MARCH 13, 2026 – During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill today, the commander of U.S. European Command and supreme allied commander Europe said the U.S. military’s relationship with its NATO partners throughout the region remains strong.
When asked if Eucom had been experiencing any friction with NATO in recent months, Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich said the opposite was true.
“At the military-to-military level, I can assure you that our relationship [with NATO] remains strong. With every chief of defense across the alliance, we’ve maintained our focus on what it was that we were responsible for doing, which was defending every inch of alliance territory from any form of aggression,” he told the committee.
An example of the quality of NATO’s operability came up earlier in Grynkewich’s testimony when he referenced the Dutch military’s successful downing of Russian drones that had violated NATO airspace over Poland in September 2025.
“I was extremely proud of the immediate response that the alliance was able to take in response to that incursion,” the general said, adding that the Royal Netherlands Air and Space Force’s F-35 joint strike fighters managed to shoot down multiple drones while operating under NATO command and control.
Grynkewich also credited Operation Eastern Sentry — the multidomain NATO mission designed to enhance surveillance, air defense and deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank, which was launched in response to the September drone incursion — with keeping the skies safe over Eastern Europe.
“We’re also in the [process] of rewriting our standing defense plan for integrated air and missile defense across the alliance. [It’s the] first time this has been done in decades, and it should be done by the [NATO] Summit this summer,” he added.
When asked about interoperability among NATO countries, Grynkewich said NATO and Eucom focus a great deal on the subject.
“I would say … one of the best ways to ensure interoperability is … our allies’ [buying] American equipment from our defense industrial base. That solves the interoperability problem, just at face value,” he said, adding that NATO countries are bolstering their own DIBs, allowing them to operate under a specific set of standards that ensure interoperability.
Grynkewich said newer members of the NATO alliance are helped by more senior countries regarding the organization’s standards.
“We do need to help them along to make sure that they understand that this gets to be very technical when you get into the ‘beeps’ and ‘squeaks’ — if you will — of making sure that things can work together,” he said.
The annual NATO Summit is scheduled to be held July 7-8 in Ankara, Turkey.
By Matthew Olay
Pentagon News