The Biden administration has gradually plunged the United States into Ukraine's war with Russia and has put the country on the path to a potential thermonuclear World War III, veteran former CIA analyst and former US Army intelligence officer Philip Giraldi told Sputnik on Friday.
"This is horrific! We have become incrementally involved in a war that could have been avoided and for which the only plausible justification given has been to 'weaken Russia,'" Giraldi said.
US-Russian tensions, which are already worse than they have been since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, plunged further on Thursday when the US media reported that President Joe Biden had already given Ukraine permission to use US weapons to strike inside Russia allegedly near the area of the city of Kharkov.
"Russia, in turn, has warned that any escalation by NATO and/or the United States will be responded to using all of Moscow's capabilities to defend itself," Giraldi said.
The former CIA analyst warned that this decision could prove to be the point of no return in triggering a direct war between the United States and Russia.
"Providing Ukraine with weapons that will by design be used to attack deep into Russia will be seen as an act of war, and what will develop from that could be catastrophic for all involved," Giraldi said.
Biden's reported decision could prove very quickly to have disastrous ramifications for the United States and its allies far beyond the current areas of conflict in Ukraine, he said.
Russia's responses could include direct strikes on US bases in Europe and Asia, as well as possible retaliation against the United States and select allies in Europe as well, Giraldi said.
The long chain of disastrous decisions by Biden and his top officials revealed a level of incompetence and irresponsibility that was impossible to fathom, he said.
"I have long thought Biden and his advisers to be stupid beyond all belief, but I now find that even that assessment was too kind," Giraldi said.
The dangers of a total destructive thermonuclear global war were now greater than ever, Giraldi added.
Previously, other NATO member states, including the United Kingdom, France and Sweden, have given the Kiev regime permission to use the weapons systems they have supplied to attack Russia.