Top US Military Officials Won't Say Whether the US had Advance Knowledge of Ukraine's Invasion of Russia

Gen. Anthony Cotton, Commander of STRATCOM, provides a brief media availability to the meager handful of journalists who trekked out to Omaha, NE for the annual STRATCOM “Deterrence” Symposium — August 13, 2024

So… there’s a US-backed invasion of Russia currently underway. You’d think this would rise to the level of urgent national political concern, such that every American elected official with some purview in US foreign policy would be expected — and demanded — to articulate a position on what’s transpiring. After all, as everyone should be well aware, Ukraine only exists as a state right now due to the largesse of the US, and thus anything Ukraine does on the battlefield necessarily implicates the US — whatever the precise foreknowledge or involvement the US might have had in this particular operation.

Two years ago, if you had suggested that Ukraine and the US might be conducting a literal invasion of Russia, you would’ve been ferociously denounced as a bed-wetting alarmist who’s probably just trying to cynically boost Russia’s side of the propaganda wars by irrationally fretting about extreme escalatory outcomes, so as to discourage US or European “aid” for Ukraine. And yet here we are, with the escalation ladder having been steadily climbed, step by step, but generating less and less intense of a political reaction as time goes on and the acute psychological impact of the war wears off. To a degree, this is only natural; you can’t expect everyone to be on constant hair-trigger alert about something that’s been going on continuously for two and a half years. But that’s exactly how these escalatory leaps get smuggled in without much notice or debate.

Hence, we’re now in a political climate where the fact of an ongoing US-backed invasion of Russia is treated as little more than an ancillary concern, maybe something warranting semi-interested speculation and commentary, but certainly nothing that should occasion any large-scale political controversy — at least in the US. Neither major party presidential candidate has directly commented on it, as far as I know, and neither has there been any kind of appreciable clamor within the media for the candidates to do their public duty and set out some sort of articulable position on what, by any objective measure, is a massive escalation in the conduct of the war — which had initially been sold to the public as only necessitating US “support” that would be carefully circumscribed.

So while it’s just a drop in the bucket, I’ve attempted to at least provide a minor corrective. This past week was the annual symposium of STRATCOM, or the US Strategic Command, which is the branch of the military that controls the nuclear arsenal. If you weren’t aware, the word “strategic” is a euphemism for “nuclear” in military parlance — a long-running triumph of jargonistic obfuscation. You also gotta love that the slogan for the US nuclear arsenal is “Peace is Our Profession”…

STRATCOM symposium, August 13, 2024

All the rage these days among “strategic thinkers” is how to “deter” both China and Russia by preparing to wage simultaneous nuclear war against them. Another triumph of euphemistic jargon is the word “deterrence” itself — nominally the whole impetus for the Symposium, with “deterrence” really just being synonymous with “projection of American military, economic, and political power,” but presented as gravely necessary in order to “deter” the scary foreign adversaries who are always allegedly threatening that power.

The Symposium is a strange affair in that it’s tucked into a nondescript venue in Omaha, Nebraska, near where the STRATCOM headquarters is located. I overheard one fellow talking about how back in the Cold War days, Air Force members who had to go guard the nuclear silos in the vast expanses of the American Interior were told that if South Dakota ever seceded from the Union, it would automatically be the world’s third largest nuclear state. Today, the Cold War era is looked back on with nostalgic fondness by attendees of these Symposiums, with calls for action routinely issued that the US nuclear arsenal needs to be aggressively reinvigorated, and even the half-hearted efforts to scale it down after the collapse of the Soviet Union were a terrible mistake.

So it was fortuitous that this year’s Symposium should have fallen on a week in which an ongoing US-backed invasion of Russia would have been underway, not to mention another cataclysm being forecast to break out in the Middle East at any moment, with Iran and Hezbollah suggesting for weeks that a large-scale strike on Israel could be imminent.

