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“TRIBUTE TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL SAMUEL A. GREAVES” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S3050-S3051 on May 22, 2019.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL SAMUEL A. GREAVES
Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Lt. Gen. Samuel A. Greaves, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, on the advent of his retirement from the U.S. Air Force after 37 years of military service to this great country.
General Greaves' long and storied career began when he was commissioned in 1982 through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps Program after he graduated from Cornell University. Throughout his service, he has held a variety of assignments in operational, acquisition, and staff units, including assignments at Headquarters Air Combat Command; the National Reconnaissance Office; and on the Air Staff. He commanded the 45th Launch Group at Patrick AFB, Florida, the Launch and Range Systems Wing, the Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing, also served as vice commander, Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB. He later served as the director, strategic plans, programs and analyses, Headquarters Air Force Space Command, Peterson AFB, Colorado, and then was assigned as the deputy director, Missile Defense Agency, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Prior to his current assignment, he was the commander, Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command, Los Angeles Air Force Base, California.
His operational experience is exceptional and includes work on the space shuttle, Titan, Atlas and Delta space-launch systems. He currently wears the Command Space Badge, a joint Air Force and Army award for training, experience, and assignments in space warning, satellite command and control, missile operations, space surveillance, and/or space lift.
During his tour, the Agency and the Department of Defense made significant progress in addressing current and emerging ballistic missile threats by fielding, upgrading, and improving missile defenses to provide U.S. military commanders a highly effective ballistic missile defense capability to defend the United States and its deployed troops, U.S. allies, and friends around the world. He also laid the groundwork for the Agency's pursuit of technologies and systems to track and defeat hypersonic glide vehicle threats. General Greaves implemented a clear strategy focusing on maintaining the reliability of the Ballistic Missile Defense System, BMDS, to build warfighter confidence, increasing capability and capacity of fielded missile defense systems, and making measured investments to address the advanced threat.
While serving as the director, Missile Defense Agency, General Greaves demonstrated superior leadership, extraordinary dedication, and exceptional professionalism as the key interface between MDA and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, Services and Military Departments, the Department of State, and international partners. He also worked very closely with the administration and Congress to support significant improvements to the Nation's missile defense programs and plans in 2017, known as the missile defeat and defense enhancements, that resulted in Congress increasing the Missile Defense Agency's budget request for fiscal year 2018 from $7.8 billion to over $11.5 billion, which represents both the largest single year increase and total budget in MDA's history.
General Greaves placed a high priority on increasing the ground-based midcourse defense's, GMD, fleet reliability and confidence by upgrading fielded GBIs, implementing improvements in new production GBIs, and incorporating reliability, producibility and sustainability improvements in future GBI designs. General Greaves oversaw GMD ground system modernization, to include delivery of Ground System 7A, which removed obsolete equipment from the kill chain, eliminated cyber defense vulnerabilities, and improved redundancy for the warfighter. He also pressed forward with key reliability improvements, including the development of the redesigned kill vehicle, RKV, and upgrading of the GMD Communications Network, and launch support equipment.
General Greaves also successfully completed the expansion of the Nation's deployed GBI fleet to 44 interceptors in 2017, known as 44 by 17, which resulted in a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of deployed interceptors available for use by the warfighter.
Moreover, in response to the growing North Korean ICBM threat, in December 2017, General Greaves began executing Department and congressional guidance in the missile defeat and defense enhancements plan to further expand the GBI fleet to a total of 64 deployed GBIs by 2023 through the rapid and efficient construction of a new, fourth missile field at Fort Greely, AK, which will add 20 additional operational silos to the GMD system.
If this were not enough, he oversaw multiple successful flight tests. This includes flight test ground-based midcourse test 11, FTG-11, a GBI salvo test against a complex, threat representative ICBM-class target. This intercept flight test was so successful that the director for the Department Operational Test and Evaluation, DOT&E, Agency directed DOT&E staff to refer to FTG-11 as the first operational flight test of the ground-based midcourse defense system. FTM-45, also conducted under his direction, demonstrated an Aegis BMD organic engagement using a SM-
3 Blk IIA against a MRBM, a key milestone for the SM-3 Block IIA return to flight. In addition, he directed the flight test integrated 3, FTI-
03, an operational live fire test demonstrating the engage-on-remote capability of the Aegis Weapon System to track and intercept an IRBM target with an Aegis Ashore-launched SM-3 Block IIA interceptor. This test demonstrated the effectiveness of the European phased adaptive approach phase 3 architecture and supports a critical acquisition milestone for the SM-3 Block IIA missile program.
