as it turned out, had been right to worry about reputational damage. No sooner had the Lithuanian parliament sealed their fateful decision than reactions started pouring in.
The International Committee of the Red Cross — an organisation known for its neutrality and extreme reluctance to publicly criticise individual countries — immediately denounced the parliament’s decision. “The parliament of Lithuania has voted to withdraw from from the Convention on Cluster Munitions”, the organisation wrote in a news release, “setting a historic and concerning precedent extending beyond the Convention itself”.
Other, less circumspect, groups, were more scathing. By voting to abandon the Treaty, the “Lithuanian parliament have jeopardized the safety of Lithuanian civilians and imperilled the future of this beautiful country”, Alma Taslidžan, chair of the Cluster Munitions Coalition wrote on X. The move “is a disastrous and troubling shift”, Dinushika Dissanayake of Amnesty International said, noting that “it undermines decades of progress on eliminating the production, transfer and use of inherently indiscriminate weapons”.
But the biggest blow against Lithuania came from its own allies. “We understand Lithuania’s concerns, but disarmament treaties are not just commitments that apply in peacetime”, Espen Barth Eide, the Foreign Minister of Norway, warned in a statement.
“They are even more important when countries are at war. The manner in which wars are fought has significance. That is why we must maintain international rules, norms and obligations for warfare, also when the security landscape changes. The enormous suffering of the people of Ukraine and Gaza is a stark reminder of this”.
The backlash against Lithuania is understandable. Contrary to popular belief, most countries take their legal obligations extremely seriously, and treaty withdrawal is a step that few would even consider. Throughout history, only two countries have sought to withdraw from a global disarmament treaty, and only one has followed through. In 2003, North Korea pulled out from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, sparking widespread condemnation. Twenty years later, Eritrea made a bid to abandon the Mine Ban Treaty but ultimately did not do so.
What do North Korea and Eritrea have in common? They are both unpredictable, totalitarian dictatorships—outcasts of the international community. Lithuania’s withdrawal from the CCM puts the country in very bad company indeed.
Uniquely short-sighted
For Norway, the country that championed the international efforts to ban on cluster bombs in the mid-2000s, Lithuania’s withdrawal is a major letdown. For Lithuania’s other partners — especially the 23 Nato countries that remain party to the treaty — the move is awkward, to put it mildly.
Since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Nato countries have sought to portray themselves as defenders of international law and a rules-based order. “We cannot ensure our security without working with others”, Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary-General of Nato, said in 2021. “But together, we can shape the strategic landscape for the better. Compete in a more competitive world. And defend the rules-based international order against those who seek to undermine it”.
For countries outside the alliance, Nato’s self-narrative is already a Swiss cheese: full of holes, reeking of spin, and steeped in aggressive nostalgia marketing. Indeed, an expert group established to assess the alliance’s public image in its “southern neighbourhoods” concluded in May this year that the Nato “is perceived as adopting double standards in responding to crises and conflicts on the world stage”.
Lithuania’s exit from the CCM burns another big hole in Nato’s narrative as a “defender of the rules-based international order”—a hole that Vladimir Putin, in his own crazed propaganda campaign against the west, will eagerly exploit. What conclusions does Lithuania expect the 78 African, Latin American, Caribbean, Asian and Pacific parties to the CCM to draw from their withdrawal? That humanitarian principles only matter in peacetime? That international legal obligations can be set aside, if only the threat is big enough? Or perhaps that Western countries are entitled to meet their legal obligations more flexibly than countries in their “southerns neighbourhoods”?
Uniquely short-sighted, Lithuania’s treaty withdrawal chips away at the very branch of legitimacy that Nato clings onto in an increasingly “multipolar, fragmented and contested” world.
The collapse of everything
But the repercussions of Lithuania’s withdrawal from the CCM extend beyond reputational damage. In the run-up to the vote in the Lithuanian parliament, Defence Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas said that “it would be very wrong for a country, when preparing for its defence, to immediately say what capacity it would not use for its defence”.
Taken to its logical conclusion, the Lithuanian Defence Minister would be in favour of withdrawing from any treaty regulating the operations of its military forces. After all, all these treaties, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions, signal what Lithuania will and will not permit its armed forces to do in times of war.
If other countries were to follow Lithuania’s example — and there are signs that Finland may do just that by withdrawing from the Mine Ban Treaty — the entire system of international humanitarian law could collapse. The notion that treaties designed to regulate warfare should only apply in peacetime would be laughable if only the implications weren’t so disastrous. Faced with the prospects of a wider war in Europe, the breakdown of a system designed to preserve a minimum of humanity in times of war is clearly not in Lithuania’s, nor anyone else’s, interest.
More tragically still, if Lithuania, following its withdrawal from the CCM, moves to acquire and use cluster munitions, it is the country’s own civilians who will suffer the consequences. There is a reason why cluster munitions have been banned. As Raymond Johansen, the Secretary-General of the mine clearance group Norwegian People’s Aid said in a statement, “a decision to withdraw from the CCM must be made with a clear understanding that it is a decision to kill and maim civilians, not military targets. 95% of all cluster munitions [victims] are civilians and 71% are children. Not military. These are indisputable facts”.
Because Dan Rice, the cluster bomb advocate, is right. Cluster bombs are “much, much more deadly”. Much more deadly, that is, for children and other civilians. Lithuanian politicians will, possibly for decades to come, have to grapple with a reputation for unreliability, making other countries less likely to cooperate with them in the future. But the people of Lithuania will—unless their government changes course—have to prepare for a time where the presence of unexploded cluster bombs poses a constant threat to their children’s lives.