Bradley, a Navy SEAL officer who most recently commanded Joint Special Operations Command, will also get a fourth star.

He was nominated for the role by President Donald Trump in early June.

Bradley will take the reins at SOCOM — which has been an early adopter of many cutting-edge technologies like AI within the Defense Department — as America’s special operations forces work to modernize and prepare for competition with more advanced adversaries.

“The changing, accelerating pace of technology, the ubiquitous information environment, and the advent of man-machine teamed autonomy on the battlefields of the world today are absolutely changing the character of warfare … in our very eyes,” he said last week during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He added that legislative proposals such as the FORGED Act and SPEED Act, and other initiatives to reform DOD acquisitions and speed up the fielding of new tech, are “critical to allowing us to use the innovative spirit of our operators to be able to capture those problems and opportunities we see on the battlefield and turn them into new man-machine teamed approaches.”

Bradley also called for “fusing all-domain capabilities” to gain advantages over adversaries, endorsing the so-called “irregular triad” concept that includes SOF, space and cyber capabilities.

“The pervasive technical surveillance environment presents both unique challenges and unprecedented opportunities. Recognizing this, I am committed to strengthening the Space-SOF-Cyber triad, leveraging the combined strengths of USSPACECOM and USCYBERCOM to ensure SOF’s operational effectiveness in support of national security objectives,” Bradley wrote in response to advance policy questions from senators ahead of his confirmation hearing.

“My vision encompasses integrating technological advancements across all domains — physical and virtual — including surface and subsurface maritime platforms; autonomous uncrewed systems; counter-unmanned systems; next-generation intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; stand-off precision effects; and modernized mission command systems,” he added.

Bradley is a U.S. Naval Academy grad who later earned a master’s degree in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School.

According to his Navy bio, he was among the first U.S. servicemembers to deploy to Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

He later served as commander of Special Operations Command Central, which oversees joint special operations throughout the Middle East region, and Naval Special Warfare Development Group, among other leadership positions in the SOF community. He also served with SEAL Team Four and SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team Two.

Bradley’s staff duty positions have included assistant commander, Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC J-3 technical operations division chief and deputy J-3, vice deputy director for global operations for the Joint Staff J-3, executive officer for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and deputy director for CT strategy for the Joint Staff J-5, according to his bio.

He will succeed Gen. Bryan Fenton, a career Green Beret officer, as SOCOM commander.

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The move comes amid a broader modernization push by special ops forces and the Defense Department to add new digital tools and robotic platforms to their arsenal.

In a new subsection for “Advanced Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence,” the amended BAA for technology development noted that SOF is keen on “modular, open integration” of cutting‐edge solutions incorporating AI and machine learning to enable enhanced autonomy in unmanned systems.

“Specific areas of interest include but are not limited to agentic AI and vision language action (VLA) models to achieve more sophisticated autonomous behaviors like adaptive learning; neural radiance fields (NeRFs) for 3D scene representation and navigation; generative AI for simulation and data augmentation; advanced automatic target recognition (ATR) algorithms with edge node refinement and autonomous model retraining; advanced machine learning operations (MLOPs) to support data management, model training, validation, and monitoring,” officials wrote.

They noted that proposed solutions need to be designed with well‐defined interfaces and adherence to open standards to promote interoperability and integration into existing architectures.

Earlier this year, the command re-released its “SOF Renaissance” strategic vision, which observed that innovations in AI, autonomous systems and cyber tools are reshaping warfare and enhancing targeting and strike capabilities.

The document calls for commando forces to be early adopters of these types of technologies. SOCOM has been on the cutting-edge before as an early DOD user of the Maven Smart System, for example.

“The distinction between optimizing and generative AI is crucial and will be a game changer. Swarms of low-cost drones and remote explosive devices, using AI and autonomy, blur traditional human-machine boundaries on the battlefield. SOF must also use these systems to improve decisionmaking and situational awareness,” officials wrote in the strategy.

Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, the current commander of Joint Special Operations Command who’s been nominated by President Donald Trump to be head of SOCOM, said the use of innovative drone capabilities and tactics in places like Ukraine and the Middle East have ushered in a “revolution in military affairs.”

