On Nov. 17, after nearly two months of internal soul-searching that resulted in what can only be termed unnecessary delay, President Joe Biden finally agreed to permit Ukraine to employ long-range ATACMS missile systems against Russian targets, initially in the Kursk region that Ukraine seized earlier this year.

His decision was nominally in response to Russia’s having massed some 50,000 troops to retake the region, with the Russian force including some 10,000 North Korean soldiers. The latter appear to be the vanguard of a much larger North Korean contingent, perhaps numbering about 100,000, that is slated to join the Russian army.

Biden’s decision also enabled Ukraine to employ the British air-launched Storm Shadow missiles and France’s Scalp missiles (both jointly developed by the two countries), whose components include U.S.-made terrain contour matching navigation systems, and therefore have been subject to American restrictions on their use. The ATACMS has a number of variants, ranging anywhere from 185 to 375 miles, and the two European systems have a range of about 300 miles. All three missiles can therefore strike deep into Russian territory.

Within two days of its receiving clearance from the White House, Ukraine fired as many as eight ATACMS at a weapons depot near the town of Karachev, in Russia’s Bryansk region, about 70 miles from the Russo-Ukrainian border and about 250 miles from Moscow. The........

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