The Navy’s Brad Cooper will take over at Centcom and get his fourth star, succeeding Army Gen. Michael Kurilla in that role. The Air Force’s Alexus Grynkewich will lead Eucom and be promoted to four-star, succeeding Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli in that position. Grynkewich will be dual-hatted as NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe.

The officers were confirmed unanimously by voice vote along with a slew of other nominations.

Cooper previously served as deputy commander of Centcom. Before that, he led Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet, where he oversaw Task Force 59, which was established to help the Navy better integrate uncrewed systems and AI into its operations to strengthen the service’s maritime domain awareness.

Grynkewich had been serving as director of operations, J-3, with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. Prior to that, he led Air Forces Central and Combined Forces Air Component Commander under U.S. Central Command. As commander of AFCENT, he was a booster for Task Force 99, which was stood up to operationally evaluate new drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions.

Cooper is taking the helm at Centcom amid heightened tensions with Iran following the recent U.S. airstrike on Iranian nuclear sites with B-2 stealth bombers and 30,000-pound “massive ordnance penetrator” (MOP) weapons during Operation Midnight Hammer. Earlier this year, the command was combating Yemen’s Houthis during Operation Rough Rider.

In written responses to lawmakers’ advance policy questions ahead of his confirmation hearing, Cooper said that as Centcom commander, he would “launch new initiatives that advance our overmatch through the employment of cutting-edge technologies, including AI-enabled, unmanned platforms and digital integration. Ultimately, we must protect our homeland, counter malign influence, ensure freedom of navigation, compete strategically, and ensure USCENTCOM remains a combat-credible force for security in the region.”

Similarly, Grynkewich will command Eucom as the Ukraine-Russia war — in which drones and counter-drone systems have played a major role — rages on and U.S. military leaders are drawing lessons from the conflict.

“Since the conflict in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022, warfare has evolved at a pace unseen since the Cold War’s end. Ukraine and Russia have developed and deployed new technologies and tactics on an innovation cycle of months rather than years. As a result, the U.S. Joint Force has established multiple cells to consistently analyze advancements and integrate lessons learned from the battlefield into U.S. and NATO exercises. For example, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) have rapidly innovated their use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and uncrewed surface vessels (USV). UAS and USV operations are now conducted at scale, with significant impact and continuous technological updates. This attribute of the modern battlefield is fostering a shift to a culture of innovation, agility, and lethality across all elements of the U.S. and NATO Joint Force, from industry to operators,” he wrote.

Grynkewich told senators that as commander of Eucom, he would be “a strong advocate for continued investment and prioritization of funding for the fielding and protection of innovative logistics capabilities, such as AI-enabled tools with predictive analytics and autonomous distribution systems.”

Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee still hasn’t scheduled confirmation hearings for several other Trump nominees for key positions at the Defense Department, including Marine Corps Gen. Christopher Mahoney, who was picked to be the next vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Navy Adm. Daryl Caudle, who was selected for chief of naval operations; Air Force Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, who’s been tapped to command U.S. Africa Command; Navy Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, who was chosen to lead U.S. Special Operations Command; and former congressional candidate and Green Beret Derrick Anderson, who was put forth to serve as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict after the nomination of Air Force veteran Michael Jensen for the ASD SO/LIC job was withdrawn without explanation.

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On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich has been tapped by the commander-in-chief for appointment to the grade of general and assignment as commander of U.S. European Command. NATO has also agreed to appoint him as supreme allied commander Europe, according to the announcement.

Grynkewich is currently serving as director of operations, J-3, with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. Prior to that, he led Air Forces Central and Combined Forces Air Component Commander under U.S. Central Command. As commander of AFCENT, he championed the work of Task Force 99, which was stood up to operationally evaluate new drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions.

If confirmed, Grynkewich would assume the top military leadership role in NATO as the alliance is pursuing AI and other new tech as well as new relationships with non-traditional industry. The Trump administration is also pushing other members of NATO to shoulder more of the burden for defense of Europe, stating that the U.S. military needs to focus more on the Pacific and homeland defense.

On Wednesday, Hegseth announced that Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper was nominated for appointment to the grade of admiral, with assignment as commander of Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East region. Cooper is currently serving as deputy commander.

Centcom’s area of responsibility has long been a hotspot for U.S. military actions against militant groups and nation-state actors, including recently battling the Houthis and trying to thwart their drone and missile attacks against vessels in the Red Sea.

Prior to his current job, Cooper led Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet, where he was a big proponent of Task Force 59, which was established to help the Navy better integrate uncrewed systems and AI into its operations to strengthen the service’s maritime domain awareness.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson has been tapped to become a four-star and command U.S. Africa Command. Africom earlier this year was given expanded authority by Trump to attack terrorist targets in its area of responsibility and is adjusting its posture as it tries to deal with growing threats.