“The changing, accelerating pace of technology, the ubiquitous information environment, and the advent of man-machine teamed autonomy on the battlefields of the world today are absolutely changing the character of warfare … in our very eyes,” Bradley said last week during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He added that legislative proposals such as the FORGED Act and SPEED Act, and other initiatives to reform DOD acquisitions and speed up the fielding of new tech, are “critical to allowing us to use the innovative spirit of our operators to be able to capture those problems and opportunities we see on the battlefield and turn them into new man-machine teamed approaches.”

The amendment to the BAA comes just two weeks after the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office announced the award of $200 million contracts to multiple vendors for “frontier AI” projects.

“The adoption of AI is transforming the Department’s ability to support our warfighters and maintain strategic advantage over our adversaries,” CDAO Doug Matty said in a statement accompanying that announcement. “Leveraging commercially available solutions into an integrated capabilities approach will accelerate the use of advanced AI as part of our Joint mission essential tasks in our warfighting domain as well as intelligence, business, and enterprise information systems.”

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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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The department is conducting market research to inform its pursuit of new radios, antennas and datalinks that can be integrated into drones for commandos to conduct swarm ops.

Via a new pre-solicitation issued Wednesday, officials aim to better understand vendors’ capabilities to provide “Dynamic multi-domain communications capabilities/services within, and/or to, a sUAS swarm in contested and denied environments” and “Data relay (ranging in size and complexity from simple status messages to full motion video) to/from stations inside denied and contested environments.”

The Defense Department expects to begin integrating and fielding these types of capabilities in 18 to 30 months, according to the document. To meet those timelines, officials are interested in items with high technological readiness levels and manufacturing readiness levels.

The program office is encouraging responses from non-traditional vendors and companies that can offer “novel or unconventional approaches” to enable the multi-domain communications and data relay capabilities for Group 2 and/or Group 3 drones, which are on the smaller end of the UAS spectrum.

“There is an expectation to field additional platforms beyond the initial effort. Should [the U.S. government] field initial operational systems, conceivable upgrade cycles could follow regularly. USG may replace any component or integrator during such cycles to maximize operational capabilities with best-in-class technologies,” officials wrote.

U.S. Special Operations Command’s “SOF Renaissance” strategy document, which was re-released in February, noted that “collaborative and autonomous unmanned systems” are an important element of the organization’s modernization plans.

“AI and uncrewed systems are changing warfare through increased automation and autonomy. This leads to more precise targeting and reduced risk to human personnel,” officials wrote. “Swarms of low-cost drones and remote explosive devices, using AI and autonomy, blur traditional human-machine boundaries on the battlefield. SOF must also use these systems to improve decision-making and situational awareness.”

These types of capabilities will enable commando teams to “punch far above their weight,” according to SOCOM.

“Using artificial intelligence to enhance warfighter performance and decision-making further enables new lightweight precision weapons and uncrewed systems to expand SOF’s lethal and non-lethal capabilities,” officials wrote.

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For years, members of Congress and outside experts have derided the U.S. government’s lack of information prowess, which atrophied after the Cold War. For the military, kinetic action typically takes precedence over non-kinetic information activities. And the interagency process can bog down information campaigns.

“There’s a sense of you may not win a war with information operations like you could with artillery, [but] you can certainly lose it if you’re not a key part of that putting out the messages,” Gen. Bryan Fenton, commander of SOCOM, told lawmakers at a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities hearing Tuesday.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., noted that China spends more than $1 billion on information operations to include disinformation and misinformation activities.

When pressed, Colby Jenkins, who’s performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told Shaheen that the Pentagon spends significantly less than that on info ops.

“We don’t have anybody in charge of information operations across, as far as I can [tell] … Defense, State and the administration. And the president just fired Gen. [Timothy] Haugh, the head of Cyber Command … We’ve dismantled our Global Engagement Center at the Department of State. We’re dismantling Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, all of the media that we’ve relied on really since the Cold War to get messaging across, to accurately reflect the position of the United States against our adversaries,” Shaheen said. “Help me understand how we’re able to compete in the information arena when we don’t have anybody in charge and when we’ve lost a lot of our people who are doing that work? … Should we be doing more to resource those information operations?”

Fenton, agreeing with other experts, articulated at a conference in February hosted by NDIA that the national security community should receive the grade of “F” strategically when it comes to information operations.

At the same conference, Jonathan Schroden, research program director at CNA, noted that his colleagues at the research organization conducted the information operations posture review required by Congress a few years ago. One of the findings was there’s no shared understanding of what an information-related capability is across the DOD, and there were around 15 different definitions of what constitutes that type of capability.

