To Preserve Extended Nuclear
Deterrence in Europe an American
Should be SACEUR
April 2025 Eric S. Edelman and Franklin C. Miller
Introduction
Recent press reports suggest that Pentagon leaders are considering a dramatic organizational change: relinquishing the
traditional U.S. role of providing NATO with its Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR).
This would be deeply unwise and
potentially dangerous for the United States, as well as for our European allies. Since December 1950, when General Dwight D.
Eisenhower became the first Supreme Allied Commander of the newly created North Atlantic Alliance, the position has been
filled by an American. This is not spelled out in any formal document. Rather, it is a norm that has been honored by the
Alliance for almost 80 years because the United States is the alliance’s strongest member. It also serves as an important sign of
Washington’s commitment to European defense. And it underpins the forward deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons on the
territory of select European NATO members, which remains central to extended deterrence.
When Eisenhower assumed command he was able to build up the integrated military structure of NATO in less than two years.
This accomplishment was due in large part to his stature and coalition building experience as the organizer of Europe’s
liberation during World War II, and was achieved in the face of ambivalence on the part of many Europeans and Americans.
When he departed Paris in spring 1952 to return to the United States, it was explicitly to ensure that the green shoots he had
planted would survive the vicissitudes of American politics.
As far back as 1948, Eisenhower was accustomed to American politicians and civic leaders beseeching him to run for
President. Ike, however, was reluctant to enter the political fray. As the definitive history of the 1952 election notes, “it would
not be the appeals of outsiders that would push Eisenhower into declaring his candidacy. Rather it would be his belief that he
had to save the country, and the collective security of the world, from Robert Taft.” Before he went to assume his role at NATO
in 1950, Eisenhower met secretly with the Ohio Senator and putative front runner for the 1952 GOP nomination to oppose
President Truman. Ike was prepared to issue a Shermanesque statement eschewing any effort to become a candidate himself if
only Taft, who had opposed the North Atlantic Treaty in the United States Senate in 1948, would agree to support NATO and
collective security. Taft refused and ultimately Eisenhower yielded to the entreaties of conservative internationalists in the
Courtney Kube and Gordon Lubold, “Trump Admin Considers Giving Up NATO Command That Has Been Exclusively American Since Eisenhower,” NBC News, March
18, 2025 at: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-admin-considers-giving-nato-command-exclusively-american-eisenho-rcna196503.
Why Has SACEUR always been an American? at:
https://shape.nato.int/page214845858#:~:text=Even%20since%201950%2C%20when%20the,no%20specific%20individual%20is%20recommended.
Alexander M. Bielakowski, “Eisenhower: The First NATO SACEUR,” War and Society, 22:2 pp. 95-108.