Anderson has held a number of positions in the special operations community during his career, including as commander of Special Operations Command-Africa, among other assignments. He’s currently serving as director of joint force development, J-7, with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon.

On Tuesday, Hegseth announced that Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, who comes from the Navy SEAL community, was selected for appointment to the grade of admiral and to lead U.S. Special Operations Command. He’s currently serving as commander of Joint Special Operations Command.

SOCOM has been a leader within the Defense Department in adopting cutting-edge tech such as AI and other digital tools, including via its SOF Digital Applications program executive office. The command recently released an updated strategy dubbed SOF Renaissance, which laid out SOCOM’s vision for how the force needs to transform to meet future challenges by adopting new technologies and other reforms, including modernization efforts geared toward surface and subsurface maritime platforms; next-generation ISR; mission command systems; and collaborative and autonomous unmanned systems.

In other SOF-related personnel news this week, Trump on Monday nominated former congressional candidate and Green Beret Derrick Anderson to serve as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

The nominees must be confirmed by the Senate to take on those new roles.

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Task Force 99, modeled off the Navy’s Task Force 59 that operates under 5th Fleet, was stood up in October at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, as the Pentagon looks for new ways to deploy robotic platforms for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other missions.

“Our problem was air domain awareness” to include “not just tracking objects in the air, but maybe finding things that could be on the ground about to be launched into the air and how those could be a threat to us. And Task Force 99 was born out of the idea that if we take unmanned technologies and digital technologies and pair them together, and basically teach the robots and the algorithms to solve some of these problems for us, that it could fill some of those gaps,” Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of AFCENT, said Monday during an Air and Space Forces Association event.

Things are starting to ramp up.

“Just this past week, we started flying our first Task Force 99 drones during an operational evaluation in the region doing some ISR work, if you will, trying to again fill some of the gaps that we have as our other more traditional ISR platforms have gone to other regions or to other priorities for the Air Force,” Grynkewich said.

Grynkewich did not disclose how many UAS are currently part of the task force or say how many it is slated to have in the future.

However, AFCENT seeks unmanned aerial systems that are less expensive than high-end platforms, such as the MQ-9 Reaper, to boost its capacity.

The unmanned task force is already conducting real-world missions, Grynkewich noted.

“Don’t think of it as an innovation lab or anything like that. It is a no-kidding operational task force. So it’s a subordinate command that is out there conducting operations. They’re just doing it with different stuff and really getting after these problems,” he said.

The organization is focusing on three main areas: enhancing domain awareness, accelerating the military’s targeting cycle, and “imposing dilemmas on adversaries” by deploying additional assets that they would have to contend with.

“Rather than just having dozens of airplanes that I can fly to certain locations, what if I had hundreds? Even if the sensors aren’t as good, that capacity is gonna matter when we’re prosecuting operations at scale,” Grynkewich said.

AFCENT is looking for industry solutions as the task force rolls out new tech.

“If you have technologies that you think are excellent and available that could be useful in those areas, we’d love to hear about them. And we’d love to, frankly, try them out,” he noted. “Bring it over to the region. We can innovate and experiment with it in a real-world austere environment and see what it can do for us. And if it’s something that it looks like … we would benefit from and apply to some of those hard operational problems, we’ll definitely be looking at pursuing an interest to that.”

However, the task force wants systems that seem ready for prime time — or nearly so — not ones that are in early stages of development.

And like the Navy’s Task Force 59, the Air Force is eyeing commercial solutions.

“We want things to be pretty high TRL you know. In many ways, we’re looking for commercial-off-the-shelf kind of technologies or things that are just about ready to be put on the shelf. Now, they don’t have to be commercial off-the-shelf. They can be military on-the shelf ready to go almost — let’s go try it out a little bit. But I’d say, you know, pretty close to the end of that chain. And that’s really because they’re an operational task force,” Grynkewich explained.

The task force currently has fewer than a dozen U.S. airmen charged with overseeing the drone ops and performing other duties. It is expected to grow to about 20 U.S. airmen with additional staffing provided by partner nations in the region.

The vision is for the organization to evolve into a more robust joint and combined task force.

Invitations to participate have been sent to “pretty much every [U.S.] regional partner on the ground there,” Grynkewich said.

“We already have some countries that are planning to or have sent manpower to participate in what will become Combined Task Force 99. And I just see that growing … I think in the next three to six months, we’ll have another four or five countries sign up and provide personnel and resources to that organization. And that’ll launch it on a trajectory we can’t even imagine,” he added.

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