General Greaves also laid the foundation for the Long Range Discrimination Radar, Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii, Pacific Radar, and other discrimination improvements to improve homeland defense against emerging threats. He further advanced the development of two-stage booster capability to provide additional homeland defense battle-space capability by enabling shorter engagement times without the expense of a separate development program. He also continued improvements in the command and control, battle management and communication infrastructure, which provides persistent acquisition, tracking, cueing, discrimination, and fire-control quality data to Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), GMD, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, THAAD, Patriot, and coalition partners to support homeland and regional missile defense.
General Greaves was further responsible for major BMDS capability enhancements and asset deployments around the globe. He guided program plans to strengthen regional defenses by continuing deliveries of Standard Missile-3, SM-3, Block IBs, for use on Aegis BMD ships and at Aegis Ashore-Romania, and THAAD interceptors. After fielding the THAAD Battery to South Korea, in late 2017, the commander of United States Forces Korea requested tighter coupling between THAAD and Patriot units in theater. General Greaves worked with Army PEO Missiles and Space on proposed solutions to address the request and improve regional ballistic missile defense. He also pushed for the development of a future THAAD system, including development of a remote launcher capability, integration of Patriot MSE interceptor and launcher into the THAAD Weapon System, and improved interoperability by enabling Patriot Launch-on-Remote (THAAD).
He also continued advancement of the Aegis BMD system in collaboration with the Navy to counter growing and more complex threats, including improvements in system and missile reliability as well as increases in Aegis BMD engagement capacity and lethality, including work on the Aegis Weapon System, Aegis Ashore-Poland, the SM-
3 IIA program, and Sea Based Terminal defense. General Greaves kept the Agency on track to deliver the initial SM-3 Block IIA missiles developed in cooperation with Japan to support European phased adaptive approach, EPAA, phase 3. He oversaw the construction of the Aegis Ashore system in Poland in support of EPAA Phase 3 to improve European NATO defenses against medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which is expected to be delivered in 2020.
General Greaves has been a tireless advocate for the development and deployment of a critically needed space sensor layer for hypersonic and missile defense, the need for which can be best summed by the general himself when he said: ``If you can't see it, you can't shoot it.'' As a result of his efforts, the Congress continually funded the MDA to develop such a capability. In 2019, the general partnered with DARPA and the Air Force on the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor Program, which is now working with industry to reduce the key risks for this space sensor layer.
He also successfully completed the development and deployment of a network of sensor payloads hosted on commercial satellites, called Space-based Kill Assessment, or SKA. This program will collect data on missile intercepts, and inform the post-intercept assessment by the warfighter. This capability will provide the warfighter the option to adjust their shot doctrine to more efficiently manage interceptor inventory, thereby dramatically increasing the number of threats the system can engage for the defense of the homeland. In fact, when warfighters took part in simulations involving SKA they were so highly impressed by this new capability they requested it be made operational sooner than MDA had planned. The SKA program has been so impressive that the Department recently recognized MDA, under General Greaves leadership, for its acquisition success by presenting it with the Packard Award for Acquisition Excellence for the development of SKA.
General Greaves demonstrated his commitment to expand work with U.S. international partners, to include conducting joint analyses to support partner missile defense acquisition decisions, cooperative research and development projects, deploying BMD assets, foreign military sales, FMS, and coproduction efforts. Under General Greave's leadership, the Agency executed an historic FMS case with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for seven THAAD batteries and accompanying launchers, radars, and interceptors. In addition, he continued work on the co-development with Japan of the SM-3 Block IIA missile that will be deployed to the operational Aegis Ashore missile defense sites in Romania and Poland.
His exceptional leadership style influenced an organization of over 10,000 personnel across 13 time zones. These distinctive accomplishments of General Greaves are monumental. As he and his wife Patricia prepare for retirement, I want to thank them for their service to the United States of America--General Greaves and Patricia--Bravo Zulu.
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