“If you can’t even speak the same language between the Navy and the Army and Air Force, my god, how do you expect to do anything effectively?” he said.

Others noted small successes but said they need to do more.

“We’ve had a couple of successes where we’ve been able to connect information operations with the kinetic operation, and we’re high five and slap ourselves in the back. But what was noteworthy is, why aren’t we doing that at scale? And there’s just one example amongst 200 strikes that that’s not sufficient,” Lt. Gen. Sean Farrell, deputy commander of SOCOM, said at the NDIA event. “It’s a drop in the bucket. We need to be better in information operations.”

In congressional testimony before Senate and House panels this week, Fenton noted that a void has been created due to the lack of such activities.

“My sense is that there is a void. You mentioned misinformation, disinformation by any adversary — there’s a void out there that’s not being filled by our message,” Fenton told senators Tuesday.

At a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Information and Special Operations hearing Wednesday, speaking specifically on operations in Africa, Fenton said: “That information operation void, in many ways, I think, allowed adversaries to get in there and [with] mistruths, untruth, falsities, put a different narrative based on their view of the world, what they wanted, and mostly the great work we’ve done for years.”

Fenton told lawmakers the U.S. has good narratives and should be using that to its advantage.

“As United States of America, we’ve got a great message to tell … We take it, certainly in Special Operations Command, with our information ops professionals, to really work at that in concert with … our country teams, our embassy country teams, to put those messages out that assure populations or reassure — and also at points in time, deter adversaries,” he explained.

Fenton wants to flip the military’s mentality. Instead of having kinetic activities followed up by information operations, it should be the other way around, he said at the NDIA event in February.

Delegation of authorities has to go lower as well in order to enable greater speed, he suggested.

“If we’re going to do something, we’re usually swinging behind the 8-ball,” he said. “I think that the delegation probably has got to go to a lot lower level. In many cases, not doing it and the decision to say ‘no’ is probably actually accruing more risk than actually doing it, even if it had a modicum of not getting out there just right.”

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During Senate and House subpanels, military leaders and members of Congress outlined force cuts and budget reductions that have led to risks in missions for special operations forces because, in many cases, the head of Special Operations Command has been forced to tell combatant commanders “no” when they request capabilities.

Headlining the details outlined on Capitol Hill in recent days is the fact that SOCOM has had a flat budget since 2019, leading to a 14% decrease in purchasing power and a 5,000-person reduction in forces across the command over the last three and a half years. That includes reducing roles in communications, logistics, intelligence, civil affairs and psychological operations, and specifically a reduction of 3,000 personnel for military information support operations.    

“SOCOM has operated under stagnant budgets. The limitation of SOF end strength was a very short-sighted decision at a time when SOF capabilities are needed more than ever. We must change course now,” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, said during a hearing Tuesday afternoon. “That is why I intend to work with the DOD to rebuild SOCOM’s budget. Given SOF’s critical role in national security, this is a wise and cost-effective investment.”

That view was shared among other members of the panel, as well as their counterparts in the House.

“I would like to plus them up … A big bump up in funding for the SOF community,” Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, a retired Navy SEAL, told DefenseScoop in an interview Tuesday. “I know for a fact that they are hurting for funding lines, for pots of money in certain places, through discussions with the leadership. My stance is: Hey look, I’m going to work as hard as I can with the members in [House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations] and with the committee to get you what you need, which we are having those discussions.”

A bump in funding for SOF will provide more placement and access for units forward-deployed, Luttrell said. Their global footprint and ability to flex at a moment’s notice provide a defensive posture that exceeds traditional measures, he said, whereas if conventional forces are required to show up, “we are in trouble.”

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., ranking member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, noted that, like how Space Force was excluded from taking cuts, her hope was these high-demand mission sets would be taken into consideration as well.

“[I] just would hope that if there’s someone who’s picking and choosing missions that are going to be cut versus protected, I know you’re advocating, but that we realize that the units that are in highest demand should not be taking the same haircut as everybody else across the force,” she said.

Members of Congress led witnesses in talking about how the cuts to purchasing power and end strength have hurt special operations forces’ ability to meet the requirements of combatant commands, with SOCOM Commander Gen. Bryan Fenton explaining how it’s hurt his ability to offer support.

Combatant command requests are up 35 percent in the last three years due to the need for deterrence, Fenton said. Special operations forces bring a variety of capabilities in the way of building relationships, developing access, providing indications and warnings, closing kill webs or kill chains, and giving commanders options and opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have in the hopes of preventing a drawn-out conflict.

