European Union Force Althea is a military deployment in Bosnia and Herzegovina to oversee the military implementation of the Dayton Agreement. It is the successor to NATO's SFOR and IFOR. The transition from SFOR to EUFOR was largely a change of name and commanders: 80% of the troops remained in place. It replaced the NATO-led SFOR on 2 December 2004.

Civilian implementation of the Dayton Agreement is enforced by the Office of High Representative. EUFOR has 2,503 troops from 27 countries, mostly from the countries of the European Union. There are however, additional troops from other countries such as Chile and Turkey.

EUFOR's commander is currently Major General Bernhard Bair (Austrian), since December 2009. For this mission, the European Union Military Staff is using NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) as the EU's Operational Headquarters (OHQ) and is working through the Deputy to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, a European officer.

The EUFOR assumed all the missions of the SFOR, except for the hunt for individuals indicted by the war criminals tribunal, notably Radovan Karadžić, former leader of Republika Srpska, and Ratko Mladić, their former military leader, which remained a mission for NATO through NATO Headquarters Sarajevo. The EUFOR does have police duties against organised crime, which is believed to be linked to suspected war criminals. It works with the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUPM) and with the Bosnian Police.

General Sir Alexander Richard David Shirreff KCB CBE (born 1955) is the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

Educated at Oundle School and Exeter College, Oxford, Richard Shirreff was commissioned into the 14th/20th King's Hussars in 1976.

He is married to Sarah-Jane and has two children.

Having seen active service during the Gulf War in 1991, Richard Shirreff was appointed Commanding Officer of the King's Royal Hussars in 1994. He deployed his Regiment to Northern Ireland in 1995 and then became Colonel - Army Plans at the Ministry of Defence in 1996. In 1998 he became Commander of 7th Armoured Brigade which was deployed to Kosovo. In 2003 he became Chief of Staff at Land Command and in 2005 he became General Officer Commanding 3rd (UK) Mechanised Division which deployed as HQ Multinational Division South East in Iraq in July 2006.

In January 2007 he was appointed Commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.

He was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service in November 1995 and appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in April 2001 and Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2010 New Year Honours.