Lieutenant General Alexus G. Grynkewich of the United States Air Force has been officially nominated as the next Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), NATO announced on 5 June 2025.
The North Atlantic Council ā NATOās top political decision-making body ā confirmed the appointment following consultation with Alliance members.
Grynkewich currently serves as Director for Operations on the U.S. Joint Staff. Upon completion of U.S. national confirmation procedures, he will succeed General Christopher G. Cavoli (U.S. Army) at a formal change of command ceremony at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium, expected later this summer.
Grynkewichās nomination had been anticipated for weeks, with U.S. President Donald Trump formally putting forward the selection earlier in the day. A senior administration official told reporters the decision reflects a desire to maintain continuity in U.S. leadership of NATOās military command structure and to reassure allies of Americaās enduring commitment to the Alliance.
Lieutenant General Grynkewich is a career Air Force officer with extensive operational experience in the Middle East, including roles as commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command and Director of Strategy at U.S. Central Command.
His nomination marks a continuation of SACEURās tradition of rotating among senior U.S. officers, though his Air Force background stands out in a role historically dominated by Army generals.
Why SACEUR Is Always an American
Since the post was first created in 1950, the position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe has always been filled by a United States officer. While the decision technically lies with the North Atlantic Council ā NATOās highest political authority ā it has become a standing tradition for the U.S. President to nominate a candidate, which the Council then endorses.
There are several reasons for this enduring practice:
- U.S. military strength ā The United States remains NATOās largest and most capable military power, with global reach and the resources to lead large-scale operations.
- Symbolic reassurance ā Appointing an American officer as SACEUR signals continued U.S. commitment to the defence of Europe, a message viewed as especially important amid renewed threats from Russia and strategic uncertainty.
- Nuclear command and deterrence ā As the vast majority of NATOās nuclear arsenal is American, having a U.S. officer in the top military role reinforces control and coherence over nuclear deterrence strategy.
Other top NATO roles are filled by non-Americans to maintain a balance. The Secretary General of NATO is traditionally a European (currently former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has been nominated to replace Jens Stoltenberg), while the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee is always either a European or Canadian officer.
A second NATO Supreme Commander role, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), has been held by non-Americans since 2009. The current SACT is a French officer, reflecting the broader multinational leadership model within NATO.
General Cavoli, whom Grynkewich is set to replace, served as both Commander of U.S. European Command and SACEUR since 2022. His tenure included overseeing NATOās post-Ukraine war force posture adjustments and strengthening Eastern Flank defences.
I know SACEUR is always an American, but in light of the US Defence Sec saying only last week that Europe should not rely on the US as its focus is Asia, doesn’t this appointment smack of the US having its cake and eating it?
America no longer exists as a coherent entity. Its foreign policy is determined by a reality tv star thatās clearly having mental difficulties and changes his mind frequently. It consciously generates conflicting policies with an almost child like understanding of the effect on the American people.
Totally agree with you but I will say probably best to keep the present set up until Europe is better placed to be independent of the Aus contr union. The US will certainly under this regime allow foreign control of its forces, geez it was difficult enough for Montgomery especially during the Battle of the Bulge despite US near collapse during that attack. With a US General in command it would be humiliating for the US to capitulate on the battlefield which might be the only thing to keep Trump committed though I agree he is so unstable even then I donāt have full confidence. Letās use time available to get our act together become as self sufficient as possible in the shortest timeframe, watch closely what happens in the mid terms and Trumpās term concludes (hopefully) and make sure we build our own lines of control whatever the US does and US General remaining in that position or not at that point, we can act with or without US dithering and inaction and not have to, as at present send representatives to the Oval Office trying to get some sense and commitment from a man who thinks we are just kids in the park having a scuffle. The German Chancellor did an ace job standing up to and spelling out realities with Trump yet it was like dealing with a distracted bed wetting toddler and the sooner media outlets, (Times Radio and LBC excepted) but especially the BBC stop trying to ignore the realities the better, they really are glossing over the depths of chaos in the Administration over there trying to apply a ānormalityā filter and thus hiding from its viewers/listeners just how potentially disastrous the implications are to us even if they are increasingly struggling to hide it via this pink tinted filter of theirs.
A point I made last week and I would fully support SACEUR actually being a European.
Time for a European SACEUR for sure.
“The best of the best of the best”.
Why…š
US is no longer relevant on the world stage
European SACEUR is needed
John, you think the worlds only superpower with enormously powerful forces is no longer relevant on the world stage? You may not like Trump or his preference for the A/P region but you cannot dismiss the USA so readily.
Difficult to be relevant with a paralysed government no matter how big your military is.
The scariest thing is that both Graham and you Jim are both right, a scenario that hardly fills one with hope.
