Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe " Not to be confused with Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force ( SHAEF ) . " Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe ( SHAPE ) is the central command of NATO military forces . Since 1967 it has been located at Casteau , north of the Belgian city of Mons , but it had previously been located , from 1953 , at Fontainebleau , France . From 1951 to 2003 , SHAPE was the headquarters of operational forces in the European theatre ( Allied Command Europe , ACE ) , but since 2003 it has been the headquarters of Allied Command Operations ( ACO ) , controlling all allied operations worldwide . SHAPE retained its traditional name with reference to Europe for legal reasons although the geographical scope of its activities was extended in 2003 . At that time , NATO ' s command in Lisbon , historically part of the Atlantic command , was reassigned to ACO . The commanding officer of Allied Command Operations has also retained the title " Supreme Allied Commander Europe " ( SACEUR ) , and continues to be a U . S . four - star general officer or flag officer who also serves as Commander , U . S . European Command . History . An integrated military structure for NATO was first established after the Korean War raised questions over the strength of Europe ' s defences against a Soviet attack . The first choice for commander in Europe was U . S . Army General Dwight D . Eisenhower , as he had successfully directed the Allied landings and subsequent march into Germany during World War II , amid many inter - Allied controversies over the proper conduct of the campaign in the western theatre . On December 19 , 1950 the North Atlantic Council announced the appointment of General Eisenhower as the first SACEUR . Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery moved over from the predecessor Western Union Defence Organization ( WUDO ) to become the first Deputy SACEUR , who would serve until 1958 . Volume 3 of Nigel Hamilton ' s " Life of Montgomery of Alamein " gives a good account of Montgomery ' s exacting , tireless approach to improving the command ' s readiness , which however caused a good deal of bruised feelings in doing so . In establishing the command , the first NATO planners drew extensively on WUDO plans and personnel . General Eisenhower arrived in Paris on January 1 , 1951 and quickly set to work with a small group of planners to devise a structure for the new European command . The Planning Group worked in the Hotel Astoria in central Paris while construction of a permanent facility began at Rocquencourt , just west of the city , at Camp Voluceau . In December 1950 it was announced that the forces initially to come under General Eisenhower ' s command were to be the Seventh United States Army in Germany , the British Army of the Rhine , with 2nd Infantry Division & 7th Armoured Divisions , to be bolstered by 11th Armoured Division and a further infantry division , three French divisions in Germany and Austria , the Danish , Belgian , and the Independent Norwegian Brigades in Western Germany , and the American and British garrisons in Austria , Trieste , and Berlin . Four days after Eisenhower ' s arrival in Paris , on 5 January 1951 , the Italian defence minister , Signor Pacciardi , announced that three Italian divisions were to be formed as Italy ' s ' initial contribution to the Atlantic army ’ , and that these divisions would also come under Eisenhower ' s control . Initial command structure . On April 2 , 1951 General Eisenhower signed the activation order for Allied Command Europe and its headquarters at SHAPE . Headquarters , Allied Forces Central Europe ( AFCENT ) was activated in Fontainebleau , France in 1953 . On the same day ACE ’ s subordinate headquarters in Northern and Central Europe were activated , with the Southern Region following in June . By 1954 ACE ' s forces consisted of Allied Forces Northern Europe , at Oslo , Allied Forces Central Europe ( Fontainebleau ) , Allied Forces Southern Europe ( Paris / Naples ) and Allied Forces Mediterranean at Malta . The commanders and commands in 1957 were : Plans and exercises . Four exercises were conducted in the ACE area during autumn 1952 . " Blue Alliance " was a major allied air force exercise for the Allied Air Forces Central Europe ( AAFCE ) to achieve air supremacy over the Central European front and provide close air support to NORTHAG ground forces under the overall command of Lt . General Lauris Norstad , USAF . Two 1952 central region exercises involved air - ground combined forces . " Equinox " was a major air - ground exercise involving French - American tactical air units and a French airborne infantry unit under the command of " Général d ' Armée " Alphonse Juin , French Army . " Holdfast " was a major allied air - ground exercise involving 150 , 000 British Army of the Rhine , Dutch , Belgian and Canadian troops of NATO ' s Northern Army Group in coordination with the Allied Air Forces Central Europe . They maneuvered east of the Rhine River in the British Zone under the overall command of Lt . General Sir Richard Nelson Gale , British Army . Finally , " Rosebud " involved ground maneuvers by the U . S . Seventh Army in the American Zone of Occupation of Allied - occupied Germany . The initial plans saw the defence of Western Europe from a Soviet invasion resting heavily on nuclear weapons ( ' Massive retaliation ' ) , with conventional forces merely acting as a ' tripwire . ' The policy enunciated in Military Committee document MC14 / 1 , issued in December 1952 , saw the defence of Germany as principally a delaying action , to allow a line of resistance to be established along the lines of the IJssel and Rhine rivers . The conventional forces would attempt to hold this line while the allied strategic air forces defeated the Soviets and their allies by destroying their economy and infrastructure . What this strategy meant for the land battle in the central region was described for publicity purposes in January 1954 by then - Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alfred Gruenther as : In 1957 , SACEUR General Lauris Norstad , USAF , noting the numerical superiority of Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces over NATO ground forces , called for " about 30 divisions ” to augment NATO ’ s central European front . That year Allied Command Europe carried out Operation Counter Punch , which involved AFCENT forces on the European mainland , and two other major military exercises in September 1957 . Operation Strikeback was a series of multilateral naval exercises that concentrated on NATO ' s eastern Atlantic / northern European flank . Operation Deep Water involved NATO carrier and amphibious assault forces operating along NATO ' s southern flank in the Mediterranean Sea . To improve alliance military readiness and integration , NATO continued to hold annual alliance - wide military exercises each autumn ( " FALLEX " ) that was jointly planned and executed by SACEUR and SACLANT forces . From 1967 however , under ' flexible response , ' the aim became to build up conventional forces so that , if possible , nuclear weapons might not be needed . However it was made clear that first use of nuclear weapons might be necessary if the conventional defences were being overwhelmed . Eventually SACEUR was allocated planning control of a small number of US and British ballistic missile submarines , and some 7 , 000 tactical nuclear weapon s were deployed in Europe . Relocation to Belgium . One of the most significant events in the history of Allied Command Europe ( ACE ) was France ’ s withdrawal from NATO ’ s integrated military structure . This move forced SHAPE and several other ACE headquarters to leave French territory . France ' s resentment over NATO ’ s military structure had been brewing for a number of years , as successive French governments had become increasingly incensed with Anglo - American domination of the command structure and insufficient French influence . In February 1966 President Charles de Gaulle stated that the changed world order had " stripped NATO of its justification " for military integration , and soon afterward , France stated that it was withdrawing from the NATO military structure . SHAPE and all the other NATO installations , including NATO Headquarters and Allied Forces Central Europe ( AFCENT ) , were informed that they must leave French territory by April 1967 . Belgium became the host nation for both NATO ' s political headquarters and SHAPE . General Lyman Lemnitzer , SACEUR at the time , had hoped that SHAPE could be located near to NATO Headquarters , as had been the case in Paris , but the Belgian authorities decided that SHAPE should be located at least 50 kilometres from Brussels , NATO ’ s new location , because SHAPE was a major wartime military target . The Belgian government offered Camp Casteau , a 2 km² Belgian Army summer training camp near Mons , which was an area in serious need of additional economic investment . In September 1966 , NATO agreed that Belgium should host SHAPE at Casteau . SHAPE closed its facility at Rocquencourt near Paris on 30 March 1967 , and the next day held a ceremony to mark the opening of the new headquarters at Casteau . The drawdown of the British Mediterranean Fleet , the military difficulties of the politically - decided command structure , and the withdrawal of the French from the military command structure forced a rearrangement of the command arrangements in the southern region . Allied Forces Mediterranean was disbanded on 5 June 1967 , and all forces in the south and the Mediterranean assigned to AFSOUTH in Naples . This left SHAPE and Allied Command Europe with three commands : AFNORTH covering Norway and Denmark , AFCENT most of Germany , and AFSOUTH Italy , Turkey , Greece , and the rest of the southern region . 1970s and after . The headquarters ' new home in Mons , Belgium , was the center of international attention from time to time as new Supreme Allied Commanders came and went , with one of the more notable being General Alexander M . Haig , Jr . Haig , who had retired from military service in order to serve as White House Chief of Staff for President Richard Nixon during the depths of the Watergate crisis , was abruptly installed as SACEUR after Watergate ' s denouement . A creature of habit , Haig took the same route to SHAPE every day – a pattern of behavior that did not go unnoticed by terrorist groups . On June 25 , 1979 , Haig was the apparent target of an assassination attempt in Mons , Belgium . A land mine blew up under the bridge on which Haig ' s car was traveling , narrowly missing Haig ' s car , but wounding three of his bodyguards in a following car . Authorities later attributed responsibility for the attack to the Red Army Faction ( RAF ) . Haig ' s successor , General Bernard Rogers , became somewhat of an institution in Europe as the former U . S . Army chief of staff occupied the office for nearly eight years ; a brief outcry arose from the other NATO capitals when Rogers was slated for retirement by the U . S . administration in 1987 . SHAPE High School , a US Department of Defense Dependents high school ( DoDDS ) for grade 7 - 12 dependents of people associated with SHAPE , is in Casteau , north of Mons . Command structure – 1982 . Source : IISS Military Balance 1981 - 82 , p . 