“Where we’ve had to say, ‘no,’ I’ll give you a number: Last December in one of the global force management tanks, I had to say no 41 times to request[s],” Fenton told members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations on Wednesday. “It’s a high compliment that this SOF team is that value proposition to the entire department … [Why] we couldn’t do it, my sense, and I’ll wind this down for you, is two reasons: There’s certainly a capability and capacity piece against the great humans that do that work. And as you know, we’ve been reduced in the past couple years by up to 5,000. But there’s also now a fiscal constraint that’s pulling at us based on an increasingly decreasing top line that now comes into play.”

Others warned of the proposed eight percent cuts the Department of Defense is seeking across the board in a measure to reduce inefficiency and redundancy.

“I’m not a doctor, but if I was, it would be cutting into bone. We are already lean and efficient,” Colby Jenkins, the official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said when asked by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., what an eight percent cut would look like.

To that, Crow added: “There’s no fat in SOCOM. You’re lean and mean as you’re supposed to be.”

Jenkins replied that special forces leaders are doing their best to avoid the negative impacts of DOD-wide budget cuts at all costs.

Aside from deterrence, the cuts in personnel and resources have also hurt SOCOM’s ability to modernize, particularly as the character of war changes, slowing its ability to adopt new technologies such as uncrewed systems, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing and autonomy.

Fenton described that due to a 14 percent reduction in buying power, which equates to about $1 billion, his command is unable to acquire capabilities that might be able to provide asymmetry on the battlefield.

To stress the importance of that, he used the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine, where the Ukrainians have been outmatched in terms of legacy capabilities — tanks, missiles, airplanes and helicopters — against the Russians, but adopted asymmetric tools to impose costs on Russian forces and stay in the fight.

“From the modernization piece first, I think first and foremost, the risk is not winning, not being able to complete the mission in the future environment,” Fenton said. “We’re taking risks there, the inability to get after the things I think that are asymmetric, that are part of the changing character of war, to do it at speed. You could add anything uncrewed, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, autonomy, all that. I think we’re accruing high risk because we as SOCOM are not able to get after that based on a flat top line.”

Fenton noted that, additionally, the acquisition system needs significant modernization to keep up with these emerging technologies driving the changing character of warfare.

He called the current system “outdated” and “glacial,” designed for the old world of aircraft carriers and airplanes, but not suited for the modern battlefield.

“But what we’re seeing through the lens of Ukraine needs to be an acquisition and procurement system that is hyperspeed, supersonic. Because over there, we’re watching the changes in minutes, hours and days,” Fenton told members of the House.

He added that requirements must be addressed and updated by reducing the number of people involved in them to enable a faster cycle between operator, commander and acquisition, such as allowing those downrange to directly inform requirements.

The cycles could also be faster.

“As I think about the requirements process, certainly the buckets of time give us an opportunity to think through multi-year processes,” Fenton said. “Two years might see multi-year. I think to all of us, multi-year probably needs to be five-to-10 years so we can move at the speed and evolution of what we’re seeing out on the battlefield.”

Fenton also advocated for consolidating the “colors” of money and compressing multiple funding pots. Within the DOD, funds are divided into separate categories of operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development, and they must be used only for those purposes, negating flexibility to move around additional allocated funds if needs require more in another pot.

“I think there’s a way to take a lot of that off, compress the multiple lines to just a couple and really modernize there,” Fenton said.

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Under the three-year, $86 million deal, the contractor will serve as SOCOM’s “Mission Autonomy Systems Integration Partner,” according to a press release.

So-called “collaborative autonomy” capabilities are on the command’s technology wish list.

The organization’s new strategy document, dubbed “SOF Renaissance,” notes that special ops forces must be early adopters at the Defense Department of innovations in areas such as AI, autonomous systems and cyber to enhance irregular warfare capabilities in complex operating environments.

“AI and uncrewed systems are changing warfare through increased automation and autonomy. This leads to more precise targeting and reduced risk to human personnel. The distinction between optimizing and generative AI is crucial and will be a game changer. Swarms of low-cost drones and remote explosive devices, using AI and autonomy, blur traditional human-machine boundaries on the battlefield. SOF must also use these systems to improve decisionmaking and situational awareness,” officials wrote in the document.

