Thomas William Goffus is a former American government official currently serving as NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Operations. Goffus was the

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Assistant Secretary of Defense is a title used for many high-level executive positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense within the U.S. Department of Defense. The Assistant Secretary of Defense title is junior to Under Secretary of Defen ...

for European and

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

Policy from May 2017 until October 2018. In this role he was responsible for the U.S. Department of Defense relationship between the United States, NATO, the EU and the nations of Europe for Secretary

Jim Mattis James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 26th US secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. During his 44 years in the Marine Corps, he commanded forces in the Persia ...

DASD

In January 2018, Secretary

James N. Mattis James Norman Mattis (born September 8, 1950) is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 26th US secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019. During his 44 years in the Marine Corps, he commanded forces in the Persian ...

released the

National Defense Strategy The National Defense Strategy (or NDS) is produced by the United States Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and is signed by the United States Secretary of Defense as the United States Department of Defense's (DoD) capstone strategic guidanc ...

(NDS) which places the order of priorities for the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philippin ...

as China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and counter-terrorism. As the DASD for Europe and NATO, Goffus was responsible for NDS implementation as it relates to those countries and the combined effort to counter those adversaries.

Congressional staffer

Goffus was previously a staff member for the

Senate Armed Services Committee The Committee on Armed Services (sometimes abbreviated SASC for ''Senate Armed Services Committee'') is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Defe ...

(SASC), as the lead advisor to the chairman on matters relating to national military strategy,

counterterrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that Government, governments, law enforcement, business, and Intelligence agency, intellig ...

, international defense cooperation and foreign policy issues in the U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command. Goffus returned to the Senate after resigning from the Pentagon to become the staff director for Senate Armed Service Committee (SASC) chairman Senator

James Inhofe James Mountain Inhofe ( ; born November 17, 1934) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Oklahoma, a seat he was first elected to in 1994. A member of the Republican Party, he chaired the U.S. Senate Committe ...

Military career

Goffus joined the staff of the SASC after a career in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

. While in the Air Force, he commanded a squadron and served as an F-22 operational test manager. He was responsible for performing nuclear command and control as well as supervising missile warning, global strike, space, missile defense and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations. Goffus was stationed in Okinawa (Japan) and Larissa (Greece). He graduated from the NATO Senior Officer's Course at the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy. He participated in

Operation Provide Comfort Operation Provide Comfort and Provide Comfort II were military operations initiated by the United States and other Coalition nations of the Persian Gulf War, starting in April 1991, to defend Kurdish refugees fleeing their homes in northern ...

from Incirlik, Turkey, and in Operation Southern Watch from Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

Education

Goffus earned a B.S. in aeronautical engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1985, an M.S. from the University of Washington in aerospace and aeronautical engineering, an M.A. from the United States Naval War College, and is a graduate of the NATO Defense College.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goffus, Thomas Year of birth missing (living people) Living people United States Air Force Academy alumni United States Air Force officers University of Washington College of Engineering alumni Naval War College alumni Trump administration personnel