25 ACE in 1986 had three major subordinate commands ( MSCs ) , one each for Northern , Central , and Southern Europe , as well as smaller commands . After much discussion within the Alliance , ACE ' s three - command system was reduced to two commands after 1996 , one for north of the Alps and one for south of the Alps . The United States had wished to retain three commands , arguing that ' the span of control might be excessive . ' It was feared by Pentagon officials at the time that if the two - command structure was adopted , some functions at the MSC level would have had to be moved ' downward ' in the new structure . But while the United States eventually had to give in on a reduction to two commands , it was successful in that a European officer was not placed in charge of the new southern command ( now Allied Joint Force Command Naples ) , a move which France and Germany supported . Despite French President Jacques Chirac exchanging letters with Bill Clinton personally over the issue in September – October 1997 , the United States stood firm and today an American admiral remains in charge of the Naples command . An early retirement again disrupted the Mons headquarters in 2000 as General Wesley Clark was shunted aside in favor of Air Force general Joseph Ralston . Although the move was publicly characterized as a purely administrative move necessitated by Clark ' s approaching retirement and the lack of an open four - star slot for the highly respected Ralston [ a reality which would have compelled him to either accept a temporary demotion to two - star rank or retire from the service ] , Clark ' s relief has been often seen as a slap at the general on the part of a Pentagon leadership that had been very much at odds with him during the Kosovo war the previous spring . In 2003 , a French flag was set up in the SHAPE headquarters in Mons following the return , after almost forty years , of French military officers to the HQ . Fifteen French military officers , including General Jean - Jacques Bart , work there , of a total amount of 1 , 100 personnel . They are however considered as " inserted , " and not as " integrated , " as they cannot be ordered to move without previous French approval . Structure today . Today Allied Command Operations ( ACO ) , is one of the two supreme commands of NATO ( the other being Allied Command Transformation , ACT ) . There are three main headquarters under Allied Command Operations : Between 2003 and 2006 , a new category of forces , the NATO Force Structure , was created , principally to improve the flexibility and reach of land forces . The structure incorporates six " NATO Rapid Deployable Corps headquarters , " and two lower readiness land headquarters . Three naval headquarters are also part of this structure , with two other naval headquarters , contributed by France and the USA , also affiliated . Formed from October 2003 , the NATO Rapidly Deployable Corps are designated High Readiness Forces ( HRF ) , designed to be able to react on short notice . Although these forces can not deploy on five days warning like the NATO Response Force ( NRF ) , they have a longer than 30 days sustainment capability in combat than the NRF . The Multinational Corps Northeast ( MNC NE ) headquartered in Szczecin , Poland , is seen along with the downgraded Greek NRD , as the third echelon deployable force in the NATO rapid deployment capability . The Eurocorps HQ , in Strasbourg , France , is nominally an EU force with a technical agreement linking it to NATO . Certification of the following High Readiness Forces ( Maritime ) Headquarters took place in 2004 : Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO ( STRIKFORNATO ) , homeported at Gaeta , Italy , whose lead nation is the USA , is commanded by Commander United States Sixth Fleet , and is also part of the NATO Force Structure . STRIKFORNATO is the only command capable of leading an expanded maritime task force . The final formation is Commander French Maritime Forces , initially aboard the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle but now aboard the amphibious ship " Mistral " . The French naval component is drawn from the Force d ' Action Navale , the French Navy ' s surface fleet . Island Commander , Iceland , remains in existence as a detachment of HQ ACO , as does Allied Submarine Command , a NATO command based on the United States Navy ' s ComSubLant . A special operations coordination centre and an intelligence fusion centre have also recently been formed within SHAPE . As more capable rapid reaction forces were established , earlier ' fire brigades , ' including the Allied Command Europe ( ACE ) Mobile Force – Land ( AMF ( L ) ) , were disbanded ; AMF ( L ) was disbanded on 30 or 31 October 2002 . In addition to this Allied Command Operations has at its disposal standing forces such as : Airlift support for SACEUR ' s travels is provided by the USAF ' s 309th Airlift Squadron at Chièvres Air Base , Belgium . Supreme Allied Commander Europe ( SACEUR ) . Since 2003 the Supreme Allied Commander Europe has also served as the head of Allied Command Europe and the head of Allied Command Operations . Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe ( Deputy SACEUR ) . The position of deputy head of Allied Command Europe – since 2003 known as deputy head of Allied Command Operations – has been held by the following officers . From January 1978 until June 1993 there were two Deputy SACEURs , one British and one German , but from July 1993 this reverted to a single Deputy SACEUR .