The command wants a variety of uncrewed systems for the air, land and sea domains. Officials are even eyeing robotic platforms that can operate in multiple warfighting domains, such as “multi-domain” micro drones and “Drone in a Box” technologies.

“To achieve the benefits of affordable enterprise capability, operators must be able to task teams of diverse, multi-domain autonomous systems to work together and execute a given mission. This requires mission autonomy software capable of integrating and coordinating multiple vehicles’ control systems, sensors, weapons, and other payloads to synchronize effects on the battlefield,” Anduril stated in a press release announcing the new contract award.

The company is touting its AI-enabled Lattice platform as an enabler of the autonomy software infrastructure that will give commandos the tools to interact and wage war with “teams of diverse autonomous systems” and deliver “coordinated mass effects.”

“As the Mission Autonomy Systems Integration Partner (SIP), Anduril will support USSOCOM in developing their infrastructure, enabling them to integrate, test, validate, and deploy government-owned and commercial mission autonomy software and enabling technology across their robotic platforms,” per the release.

The company plans to “prove out” software in the coming months via a series of demonstrations and integration events ahead of operational fielding.

This isn’t the first time that Anduril has been tapped by the Defense Department to provide these types of capabilities.

Last year, the company was one of three firms selected by the Defense innovation Unit to provide tools to facilitate “the automated coordination of swarms of hundreds or thousands of uncrewed assets across multiple domains in order to improve their lethality and efficiency.”

Anduril is offering its Lattice tech for that effort, which is supporting the Pentagon’s Replicator autonomous systems initiative.

“While these [unmanned] systems are valuable as single agents or swarms of like systems, they are most resilient and effective when they operate in combined teams that can collaborate with other types of systems across domains. Resilient C2 and collaborative autonomy vendors will enhance the effectiveness of these systems by providing user interfaces, collaborative autonomy architectures and software, and network orchestration,” DIU officials wrote in a release when the awards for the Autonomous Collaborative Teaming program were announced last year.

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The SOFWERX innovation hub and SOCOM’s program executive office for tactical information systems are gearing up for assessment events to evaluate industry solutions.

The office intends to “explore available capabilities that can support USSOCOM’s vision for a configurable uncrewed air/ground system. This system should enable the Warfighter to adapt and respond to evolving multidomain mission sets, providing a flexible and dynamic solution that can be tailored to meet the unique demands of modern warfare,” according to a special notice.

The technology could support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, allowing commandos to employ small drones or ground robots for tasks such as area observation, target tracking and battle damage assessment.

“This innovative approach enables operators to rapidly reconfigure and tailor their systems to meet specific ISR mission requirements by swapping out interchangeable parts and components from an assembly package. The assembly package will include modular frames, propulsion systems, a sensor, and payload modules (such as electro-optical, infrared, and signals intelligence sensors), power and energy modules, control and navigation systems, and communication systems, allowing Warfighters to quickly adapt to changing mission requirements,” officials wrote in the document, noting that the ground robot capability could be used in areas that aren’t as conducive to deploying unmanned aerial systems — such as places with buildings or heavy tree cover that would obscure the view of sensors on UAS flying overhead.

Officials didn’t specify whether the uncrewed systems should be tele-operated or fly and drive with a high level of autonomy. However, SOCOM has previously shown interest in AI and other technologies that could enable autonomous capabilities for ISR ops.

SOFWERX is planning to host a collaboration event with industry in April to discuss operational needs and assess “current capabilities of production model solutions for a configurable multidomain system.”

The next phase will include vendor submissions for a follow-on assessment event, which is slated to take place in July after a downselect.

Following the assessments, SOCOM may negotiate awards with vendors whose solutions are favorably evaluated.

Industry responses to the special notice are due March 24.

This initiative isn’t the first time that SOCOM has shown an interest in “multidomain” uncrewed systems. Just a few months ago, the command released a special notice about its desire for micro drones that could be launched from a variety of platforms and operate in multiple domains — including in the air and underwater.

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The move follows an executive order issued last week by President Donald Trump, which aims for “a transformation in Federal spending on contracts, grants, and loans to ensure Government spending is transparent and Government employees are accountable to the American public,” according to the EO.

The effort is part of the new administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiatives, which are being spearheaded by billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk.

