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General deterrence-escalation management theory, pattern recognition, coalition management, and/or a kind gift to Trump to boost Trump's chances.
Deterrence of conventional escalation relies on the point that you may not be able to literally prevent another party from taking an action, but you can make the costs via retaliation high enough that it's not worth it. However, since the other side can retaliate against the retaliation, actual war-costs are generally not present (hence the pattern of Russian red lines). The main factors of retaliation in a democratic-state level is to take retaliation that will threaten, if not the actual existence of the government, it's survival to the next election.
Lame duck governments, by their nature, cannot be deterred in this way.
This changes the cost-benefit calculus of a Putin retaliation. No matter what he does, the Biden administration will be gone in about two months. If he retaliates to a 'sufficient' level to match his previously claimed red lines, doing so risks sabotaging whatever chances of a ceasefire deal he wants with Trump by invoking Trump against him. As Putin's macro-economic strategy for the war for the last years has clearly been to front-load the war economy on the expectation of achieving a close in the next two years or so, that's not a risk Putin will credibly take over a marginal increase to Russian rear area losses.
Pattern recognition comes from the point that the risk of Biden doing so is low based on the normal pattern of Russian reactions to claimed red lines of this manner. No one actually believes Russia's nuclear saber ratling about recently lowering the nuclear threshold to make this a nuclear escalation risk, because the Russian nuclear decision has never been deterrent on the doctrine, but Putin, and if he wanted to do a nuclear response the claimed thresholds were met years ago. As the Russians have and will continue to escalate in various ways regardless (including the new import of North Korean troops), this is just a general pattern of how the coalition has been increasing support for Ukraine over time over Russian objections.
The coalition management angle here is that Biden has probably been willing to support loosening the restrictions for awhile, but was withholding for election purposes. Returning to deterrence, the nature of a deterrence threat to electoral stability is that Russia might have ways to make the election decisively worse if Biden acted before, but this threat loses it's relevance after the election occurs. As such, holding the range limit was a matter of the pro-Ukraine coalition stability (for US electoral purposes this time, but other country considerations before such as German tanks), but releasing range now is also a matter of coalition stability. By releasing the conditions now, Biden is creating precedent that Trump cannot block or revoke, while enabling the Europeans to likewise authorize and release their own long-range munitions at their rate of production (and expanding production, as European arms expansion programs are expected to start taking effect next year).
Finally, the gift to Trump is that this assists Trump's leverage in whatever approach Trump makes with Putin next year.
The crux of the 'Trump plan', which it bears repeating isn't actually a plan Trump made or said he would use, is that Trump would make a conditional threat to Putin: accept Western-offered terms, or see an increase in support to Ukraine.
What releasing the range limitation does is provide a relative preview over the next months of what that support can imply. This means theater-level strikes into Russian airfields where the Russian airforce (especially glide-bomb force) has sat out the war out of range of Ukrainian capabilities, rear-area supply depots, and otherwise increasing the burden on Russia's own stretched air network, and so on. As western- including European and American- arms production investments are expected to started coming online next year, and with it even more long-range weapons, this release bolsters the credibility of what that future armament potential means as a reason for Putin to move closer to an acceptable peace terms.
As such, Biden's release of the range limitations is something the pro-peace audience may want to think him for.
There's not much 'you' can do if you aren't willing to spend a few hundred thousand more live either, besides assume that the Ukrainians will continue fighting without American support.
Setting aside that Trump has not claimed he would compel the Ukrainians to accept a Russian-acceptable deal, nor was that a fair characterization of the Trump-advisor plan that was claimed to offer that during the election season, Trump doesn't actually have the political capital to do so either. Trump's election gives him as much political capital as his narrow Republican majority cares to back him with, and no further. The Ukraine war is not a priority to Republican majority, let alone compelling an end to it, and Trump attempting to do so is an easy way to break his 2-year trifecta with a party member revolt for... a position he hasn't taken.
And even if Trump wants to, his American political capital doesn't translate into political capital to compel the Europeans to contribute to the concessions Russia has demanded for ending this round of the Ukraine War, nor can he compel them to stop aiding Ukraine, nor does he have the poltiical capital to make the Ukrainian government accept Russian terms, nor does he have the political capital to make the Ukrainians stop fighting.
What Trump can do is make a not-very-credible threat that he will withhold all aid and watch the Ukrainians die even if they die by the hundreds of thousands... but the only way to make that sort of threat credible if the Ukrainians fight on is to stand by while hundreds thousands more lives end.
You may think that shouldn't happen, that there's no reason for that to happen, that it would be a bad idea for the Ukrainians to take a path for that to happen... but that can very well happen regardless of what you think, because you are not the ones who can make that decision. No American is.
At which point, you are just as well off asking what to do on the assumption that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians will die regardless. Even if 'we' do nothing, we would still be spending hundreds of thousands of lives to do nothing.
Biden doesn't have the ability to make peace now, because Biden is not, and Americans are not, the hyperagent of the Ukraine War.
The Americans are not able to compel Putin to accept a deal, or to make the Europeans offer concessions so that Putin would take a deal now rather than think he could get a better deal from Trump later.
Why not, besides your own particular definition of victory?
If one defines victory as Ukraine gaining credible Western security guarantees short of NATO membership that convince Ukraine to accept a Russian demand for no-NATO membership, then demonstrating the effectiveness of previously off-limits capabilities may assuage Ukrainian concerns of post-conflict western support.
If one defines a victory as the Americans negotiating near-term cease fire under Trump, this directly enables Trump to present maximum coercion to get Putin to agree to drop various demands and accept a ceasefire.
If one defines a European victory as further attriting the Russian economic damage of the war to delay by years the functional reconstruction / rebalancing of the Russian military and civil-economy, and thus giving Europe and Ukraine more time to prepare for the next war without American support, this directly enables further attrition of Russian strategic assets whose replacement may add to that time.
There are many theories of victory which this easily supports, regardless of whether you think it's a good idea or not.
And you believe those are more credible or meaningful threats to refrain from support because...?
You are proposing, variously, a non-threat of a fungible good, an already occurring trend, and an expansion into direct conflict when the purpose of Russian deterence strategy has been to prevent direct conflict with the US.
That's an interesting thing to be deterred by, but not a particularly compelling one.
That is how things seem if you assume the evil conclusions of your outgroup.
Don Junior posts memes about Zelensky having his allowance yanked.
I, too, find people other than Trump sharing memes to be very credible insights into Trump's intentions.
Remember that time Trump shared the CNN-wrestling GIF, which foreshadowed the campaign of amateur wrestling stunts at the expense of journalists?
Junior has been pretty involved in things lately. But if you want to be sarcastic about it, fine, I'm sure Trump will rush to sign off on another fifty billion dollar care package after campaigning on what a waste it all is. After all, he wouldn't want the Democrats or some Euro leaders to be miffed at him.
I can be serious and I can be silly, and tend to retort in kind. Arguing a shared memes on the part of Trump Jr. are meaningfully demonstrative of Trump's viewpoint is silly. Noting that the Trump selectees for Trump's cabinet are Ukraine skeptics is serious... but so is noting that many of Trump's selectees are pro-Ukraine, which undercuts the credibility of a hardline anti-Ukraine position.
If Trump is supposed to have strong opinions on the Ukraine war, he certainly isn't manning his administration to reflect that, as the adage 'personnel are policy' applies here. Trump Jr. is a person of interest in the Trump administration, but he is far from the only person, and we can just selectively choose quotes whichever way we want.
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