I therefore asked Gen. Anthony Cotton, the STRATCOM commander, about the Russia/Ukraine developments, which are being touted as the most serious foreign attack on Russian territory since World War II, as if that’s supposed to inspire optimism for a happy outcome. You can find the audio here, which I played on an episode of “System Update” Friday — I guest-hosted again for the absent Glenn Greenwald. Here’s a transcript of the exchange:

MT: General, so as you know there’s a land incursion happening right now, that the Ukrainians have undertaken, into territorial Russia, for the first time at least in a far-reaching way. Could you just elaborate on how you came to be aware of this? What changes to the posture have been made, if any? Because in the past, there had been a clear distinction that was at least claimed between defensive actions that Ukraine was taking, versus offensive. Now, it’s hard to really I guess argue it’s a defensive action to make a land incursion to Russia — maybe I’m wrong. But how do you kind of conceptualize what Ukraine is doing there, and how does it relate to the US nuclear posture?

Gen. Anthony Cotton: Yeah. So from my perspective as STRATCOM commander, you know, I have not changed any posture with my forces, if that’s the question that you’re asking. In regard to what’s being seen and how I’m then made abreast of what is going on, it’s actually in my fellow combat commander, General Chris Cavoli’s AOR [Area of Responsibility]. I just get briefed out from my J2 [Joint Staff Intelligence] with regard to what we’re seeing that’s happening in that part of the world. So, I don’t know that I could actually, give a really good answer to that, not being the commander of EUCOM [US European Command].

I also figured it might be a good idea to ask the commander of the US nuclear arsenal whether the current US president, to whom he reports as Commander-in-Chief, still has his wits about him, given the political ‘switcheroo’ that was pulled a few weeks ago on the ground that Joe Biden lacked the cognitive fitness to run for president, as determined by Democratic donors and operatives. Biden still claims that he’s going to remain in office for another five months, regardless of the election, and plenty could happen in those five months that would presumably require him to be in serviceable mental condition, including a variety of eventualities that relate to the US nuclear arsenal — over which the president has “sole authority.” With escalating conflicts in both Europe and the Middle East, wouldn’t it be nice to know if Biden has the basic competence required to wield these awesome powers? Here’s the exchange:

MT: Obviously, not trying to get you to comment on any political matters, but we are in an election season, so I’m slightly obliged I suppose—

Gen. Cotton: You’re obliged to ask, I’m obliged not to answer. [laughs]

MT: But there were questions raised around the cognitive fitness of the President. Could you just touch on your dealings with him as of late? What observations you’ve made as to his capacities? Should the American public be at all concerned about his ability to manage crises that are unfolding now, whether it be in the Middle East or Ukraine. Just give some general observations as to your dealings with him.

Gen. Cotton: As for a question in regards to, you know, my relationship and what I’ve seen with my Commander-in-Chief, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to bring that up here. I have no concerns with the current Commander-in-Chief and his abilities to give me lawful orders if required.

So there you have it — that’s the military equivalent of a rousing endorsement of Biden’s capability to issue nuclear-launch orders.

I also had a brief opportunity to talk to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown. Unfortunately there’s no audio, as the exchange took place in a different setting, but when I asked Brown if the US had foreknowledge of Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, he replied: “I won’t get into it… I know they’re just trying to defend themselves.” I also asked if the invasion changes Russia’s perspective as to whether US support of Ukraine was merely “defensive” in nature, or has now become “offensive” (which Russia has claimed all along anyway) because it’s kind of hard to argue that the US enabling and sponsoring an invasion of Russia, and providing the weaponry to execute it, is merely a “defensive” action. “It does change the perspective,” Brown acknowledged, as Putin wasn’t expecting it. He added obliquely that there are some things that happen with anticipatory knowledge, and other things that happen with a lack of anticipatory knowledge.

Gen. CQ Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivers his keynote remarks at the STRATCOM “Deterrence” symposium on August 14, 2024. The backdrop is adorned with scary images of Chinese and Russian “adversaries” acting in concert with one another, and also perhaps Terrorists

Pretty vague, but Brown did not deny that the US had foreknowledge of the Kursk invasion — he just said he wouldn’t “get into” the precise details.

Anyway, that’s my minor contribution to public understanding of how the US-sponsored invasion of Ukraine came about. I feel like I’m going a bit crazy for how little impact this is making on US political discussion, but I’m also in Chicago right now for the Democratic Convention, and will once again be doing my small part to remedy that.

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