“Each Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, shall conduct a comprehensive review of each agency’s contracting policies, procedures, and personnel. Each Agency Head shall complete this process within 30 days of the date of this order and shall not issue or approve new contracting officer warrants during the review period, unless the Agency Head determines such approval is necessary,” per the EO, which was issued Feb. 26. The order also called for agencies to build centralized systems to track every payment they issue for contracts, grants and other expenditures.

DOD’s review, which has major implications for contractors who do business with the department, is now underway.

“My staff and I are presently conducting this review to determine where we might achieve efficiencies to save American taxpayers’ money while executing contracting operations in support of our nation’s defense,” John Tenaglia, the Pentagon’s principal director of defense pricing, contracting and acquisition policy, wrote in a new memo signed Wednesday.

The memo was directed to acquisition and procurement leaders at the Departments of the Army, Navy and Air Force, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Transportation Command, and Defense agency and DOD field activity directors.

“Per the EO, Components are directed to forgo issuing new contracting officer warrant appointments to DoD civilian staff members until March 28, 2025, the duration of the review period. On an exception basis, the Secretaries of the Military Departments may approve warrant appointments as necessary for civilian staff members during this period. Given the fact the EO is inapplicable to uniformed service members, there is no restriction on contracting officer warrant appointments to uniformed members of the military,” Tenaglia noted.

He added that he welcomed memo recipients’ input about “specific policy, procedure, and workforce matters we should address to further strengthen our contracting operations toward more affordable defense capabilities for the Warfighter.”

The new memo comes as the DOD is carrying out other cost-cutting initiatives.

On Monday, Darin Selnick, who is performing the duties of undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, issued a memo stating that the planned firing of probationary employees would commence March 3.

“The Department will continue taking steps to implement President Trump’s direction to restore accountability to the American public, reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition, and faithfully and responsibly manage taxpayer dollars,” he wrote.

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Sonic Spear, beginning in April with elements peppered into other exercises throughout the year, will be SOCOM’s first opportunity as a combatant command to host such an event as opposed to tabletop exercises. The gathering will test the command’s ability to synchronize joint special operations effects from seabed to low-Earth orbit in support of the joint force and integrate those to support a joint task force commander, according to a command spokesperson.

Overall, the event will help validate how service components to SOCOM provide forces to it and geographic combatant commands, exercising those offerings and integrating them into a truly joint special operations force presentation, they added.

Special ops forces, much like the conventional units within the U.S. military, are taking a harder look at how to integrate capabilities seamlessly across all the domains of warfare. Commandos and conventional forces have historically been too siloed in their approaches to employing capabilities, looking at single domains rather than a more integrated arrangement.

The exercise will also help SOCOM look at different technologies, such as robotics, and the future investments it might need in those areas.

“Let’s look at our investments. We have a lot of autonomy investments happening across the force. We want to hold ourselves accountable … Robots can do what we told them to do. They can drop track quality data into the Joint Fires Network, theater agnostic, and then all those actions put together can support, again, the SOF effects that support joint SOF maneuver,” Lt. Gen. Francis Donovan, vice commander of SOCOM, said Feb. 20 at the Special Operations Symposium hosted by NDIA. “Sonic Spear 25 is our first go at this. That’s where we’re going to look at again, seabed to low-Earth orbit, what are our gaps and seams? Let’s push our autonomous investments, some other investments we’re making … and what do our forward forces need to be able to control ourselves, control our robots and then link in with the joint force.”

This all builds towards SOCOM’s eventual model for an emerging O-6 — colonel or Navy captain — level multi-domain special operations task force.  

Special ops historically has integrated multiple O-5 — lieutenant colonel or Navy commander — and O-6 forces from individual components under a general or admiral. The new model under development will look to integrate those joint special operations forces at the O-6 level to enable them across each domain, to include space and cyber.

With the need to integrate capabilities seamlessly across domains, combined with adversary actions that will disperse friendly forces, the forthcoming task force will allow commando formations to conduct synchronized operations at levels historically held at higher echelons, the SOCOM spokesperson said.

“That is our first step to moving forward of a SOF force presentation model that looks a little different from the past. We’ll eventually have a multi-domain special operations task force at the O-6 level that can synchronize SOF effects, seabed to low-Earth orbit in support of the joint force. Yes, that’s what we’re building towards. But we have to start somewhere,” Donovan said of Sonic Spear 25.

While this year will be relatively rudimentary as the first instantiation, he said officials hope to evolve it — adding in electromagnetic interference, for example — culminating in 2027 with “a joint SOF force offering.”

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