As the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia continues, there's been a torrent of milspeak (that's "military speech"). Here is a partial list of military terms and their English equivalents:

AAA: ("Triple-A"): Anti-Aircraft Artillery

AAM: Air-to-Air Missile

ACE: Allied Command Europe

AGM: Air-to-Ground Missile

ALCM (al-come): Air-Launched Cruise Missile

BDA: Battle Damage Assessment C4I (C-four-eye): Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence

CIMIC: Civil Military Cooperation Office

Collateral damage: Destroying or damaging a site next to an intended target

CJTF: Combined Joint Task Force, running humanitarian operations in Albania and Macedonia

DPA: Dayton Peace Accords

Deconflicted: Used by Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon to describe Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, when allied forces couldn't bomb it because a Cypriot peace envoy was there

Degrade: To reduce enemy forces

FRY: Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

FYROM: Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

GBU: Guided Bomb Unit, a so-called "smart bomb"

HARM: High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile, used to attack anti-aircraft radars

ICTY: International Criminal Trial for the former Yugoslavia

JDAM: A Joint Direct Attack Munition is a satellite guidance kit that makes a free-fall bomb into a "smart" bomb. Ideal for destroying bridges, hangers and command bunkers

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

OSCE: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

MUP: Ministarstvo Unutrasnjih Poslova, the Serbian Interior Ministry

Permissive Environment: A situation in which troops are not at risk

PSYOPS: Psychological operations, such as dropping leaflets

RRTF: Reconstruction and Returns Task Force

SACEUR (Sack-your): Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the senior NATO military commander in Europe

SAM: Surface-to-Air Missile

SFOR: The NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina

SHAPE: Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe

STANAVFORMED: Standing Naval Forces Mediterranean

TLAM: Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile, the Navy version of the cruise missile

UAV: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, a pilotless drone used to collect information on armor and troop deployment

UCK: Kosovo Liberation Army, also known as the KLA

Pub Date: 4/12/99