Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic - History

History

Soon after its formation, ACLANT together with Allied Command Europe carried out the large exercise Exercise Mainbrace, Throughout the Cold War years, SACLANT carried out many other exercises, such as Operation Mariner in 1953 and Operation Strikeback in 1957, as well as the Northern Wedding and Ocean Safari series of naval exercises during the 1970s and 1980s. The command also played a critical role in the annual Exercise REFORGER from the 1970s onwards. Following the end of the Cold War, the Command was reduced in status and size, with many of its subordinate headquarters spread across the Atlantic area losing their NATO status and funding. However, the basic structure remained in place until the Prague Summit in the Czech Republic in 2002.

Carrier-based air strike operations in the Norwegian Sea pioneered by Operation Strikeback became the cornerstone of the forward defense of NATO's northern flank as set forth in the U.S. Navy's Maritime Strategy. The Maritime Strategy was published in 1984, championed by Secretary of the Navy John Lehman and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral James D. Watkins, USN, during the Reagan Administration, and practiced in NATO naval exercises such as Ocean Safari '85 and Northern Wedding '86.

In a 2008 article, retired General Bernard E. Trainor, USMC, noted the success of this maritime strategy:

By going on the immediate offensive in the high north and putting the Soviets on the defensive in their home waters, the Maritime Strategy not only served to defend Scandinavia, but also served to mitigate the SLOC problem. The likelihood of timely reinforcement of NATO from the United States was now more than a pious hope. With the emergence of an offensive strategy in the 1980s, a change in mindset was energized by concurrent dramatic advances in American technology, especially in C4ISR and weapon systems, that were rapidly offsetting Soviet numerical and material superiority in Europe. No lesser light than the USSR Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov warned that American superiority was shifting the "correlation of forces" in NATO's favor. He called the phenomenon a "military technological revolution." By the end of the decade the military threat from the Soviet Union was consigned to the dust bin of history and with it, the Cold War.

The U.S. Navy's Forward Maritime Strategy provided the strategic rationale for the 600-ship Navy program.

Allied Command Atlantic was decommissioned effective 19 June 2003, and a new Allied Command Transformation (ACT) was established as its successor. This new NATO command is headed by the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), up to 2009 an American four-star admiral or general who is dual-hatted as commander, United States Joint Forces Command (COMUSJFCOM), with SACLANT's former military missions folded into NATO's Allied Command Operations (ACO).