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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DIU — a Silicon Valley-headquartered organization which has embedded personnel at Indo-Pacom and Eucom to help tackle some of the combatant commands’ tech-related challenges.

On Wednesday, DIU announced that Scale AI was awarded a prototype contract for the new Thunderforge capability, which will include the company’s agentic applications, Anduril’s Lattice software platform and Microsoft’s large language model technology.

“The Thunderforge technology solution will provide AI-assisted planning capabilities, decision support tools, and automated workflows, enabling military planners to navigate evolving operational environments. By leveraging advanced large language models (LLMs), AI-driven simulations, and interactive agent-based wargaming, Thunderforge will enhance how the U.S. military prepares for and executes operations,” the unit said in a release.

DIU issued a solicitation for the program last year via its commercial solutions opening contracting mechanism.

“The joint planning process is complex, time-consuming, and resource-intensive. Planners and other staff members must synthesize large amounts of information from diverse sources, consider multiple courses of action (COA), and produce detailed operational plans and orders – often under significant time pressure. As the operational environment becomes more complex and dynamic, there is a need to accelerate and enhance joint planning capabilities while maintaining rigor and human judgment,” the document stated.

In a statement Wednesday, Bryce Goodman, Thunderforge program lead and contractor with DIU, noted that current military planning processes rely on decades-old technology and methodologies.

The U.S. military wants new tech that can quickly ingest, process and summarize large volumes of information relevant to military planning; identify key insights, patterns and relationships; produce draft operations plans, concept plans and operations orders; and perform automated wargaming of courses of action and provide comparative analysis of advantages, disadvantages and risks.

“Our AI solutions will transform today’s military operating process and modernize American defense. Working together with DIU, Combatant Commands, and our industry partners, we will lead the Joint Force in integrating AI into operational decision-making. DIU’s enhanced speed will provide our nation’s military leaders with the greatest technological advantage,” Scale AI founder and CEO Alexandr Wang said in a statement.

According to DIU, initial deployments of the system to Indo-Pacom and Eucom are expected to support “mission-critical” planning activities such as campaign development, theater-wide resource allocation and strategic assessment.

If the tech meets expectations, plans call for scaling the Thunderforge capability across the U.S. military’s combatant commands in the future.

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Briefing the media in Stuttgart, Germany, during his first official overseas trip as the Pentagon chief, Hegseth shared new details about the Trump administration’s vision for DOGE-related disruption and modernization pursuits — and how they may or may not impact military and civilian personnel in the near term.

“There’s plenty of places where we want the keen eye of DOGE, but we’ll do it in coordination. We’re not going to do things that are to the detriment of American operational or tactical capabilities,” Hegseth said.

Mirroring promises he made on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump set DOGE up the same day he was officially sworn in, Jan. 20.

An executive order formalizing its establishment stated that the organization’s purpose is “to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.”

Trump immediately tapped Musk — a politically vocal billionaire businessman whose company SpaceX has contracted with the Pentagon and other agencies — to steer DOGE under the designation of “special government employee.” 

Since its launch, the Musk-led team has attracted widespread attention for its controversial probes into federal hubs including the Treasury Department and U.S. Agency for International Development.

“USAID has got a lot of problems that I talked about with the troops — pursuing globalist agendas that don’t have a connection to ‘America First.’ That’s not the Defense Department. But we’re also not perfect either,” Hegseth told reporters on Tuesday.

He confirmed that he hopes to welcome Musk and the DOGE team to the Pentagon “very soon.”

“There are waste redundancies and headcounts in headquarters that need to be addressed. There’s just no doubt. Look at a lot of the climate programs that have been pursued at the Defense Department. [The DOD] is not in the business of climate change, solving the global thermostat. We’re in the business of deterring and winning wars,” Hegseth said. “We want to look forward to finding efficiencies, and many others [including] the way we acquire weapon systems.”

The new SecDef also responded to questions from reporters about the new administration’s strategic military aims in Africa, Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

“As far as external threats, there’s just no doubt the communist Chinese ambitions are robust. Their view of the world is quite different than ours, and whoever carries that mantle is going to set the tone for the 21st century,” he said. 

Hegseth emphasized that Trump “ran on being a peace president” and therefore does not want conflict with China under his leadership. 

“But being strong — peace through strength — is how you deter that. And we want to posture for that, just like we believe the Europeans alongside our support need to on the continent, as well,” he said. 

“The [People’s Republic of China’s] intentions are pernicious, not just in their part of the world, but also in South America and then on the African continent. And America’s posture there, along with allies and partners, is going to matter about contesting that space. So, it certainly remains a priority,” Hegseth added.

In response to reporters’ questions regarding whether the administration is planning to reduce U.S. troops’ presence abroad any time soon, he acknowledged that there’s a broad understanding across DOD that officials are going to review force posture around the world. 

However, he said there “are no plans right now in-the-making to cut anything.”

After meeting with senior military leaders from U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command at their joint headquarters in Germany on his first international trip as SecDef, Hegseth will head to Brussels, Belgium, to attend the NATO Defense Ministerial and the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting.

The defense secretary suggested that, in those engagements, he’ll push for “a rapid peace deal” to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, and urge NATO allies to each spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense (though the U.S. has not pledged to make the same percentage level of investment).

“We’re going to have straight talk with our friends. This kind of urgency of this moment requires friends talking to friends about capabilities, about leadership, about stepping up, about burden-sharing and the incentives to say, ‘The European continent deserves to be free from any aggression, but it ought be those in the neighborhood investing the most in that individual and collective defense.’ That’s common sense, as the president talks a lot about. Common sense is you defend your neighborhood, and the Americans will come alongside you in helping in that defense if and when that happens. And I believe it will,” Hegseth said.

Before concluding the weeklong trip, Hegseth is slated to meet with his counterparts in Poland, where he plans to discuss furthering bilateral defense cooperation and deterrence opportunities along NATO’s eastern flank.

“This is a very important part of the world for us. The president feels that way as well,” Hegseth told reporters.

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