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August 28, 2025
By David Vergun, DOD News

Eucom Commander Discusses NATO Spending, Ukraine Assistance

The commitment that all 32 NATO nations spend 5% of gross domestic product on their militaries is going to make a big difference, said Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, supreme allied commander Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, who spoke virtually today from Mons, Belgium, to the National Defense Industrial Association in Washington.

"My job, I think, is going to be to hold nations to account, to be their conscience, if you will, so that that 5% gets spent in the right places," he said, adding that each nation's military spending will be based on its capability needs.

The 5% includes spending 3.5% on "hard" military defense. The other 1.5% can be spent on other elements that support defense, such as logistics and infrastructure improvements, the general said.

A lot of that spending will also benefit civilians, including those in defense industrial bases, Grynkewich added.

Nations in NATO are seeking digital transformation that ties everyone together, ensuring each has command and control systems in place with a common operating picture, a common intelligence picture, and all the pathways in which data flows, he said.

The Eucom commander said international companies are figuring out how to plug into the Ukrainian industrial base in a mutually beneficial way. The requirements each company has to support are validated by Eucom and a NATO working group.

Besides the requirements, decisions are made about what items should be sourced from what countries, Grynkewich said.

One of the important capabilities for Ukraine is drones, he added. A drone might work one day and not work the next because of interference from Russia.

At the brigade level, industry partners are helping Ukraine rapidly innovate and change drone parameters to make them effective again, he said, adding that artificial intelligence also helps in that regard.

That level of autonomous drone capability is everywhere in Ukraine, Grynkewich said, noting that unmanned aerial systems are the future of warfare, but manned aircraft will always have a place on the battlefield.