With less than two months remaining in his term, US President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use US long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia, crossing a “red line” that Russian President Vladimir Putin has said could lead to direct war between Russia and NATO.

Biden has also authorized the long-range missiles to be used against North Korean troops allegedly deployed inside Russia, in what would be the first major attack using US weapons on North Korean troops since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

In coordinated statements to the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and Reuters, the Biden administration said on Sunday that it would allow Ukraine to use the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to strike Russian and North Korean troops inside of Russia’s Kursk region, parts of which are occupied by Ukraine.

US officials made clear, however, that this announcement clears the path for American, British and French long-range weapons to be used to strike Russian cities even farther away from the front, including potentially the Russian capital.

The Biden administration has long been preparing to announce plans to carry out long-range strikes deep inside Russia, with the Guardian reporting in September that “the decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use [UK] Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia.”

At the time, a decision was made to wait to make the announcement until after the election. The White House believed that a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris would create a mandate for the massive escalation of the war against Russia. The election resulted, however, in a victory for former President Donald Trump, who demagogically postured as an opponent of escalation in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Biden met with Trump at the White House, where both men promised a “smooth transition” between the two administrations.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan indicated ahead of the meeting that a major subject of discussion would be the Ukraine war. “President Biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to make the case to Congress and the incoming administration that the United States should not walk away from Ukraine, that walking away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe.”

Biden certainly provided a detailed report on the planned escalation during the meeting with Trump, and there is no reason to believe that Trump raised objections.

The official position of the Biden White House before the election, outlined in an October 23 press briefing by White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, is that President-elect Trump is a “fascist” who would be, as Jean-Pierre put it, “a dictator on day one.”

But the White House and the Democratic Party have dropped all opposition to the fascist policies of the new administration, with Biden vowing to do “everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated, what you need.” In reality, the Biden administration has only one concern: ensuring that the United States’ wars, including first and foremost against Russia, continue “smoothly.”

To that end, the Biden administration is seeking to create “facts on the ground” leading to a major escalation of the war before Trump takes office.

Last Sunday, the White House authorized the deployment of US military contractors to Ukraine to maintain US weapons, effectively creating a “tripwire” in the event that US military contractors are killed in Russian airstrikes, which could be used as a pretext  to massively expand US involvement in the war.

The major escalation of US involvement comes against the backdrop of a deepening crisis for the Ukrainian military. The Russian military, allegedly with the assistance of North Korean troops, is making significant advances on three fronts, while the Ukrainian military is suffering a major recruitment crisis amid soaring desertions.

It is impossible to overstate the reckless and escalatory implications of Biden’s announcement this weekend.

In late September, in response to reports that the US would soon allow long-range strikes on Russian cities, Putin outlined proposed changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine. Putin said, “aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear-weapon state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear-weapon state, should be considered as a joint attack on the Russian Federation.”

He continued, “We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against Russia and Belarus.”

The massive escalation by the Biden administration comes amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the Israeli bombing of Lebanon and increasingly open discussion of a “Third World War” in the US media.

Last month, Washington Post columnist George Will declared that “World War III is already underway.” The target of this war is “today’s axis: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea,” Will wrote.

The lead essay in this month’s edition of Foreign Affairs declares: “An era of limited war has ended; an age of comprehensive conflict has begun. Indeed, what the world is witnessing today is akin to what theorists in the past have called ‘total war,’ in which combatants draw on vast resources, mobilize their societies, prioritize warfare over all other state activities, attack a broad variety of targets, and reshape their economies and those of other countries.”

Despite demagogically posturing as an opponent of the Ukraine war, Trump was the first American president to authorize the large-scale provision of lethal weapons to Ukraine in 2019, helping to transform Ukraine into a NATO proxy and provoking the Russian invasion of February 2022. In 2018, the Trump administration unveiled a national security strategy that declared, “Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of US national security.”

This strategy was implemented under the Biden administration through the escalation and instigation of the war against Russia in Ukraine.