Just too risky having SACEUR from a country which has signaled it does not believe in article 5 and is already violating article 1 and 2.
Haha, many European countries violated the agreements. Including UK.
What agreements? What has the UK violated?
My mistake Graham, it seems UK payed its due of 2% GDP since the agreement was made. It was several other Euro countries that did not.
I have a list somewhere which I canāt immediately locate but from memory I thought only Belgium from Europe fell below that in recent years. Certainly was very few and a few were higher that the US, the Baltic States and Poland certainly.
Alex, It was the UK that came up with the 2% figure in the first place! Cameron chaired the NATO summit in Wales in 2014 and tabled the figure, which was agreed to by all. Clearly we have always been above the figure that we essentially foisted on NATO.
At the last count 23 member countries (of 32) spend at least that figure.
2% isn’t one of the NATO articles. It was just a commonly agreed upon *target*
None that Iām aware of in the history of NATO, you can read the NATO articles on google if you care to do a little research.
Meanwhile US Army general Joseph Ryan says that AH-64D are not anymore capable for frontline combat and AH-64E are borderline. He also said
āFighting an opponent who deploys capabilities worth $1,000 with capabilities that cost $1 million cannot be a winning strategyā.
I have a different view.
They’re still a part of NATO.
Till such time as they’re not, and we have doom mongers hoping for them to leave here weekly, then it doesn’t bother me.
Not against rotating the position with other nations, but it would surely only open to France and Britain, due to our Nuclear capability ( and financial burden ) that others do not have.
Wider ENATO pay for their own nukes, then SACEUR could happily rotate more widely.
Interestingly, I believe Deputy SACEUR is always assigned to a British Officer.
Putting it simply the American’s were not going let a non-US Officer command US Forces which includes all tactical Nuclear Weapons. Deputy SACEUR is a British Officer…..It’s worked for years….For all the doom and and gloom buggers, its about time we and Europe spent more on our Armed Forces.
SACEUR has been American since the 1940s, at what point do you suggest it’s time to rotate the position? Maybe we are going for 80 year turns? Germany gets to appoint SACEUR until 2100, then we will, then the French. Maybe the US gets s look in again in 2300? Seems fair.
Alex, this General is saying that it is impossible either to defeat or degrade drones OR to protect AH from them. That is an alarming admission of defeat…and I am sure he will be proved wrong. Does he also write off the tank and all other AFVs for the same reason?…and how about the dismounted soldier…they have also been picked off by drones.
No, he just said that Attack Helicopters are more limited than they where and that they’re no longer the War winning instrument the US views them at (and it’s worth noting the US views Attack Helicopters as a Maneuver arm not a fire support Arm, and the fire support role is where the Russians where using KA-52’s to break up Ukranian advances during the Zaphorizia counter attack).
“[Attack Helicopters] are also on the cusp of being capabilities where we don’t necessarily see them contributing to the fight the way they have done perhaps in the past.”
In many ways the FPV is just a smaller unmanned helicopter than can provide much of the fire support role. But itās limited range prevents its major use in maneuver operations
āIn many ways the FPV is just a smaller unmanned helicopter than can provide much of the fire support role. But itās limited range prevents its major use in maneuver operationsā
Iāve read some nonsense over the past few days ā admittedly, a fair bit of it my own but this has to be a joke, right?
Technically an FPV is a cross between a very small helicopter and a guided munition, but obviously it doesn’t have quite the same capabilities as either.
I think I disagree with them not having a role in major maneuver operations, they provide even down to section level great eyes on and fire support. I’d say that drone warfare falls into what NATO calls Targeting rather than maneuver though.
It is interesting bc the US has a aviation brigade in every division. They do straight up see Aviation as a maneuver branch, so arguably this is the US getting more in line with the rest of NATO.
Thanks Dern. I should have gone to the primary source on the General’s comment, rather than accepting an ‘observers’ account.
“and I am sure he will be proved wrong. Does he also write off the tank and all other AFVs for the same reason?ā¦and how about the dismounted soldierā¦they have also been picked off by drones.”
I think you are seeing the issue wrongly. One device is obsolrte or obsolescent if another one that appears is better for the function. It is not that they have losses. If tomorrow humanoid drones can function like a soldier or at least take a bunch of its missions then the soldier can be partially replaced.
Another point is the cost, time to develop, complexity and quantity vs quality equation.
This is also not necssarely on/off, it can be a more limited appeal.
Battleships were still useful in 1945, but were too expensive for the more limited usefulness. So no one build them anymore.
Attack helicopter can go from essential to have to nice to have.
