NATO's Military Command Structure
The stipulations contained in the Act have caused significant controversy during debates over NATO's military command structure. Both Striking Fleet Atlantic and the United States Sixth Fleet have never been allowed to be placed anywhere but directly under American commanding officers — the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic and Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe, because the dominant legal interpretation of the McMahon Act has been that nuclear striking forces cannot be controlled by non-US commanders. This was the reason for the formation of Striking Fleet Atlantic as an independent entity, instead of being operationally subordinated to the UK Admiral serving as Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Atlantic, in October–November 1952. This was also the reason why the Sixth Fleet, in its NATO guise as Naval Striking and Support Force, South, was placed under American control rather than Allied Forces Mediterranean when the European commands were agreed at the same time. The Act was also probably a factor in the American refusal to allow a French officer to take command of Allied Forces Southern Europe in 1997.
Read more about this topic: Atomic Energy Act Of 1946
Famous quotes containing the words military, command and/or structure:
“We’re in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The philosopher believes that the value of his philosophy lies in its totality, in its structure: posterity discovers it in the stones with which he built and with which other structures are subsequently built that are frequently better—and so, in the fact that that structure can be demolished and yet still possess value as material.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)