JANUARY 14, 2025 – Lt. Gen. Sean A. Gainey, commanding general of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, is closing out his first year of command and focusing on the future.
Chief among those focus areas is establishing an Army space branch, the continued evolution of the missile defeat concept and supporting the Reagan Test Site, Gainey said during a recent interview.
“The work the Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence is doing to advance an enlisted military occupational specialty and eventually a space branch within the Army is going to put this command on a path to attain and retain experts with those critical skills for the long term,” Gainey said. “We already have Soldiers and noncommissioned officers who have mastered their skill, but we lose them as soon as they master it. We want to be able to keep that expertise in our formations and continue to build capabilities so we have a branch of experts, as opposed to rotating expertise.”
Gainey, who took command in January 2024, championed the space operations MOS proposal. In December 2024, the Army G-1 signed the Notification of Future Change that creates Career Management Field 40 (Space Operations) and Military Occupational Specialty 40D (space operations specialist) with an effective date of Oct. 1, 2026.
“Space capabilities are integrated into every aspect of modern warfare and play a significant role in successful multidomain operations,” Gainey said, “It’s USASMDC’s job to plan for the establishment of the Space Branch and to advocate for its implementation.”
When looking to the future and the modernization of Army air and missile defense, Gainey, as the Army’s senior air defender and air and missile defense integrator, initiated an update of the Army’s air and missile defense strategy. He said the Army is revamping its strategy for the first time in five years.
“We’re no longer in just a traditional ballistic missile environment,” Gainey said. “When you add in the modernization that we are going through right now with our AMD forces, the largest modernization that has ever occurred inside of the branch, and the technology that we’re going to field inside of these formations to be able to get after this threat, we feel it is time to start moving forward with an update of the strategy.”
The Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Strategy 2040 is expected to be released in September.
Gainey’s focus on missile defense extends to the missile testing and space operations conducted by USASMDC’s Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
Gainey and the USASMDC team continue to bring awareness and take measures to ensure RTS and the garrison will be able to meet an ever-increasing demand for those capabilities.
“SMDC is committed to Kwajalein and to laying the path forward for Kwajalein while working closely with U.S. Army Pacific,” Gainey said. “RTS plays such a critical role. Modernization of the test facilities will provide enhanced capabilities to U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force. Whether it’s testing or space domain awareness, Kwajalein is key terrain.”
Gainey is dual hatted and also serves as the commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Integrated Missile Defense. In this role, he said he wants to get traction on the missile defeat concept.
“JFCC IMD, supporting U.S. Space Command and their transregional missile defense task, does the missile defense role very well,” Gainey said. “I think there is more that can be done outside of the required task for transregional missile defense. It really comes back to, ‘how do you provide holistic missile defense?’
“Missile defense has three pillars: active; attack operations; and passive operations. Leveraging all of that together to get a synergistic effect is really where missile defeat comes in,” he added. “There are many organizations doing things with missile defeat, but bringing it all together, synergizing that construct and moving missile defeat forward is something that, in my role as commander of JFCC IMD and working with the SPACECOM commander, I want to move forward.”
It takes a team of professionals, working together to achieve the goals Gainey has set. He said he is proud of USASMDC’s Soldiers and civilians and how the command maintains a “One Team!” perspective across its global locations.
Gainey said he is excited to be the commanding general of USASMDC and the commander of JFCC IMD.
“Every day, I learn something different that’s happening within this USASMDC. We have a lot of great Soldiers and civilians out there doing great work on behalf of the command. Our success begins with every individual in this command feeling that they’re empowered and that they’re a trusted member of this team.”
He also shared his perspective on how USASMDC is providing value in its mission to develop and provide current and future global space, missile defense and high-altitude capabilities; enable multidomain combat effects; enhance deterrence, assurance and detection of strategic attacks; and ultimately protect the nation.
“Nothing in the Army moves forward unless you’re demonstrating value,” he said. “This organization is doing a great job from a value perspective, and I know the Army and our combatant commands realize it.”
Story by Jason Cutshaw
U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command