“It was a war (mot Serbien) waged by a nineteen-nation alliance that habitually looked to the United States for leadership but ultimately made decisions on the basis of consensus and then delegated their implementation to a multinational military chain of command.
As the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, I was the head of the NATO military chain of command within Europe and responsible for implementing those decisions. And though decisions were made at higher political levels, much of the information to make those decisions came from my commanders and me. I also held another command position, that of U.S. Commander in Chief, European Command. It was a process known as ´dual-hatting`, complete with two different, geographically dispersed headquarters – NATO´s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), near Mons, Belgium and the U.S European Command (EUCOM), in Stuttgart, Germany – two different staffs, and two entirely different reporting chains. It was a linkage designed by General Eisenhower himself.”
“In fact, I was operating under two lines of authority, one from the Secretary of Defense (USA:s) and one from the NATO Secretary General.”
“However, it was also true that nations generally influenced NATO actions in proportion to their commitment of forces. Those nations that contributed the most carried the greatest weight in the Council in the military decision process, and in the informal consultations. Those that contributed less, influenced less.
Realistically, the relative powers of member nations tend to be recognized in all multinational organizations, including NATO. The United States had always had the greatest power and the greatest influence. But during the cold war the problem was that the United States was not vulnerable in the event of a war in the same way as its European allies, and there were continuing concerns that the United States would somehow become ´decoupled` from its European allies.
Ironically, a similar rift was a factor in the Kosovo crisis, because American commitments to potential crises in the Persian Gulf and Korea took priority in U.S. policy over problems in Europe. During the summer and fall of 1998 the United States seemed more concerned with Saddam Hussein´s violation of the U.N. sanctions regime in Iraq than with the potential of another crisis in former Yugoslavia. This meant that NATO was depending for leadership on a nation whose security interests lay elsewhere. This is not an impossible situation, but the manner in which Washington expressed and acted on its priorities, however reasoned they may have seemed to the Americans, did not always inspire confidence among several European nations.”
Citaten är hämtade från den amerikanske generalen Wesley K. Clarks bok WAGING MODERN WAR, PublicAffairs, 2001. Han hade som befälhavare för alliansens styrkor och USA:s styrkor i Europa en ledande militär roll i planeringen och genomförandet av Natos folkrättsstridiga bombkrig mot Serbien. Det må anmärkas att kommandolinjerna är oförändrade och att de ”dubbla hattarna” alltjämt bärs av en amerikansk general.