all Snuffy Smith is doing, then, is executing decided American policy?
Right. Snuffy Smith has a list of tasks that are given to him by NATO. He fulfills those tasks. They’re very narrow. Of course, he’s also got the authority to act in whatever way he wants. If he decides that it is necessary to protect grave sites, he can do so. If he decides it’s necessary to go after war criminals, he can do so. But he doesn’t have to. … It’s his decision as the man on the ground. That he would make on the basis of military judgment? The military needs to make a judgment about … how the tasks that it has been assigned will be executed. And Snuffy Smith, as the commander on the ground, decides how to do that. Now, if somebody higher up tells him to do something different, he’ll do it differently. And, in fact, he at times gets told to do something differently. [What do you mean] by a higher up? Shalikashvili or the Secretary of Defense. Formally he works, of course, for the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, who’s an American general in NATO. But that American gen