I tend to agree with that Alex itās not uncommon for weapons and certainly aviation to modify roles as they become less potent on the front line they once were. Obsolescence isnāt a black and white mo ent in time itās much more nuanced, happened with many aircraft in the War that went from hero to zero back to hero again as obsolescence in one role led to new effective roles elsewhere or where new roles were the only thing that made them stars. Hopefully this will be the case with our Attack Helicopters though I fear they will become niche, expensive niche at that.
Alex, My comment was based on my interpretation of your comment about General Ryan’s comments about the usefulness of AH-64D and E. I took it that he was decrying their utility in the light of drones that could take them out. If his critique was that the AH is not as cost-effective as a drone in prosecuting a similar mission, then that is more a VfM argument.
Obsolescence is very different to Obsolete. Equipment is declared Obsolescent by the Equipment Support Manager (ESM) when it is becoming increasingly difficult (but not impossible) to support and it might also be the case that its capabilities are less than that of more modern equipment, unless it has been suitably upgraded.
Equipment is declared Obsolete by the ESM when it is time to withdraw the equipment from service for a number of reasons, usually because a replacement equipment (possibly of a very different nature) is ready to enter service, but it could also be because of legislation/treaty that has made the equipment ‘illegal’ or because there is no longer a requirement to have that capability at all in a contemporary era. By extension of my earlier comment, supportabilty of an equipment about to be declared Obsolete has become exceptionally difficult or even impossible.
The AH-64E is not Obsolete as that would mean it was about to be replaced. It would not be Obsolescent on the grounds of weak supportability or (in my mind) because its capability was no longer that effective. I am a bit puzzled though that the General’s comment seems to take issue with its effectiveness or that its capability is no longer all that useful in contributing to the fight (‘more limited than they were’) . I would like to hear more details of his point of view.
Thus the issue appears to be one of VfM. It is cheaper to kill enemy AFVs with drones, especially FPVs, than with AH-64E. Maybe attacking and suppressing strong points is also easy for a drone to do. Fair enough.
However it has always been the case that we have a ‘golf bag containing many clubs’ – ie several ways to achieve an effect, so that if one method/equipment falters there is something else available. If drones become easy to jam or defeat kinetically then they will lose their ‘wonder weapon’ status and we will need other systems such as AH to defeat armour and strong points and apply suppressing fire against a range of enemy targets from a manned aerial platform with ‘eyes on’. AH is of course not the only alternative to drones to deliver kinetic effect to the targets I have described.
Itās a political compromise: the U.S. gets military leadership (most European four-star generals wouldnāt have the experience to command forces at that scale), while the Secretary General is always from Europe which seems to be a better deal for us actually.
Welcome āFlying SACEURā.
I’d argue most Euopean Land Component commanders on promotion have the necessary experience. CGS equivalent.
Donāt get me wrong we (Germany and France too), could provide the leadership. But in āGeneralā eNATO commanders typically have experience commanding only up to division level, whereas the U.S. has CENTCOM, EUCOM, and INDOPACOM, each overseeing hundreds of thousands of troops.
So what you’re saying is that because some NATO countries have small forces that all the rest should be barred save the US?
Pretty much yesā¦
Itās easy to criticize the US from the UK, but the reality is that most European countries rely heavily on the āumbrellaā the US provides.
So that’s a load of bullshit then. I could use the same logic to claim the US shouldn’t supply SACEUR because Canada doesn’t have enough troops.
If I was Canadian Iād be using this exact argumentā¦
That said, instead of relying on your so called ālogic,ā perhaps focus that energy on actually advancing your FPV/helicopter concept!
Except if you did everyone would laugh at you because it is, in exactly the same way that your ENATO argument: Stupid.
(Also thanks for proving you don’t really bother to read with that FPV/Helicopter comment)
Great points, Dern…
Any chance of an update on the small helicopter/FPV/manoeuvre/fire support programme?
Your 2IC has gone a bit quiet, so I thought Iād go straight to the “Big Boss”.
JJ Bore off you troll.
Plenty of quotes from U.S. generals, though perhaps itās best not to read too much into themā¦
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.ā
General Mad Dog
āA good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan executed next week.ā
General George S. Patton
āGoing to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noise behind.ā
General Norman Schwarzkopf
JJ, in my brief experience, Famous quotes are sadly lost on here.
Famous quote may be witty, verbally clever and once have relevance in different times and circumstances, but only a fool fights a war while referring to them in a book.
Thank you for your service š«”šŗšø
Hello, my old friend.
Yes,times change, and whether we like it or not, we either adapt or get left behind. Just like Rambo evolved from soldier to survivor to reluctant hero, we all have to roll with the punches.
“Live for nothing, or die for something.ā
Rambo (2008)
“To survive a war, you gotta become war.ā
ā Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)
āIām your worst nightmare.ā
Rambo III (1988)