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USC SHIELD ’23

September 20, 2022

The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA) and the University of Southern California (USC) are in the second year of a partnership to advance strategic thinking on Space and Deterrence. MDAA is honored to announce the opening of class for the 2023 USC SHIELD Executive Program in Global Space and Deterrence developing influential leaders in Space and Defense. The USC SHIELD ‘23 aligns the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy and Viterbi School of Engineering with government, military, and industry key stakeholders to work together to prepare national security professionals to make the nation and world safer. This world-class interdisciplinary educational alignment between MDAA and USC advances innovative thinking and educates the next generation of senior leaders across the National Security space.

Thursday, September 15, 2022, kicked off the second year and another exciting new chapter for the education, training, and development of our nation’s future. The USC SHIELD ‘23 Cohort members are representatives of INDOPACOM, NORTHCOM, SPACECOM, STRATCOM, Canada, the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, the National Guard, Space Force, Space Systems Command, the Missile Defense Agency, and industry partners. This eight-month program is designed to close the widening gap between theory and the practical application of National Security constructs. 

The USC SHIELD ‘23 creates an intellectual forum at a world class academic and research institution with world class faculty to teach and empower extraordinary leaders and practitioners a cauldron of competitive excellence as a unified team against the challenges our nation faces. The course with instruction emphasizes a systematic approach to solving complex problems and seize new opportunities for the rapid development and fielding of essential capabilities for the Combatant Commander’s most critical policy and engineering challenges. The USC SHIELD ‘23 Cohort will culminate the course with multiple Capstone Projects that are designed to analyze the toughest policy and engineering problems and produce tangible solutions that will positively impact our National Security enterprise for the enduring defense of the homeland.

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Mission Statement

MDAA’s mission is to make the world safer by advocating for the development and deployment of missile defense systems to defend the United States, its armed forces and its allies against missile threats.

MDAA is the only organization in existence whose primary mission is to educate the American public about missile defense issues and to recruit, organize, and mobilize proponents to advocate for the critical need of missile defense. We are a non-partisan membership-based and membership-funded organization that does not advocate on behalf of any specific system, technology, architecture or entity.

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