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USC SHIELD 5 Opening

September 25, 2025
SHIELD 5 Cohort, University of Southern California, September 19, 2025

The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), in partnership and collaboration with the University of Southern California (USC), is honored to announce the beginning of the 2025-2026 SHIELD 5 Executive Program in Global Space and Deterrence. MDAA and USC, with its Price School of Public Policy and Viterbi School of Engineering—alongside key stakeholders from government and the military —have gathered together a world class cohort ready to take on our nation’s most pressing policy and engineering challenges in space, missile defense and deterrence.  

Our fifth Cohort is made up of active U.S. Military high ranking officers and civilian equivalents that serve today under 3 Combatant Commands, 6 military services. In total, we have 20 highly accomplished cohort members participating in this transformative program, which is expertly designed to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and the practical application of national security concepts.  

We kicked off our 5th SHIELD program opening day with Riki Ellison (MDAA Founder and Chairman) and Peter J. Robertson, Ph.D., followed by a second day with lectures from Neil Siegel, Ph.D., Mike Gruntman, Ph.D., Azad Madni, Ph.D., Col. Andrew Menschner (Deputy Commander Space Systems Command), and MDAA Board Member John Rood (former OSD Undersecretary for Policy). On our third day we held a capstone panel with MDAA Board Members Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery (former Policy Director for the Senate Armed Services Committee), Lt. Gen. (Ret). Jon “Ty” Thomas, John Rood, and Riki Ellison.  

The SHIELD 5 Cohort have established 4 areas to further study and distill into their capstone projects: 

·         A Global Golden Dome 

·         Space vs. Terrestrial Air Defense 

·         Addressing Inter-Agency Roles and Missions 

·         Responsive Space 

Our previous SHIELD graduate capstones have become law, courses of action, and published papers that are critical to our national security in space, missile defense, and deterrence. We are dreaming big and being big for this year’s incredible cohort! 

Fight On! 

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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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