Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe 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. In 2012 and 2013, NATO underwent a reorganization of the military command, and the land component commands at Heidelberg and Madrid were deactivated, the maritime component command at Naples was closed and the air component command at Izmir also shut down. Today Allied Command Operations (ACO) is one of the two strategic commands of NATO (the other being Allied Command Transformation (ACT). Under this structure, there are two joint force operational headquarters
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe 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. In addition to the two continental commands AFNORTHWEST covered the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. An early retirement again disrupted the Mons headquarters in 2000 as General Wesley Clark