I have had the great opportunity to travel extensively through the region during my first full year as Director of the NESA Center. This has given me the ability to meet with many civilian and military officials in region and see firsthand the developments in the region. This has included visits to Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Maldives, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates, with many more visits to the region scheduled throughout the upcoming year.

Over the past year we have witnessed tremendous change and exciting developments throughout the region. With the beginning of the Arab Spring in Tunisia, individuals throughout the region have stood in opposition to the status quo and demanded their voices be heard. Most recently, we have seen successful new parliamentary elections in Tunisia and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

Through this critical period of transition and turmoil, our work in the region is more important than ever. To resolve key differences and move forward with new constitutions and elections we have continued to develop relations with and between countries in the NESA region, bringing together their civilian and military officials for open and honest dialogue about issues of mutual concern.

While our Foundation Programs—Executive Seminars, Senior Executive Seminars and Transnational Threats Seminars continue to represent the core of our programs, we have greatly expanded our bilateral exchanges, in-region workshops and other more focused programs.

During the past year we have held bilateral seminars with Afghanistan and Tunisia, hosted a Horn of Africa Regional Conference in Istanbul, and expanded our bilateral programs with Lebanon and Yemen. Our Yemen program has been an exciting new development, featuring our first use of video teleconferencing (VTC) for three remote seminars. The use of VTC will allow us to directly engage officials and academics in-region in the rapidly changing environment.

NESA will continue to build upon these foundation programs, regional programs, bilateral seminars and Washington, D.C., based events in the coming year through expansion of our Yemen program, an increase in regional and sub-regional conferences and events and maintain contact with our valuable alumni network through regular communication and expanded use of social media. The Center can now count over 3,200 government officials, military officers and civilians as members or our alumni network. Over a quarter of our alumni have risen to minister, ambassador, general, admiral or civil servant flag office equivalents. The rapid promotions and extraordinary accomplishments ought to be recognized and celebrated.

I hope you will read about our programs in greater detail in the pages to come. We are proud of our past and future programs and look forward to our continuing engagement of the region.

I very much look forward to seeing you in the near future, whether here in Washington or in the region.

James A. Larocco
Director
NESA Center for Strategic Studies