Indo-Pacific Orientation Course (IPOC)

The Indo-Pacific Orientation Course (IPOC) delivers an intensive executive education experience for mid-career to senior-level security professionals committed to strengthening deterrence, resilience, and regional cooperation across the Indo-Pacific. The course equips participants with the strategic insight, regional understanding, and professional network needed to help their organizations compete and prevail in an increasingly complex, contested, and interconnected security environment.

IPOC brings together defense, diplomatic, law-enforcement, and civilian security practitioners to examine how nations align capabilities, partnerships, and strategy to maintain stability and prevent conflict. The course emphasizes a practical understanding of how military, cyber, space, information, and maritime power converge to generate advantage, deter aggression, and secure operational dominance in the Indo-Pacific.

The curriculum is structured around three core themes:

  1. Regional Overviews – framing the Indo-Pacific’s strategic landscape, alliances, and emerging flashpoints;
  2. Security Approaches to the Indo-Pacific – examining how nations deter aggression, project strength, and integrate effects across all domains; and
  3. Crosscutting Challenges and Opportunities – addressing hybrid threats, technological competition, information operations, and the resilience of critical systems and supply chains.

Through a combination of expert plenary sessions and small-group seminars, participants engage in critical analysis, peer exchange, and scenario-based exercises that foster shared understanding and strengthen the collective capacity to anticipate, adapt, and prevail in the Indo-Pacific’s evolving security environment.

The Mobile IPOC (MIPOC) expands DKI APCSS outreach and educational initiatives by bringing the Center’s expertise directly to key Indo-Pacific and U.S. hubs: the Republic of Korea for U.S. Forces Korea, Japan for U.S. Forces Japan, and Washington, D.C. for the U.S. Department of War. By embedding the program within these operational and policy centers, MIPOC enhances real-time strategic dialogue, reinforces joint and combined readiness, and cultivates a shared understanding of the challenges shaping deterrence and strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific.

  • MASL: SAP0004
  • Eligibility: mid-, senior- and executive-grade U.S. and international military and civilian officials (O4-O8, GS12-GS15, SES, and equivalents)
  • Duration: 1 week
  • Upon successful completion of this course, you will receive a Certificate and Alumni Status.