To add an extra point.

Pretty much what I thought/anticipated/supposed but with way more information and precision. Thanks, always appreciate thorough critical thinking and information-dense post like this. 

Just to say that I do agree the reality of the situation sucks and I understand your concerns, you're not wrong for having those initial concerns, all I can argue is that the pros outweigh the cons, I can't argue that there's no cons, but I stand by that ultimately it's the right decision for Ukraine. Unfortunately some Ukrainians may trip off these duds after the war but on the flip side pushing Russia out faster could save thousands of lives.

If Turkey does back Ukraine which I see no reason why they wouldn't (I'm talking after this war is over) then I can't see that coward Orban being an issue, he only becomes an issue when he has another country backing him up and that is sometimes Turkey.

We're pretty much on the same page. I discarded my concerns as insufficient pretty much right away as far as the issue they pose inside Ukraine itself. Also, based on the information you give, giving Ukraine what it needs including such weapons may counterintuitively actually reduce the overall number of duds by shortening the conflict.

However, my main concerns are more with public perception/population support for Ukraine in third-party countries, in a population where misinformation has such a hold that it results in people giving more and more voice to such despicable beings as MTG & Marine Le Pen, my confidence is very low that people will seek proper information and critically think about the situation the like you and I do. 

That said it's a concern that should not prevent the US to transfer such weapons but a concern that should be thoroughly addressed to prevent a shift of perspective in a supportive country electorate position.  

"We will support Ukraine for as long as it takes."

The same people:

"We will not provide Ukraine with the necessary weapons to win the war." (They don't say this directly, but this is what they do.)

This has been on repeat for almost 1.5 years now. There are constant worries that Ukraine could fire on Russian territory while at the same time it's apparently okay that Russia deliberately strikes civilian infrastructure and buildings. Because if it were truly believed that what Russia does is not okay, then the West would have been pulling out the stops a long time ago. Instead large parts of the West seemingly play a game where they want to keep a door open for a return to generally accepted trade with Russia within the next couple of years.

In parts it's so blatant by now that Russia could blow up a huge dam and it still didn't change anything about the hesitation to supply Ukraine with the things they need and ask for.

...

In the meantime the Austrian chancellor has invited his counterparts from Hungary and Serbia to Austria to form an agreement against the EU's asylum policies. Serbia isn't even in the EU, for god's sake! It's like there's no holding back in Austria's conservative party to keep building towards a future (next year's election) where they'll want to do a coalition with the far-right party, even if that means that the far-right will have the next chancellor; and with the way the conservatives are handling things, it's almost a given that the far-right will be the strongest party after the next election.

The overall point being that the EU is already bogged down enough by rubbish Hungary, so it's just depressing that Austria would rather align itself with those idiots than the majority. It's gotten to the point that I am seriously considering to cast a vote for the first time in my life. It used to be that there was always at least some common sense left in Austria, so the coalitions between left and right parties would block each other's more extreme tendencies, but those days are seemingly over.

Fingers crossed that Ukraine can push out the Russians by summer 2024 at the latest. That way it will be all over while Austria still flies under the radar and doesn't bring even greater shame on its own already more than enough stained history.

It's also clear that a lot of Western nations have a luxury view on war too, it's easy to take the morale high ground when your country hasn't fought a war for its existence since WW2 and most who remember those days are now dead. It's easy to ban yourself from using cluster munitions when you've spent the past 30 or so years being the invader towards other far weaker countries than you. They didn't need cluster munitions to absolutely fuck up these countries, they simply used "legal" weapons of mass destruction.

Would all these countries who have banned cluster munitions, if they were in the exact same position as Ukraine, facing a huge foe who is entrenched in their lands, constantly killing their civilians and causing mass destruction, say to themselves: "We can't use everything we can to defend ourselves because we signed an agreement one time years ago to not use this". I don't think they would, I think the agreements on certain weapons would soon fly out of the window if they were in the same position as Ukraine.

The one and only reason they wouldn't have to resort to cluster munitions is because they have the luxury of having far better weapons of mass destruction, they'd likely achieve air superiority because that is a focus of Western countries, something which Ukraine cannot achieve, and from there, they would absolutely aerial bomb the living shit out of every Russian position. Ukraine doesn't have that luxury, they're being forced to fight a counter-offensive with little air support, they have to lean heavily on artillery which is running out because the West doesn't rely on artillery for wars.

I trust Ukraine to do what it believes is best for its own country and having said all of the above, I do think the rules they've accepted in regards to cluster munitions are good rules and ones they should abide themselves to and these rules shouldn't hold them back much at all but will be morally decent and future proofing rules.

Things like closely monitoring, tracking their usage and working with NATO will help clean-up post war, things like a strong focus on de-mining these specific areas is a common sense rule, things like not using them in cities is a morally decent rule which shouldn't hurt their ability to kick Russia out because they largely needs these munitions to get past the trenches, once that happens, well, we've seen what happens when Russian's think their positions are in danger, they retreat, encircling a city is just as effective and they have precision weaponry for city targets.

Western Politicians and Human Rights Groups should have waited for Ukraine to establish these rules first before jumping to an instant "NO!" position and should actually take into account that these munitions have an extremely low dud rate compared to the stuff that both Ukraine and Russia are currently employing so if America can replace Ukraine's cluster munitions, that would even be a net positive in the long run because they're moving down from a dud rate of 30%+ to less than 2%.

This is uh, interesting, because Turkey's agreement with Russia was that they'd remain in Turkey until the war is over, Lol. Wonder if Russia agreed to this or Turkey just went back on the promise, latter wouldn't surprise me, Turkey often screws Russia while pretending to be their friend. Also, Russian Nationalists were fuming even on the original agreement, wonder how angry they are now.