Putin got into Biden’s head about ‘red lines’ in Ukraine. Trump must not be as timid.

At long last, the Biden administration has decided to permit Ukraine to use longer-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) against military targets in Russia, according to reports. This is a plus, but it comes unnecessarily late, undermining its effectiveness. Months ago, Moscow moved many of its logistical centers and much of its strategic airpower out of the range of the ATACMS. Had the White House allowed the use of these weapons against targets in Russia from the moment Ukraine received them, then the damage to Russia’s military would have been much greater.

Despite this, the decision is still welcome. For starters, these missiles will prove handy responding to Moscow’s latest escalation—the introduction of up to ten thousand North Korean troops into the war. In addition to Moscow’s months-long push to capture the eastern Ukrainian logistics hub of Pokrovsk, there is another, more intense counteroffensive underway to take back the still-substantial lands in Russia’s Kursk Oblast that were captured by Ukrainian forces in their August offensive. This counteroffensive involves approximately fifty thousand Russian and North Korean troops. 

ATACMS and the French and British long-range missiles that can now be used against targets in Russia (they were held up by the United States because they contain US components) will greatly complicate Russian logistics. With the incoming Trump administration talking about a peace negotiation likely based on a ceasefire in place, Russian President Vladimir Putin desperately wants to take back all occupied Russian territory. The longer-range Western weapons may make this notably harder for Putin to achieve. That would enhance Kyiv’s leverage in future talks.

There is perhaps an even more important consequence of this decision. The great weakness of President Joe Biden’s policy has been his timidity in providing Ukraine the weapons systems it needed to save lives and put Russian forces on the defensive. In discussing its approach to a future negotiation, the Trump circle has talked about providing “more weapons to Ukraine with fewer restrictions on their use” if Putin declines to negotiate a reasonable peace. The Trump team has also spoken about arming Ukraine as part of an eventual agreement to prevent future Russian aggression. Biden’s decision means that the incoming administration in either contingency needs to provide Ukraine something more advanced than ATACMS. This is only sensible because ATACMS are 1) old military technology and 2) despite the public description of them as “long range,” the missiles only fly around 180 miles. The United States should be providing Ukraine truly long-range missiles, such as Tomahawks.

One last positive point here: Politics is rich with irony, and the US debate on Russian aggression in Ukraine is no exception. The reason for Biden’s timidity was that Putin got into his head with his nuclear threats, even as Ukraine and the West moved past numerous Kremlin “red lines” with no sight of a mushroom cloud on the horizon.

It is notable that Biden’s timidity is not foreign to some in the Trump camp, who have criticized Biden’s policy of supporting Ukraine as leading the United States to Armageddon. Fortunately, the three figures named to top national security posts—Senator Marco Rubio at the Department of State, Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense, and Congressman Mike Waltz at the National Security Council—do not share this weakness. Neither does the president-elect.

The ATACMS shift will be one more decision crossing a Kremlin “red line.” Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the US decision adds “fuel to the fire,” but the Russian response is unlikely to extend beyond the usual saber rattling. This will be a timely lesson for the nervous Nellies with the ear of the president-elect—and for Trump himself.

John E. Herbst is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. He served as the United States’ ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006.

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