Greetings from the Director, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies:

I am honored to greet you for the first time in my role as director of the Near East South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies.

I look forward to continuing the excellent work begun by my predecessors, focusing the NESA Center’s activities on facing the myriad challenges in the critical Near East-South Asia region that has been so much a part of my professional life.

I bring to the NESA Center a profound respect and understanding of the people in the region we serve. As Director-General of the Multinational Force and Observers on the Sinai Peninsula, my involvement in peacekeeping efforts allowed me to develop close relationships with civilian and military officials from Egypt, Israel and the United states, especially U.S. Central Command, with which NESA works closely.  I also have had the honor to serve in many capacities, including the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs; Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Embassy in Israel, where I was deeply involved in peace talks and, of course, as the U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait.

I have the advantage of having served on the faculty at NESA since August 2009, most recently as course director for a Yemen Bilateral which included “whole of government” officials from Yemen, and the Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy seminar. This experience allows me to undertake my new role with the unique advantage of a perspective—that most incoming directors do not enjoy from the outset—about how NESA works and how we might improve seminar content and techniques, to continue to refine Center programs to address critical functional and regional security challenges.

As always, NESA will focus on the security issues that are as vital to American interests as to our partners in the region: non-proliferation, extremism/terrorism, Arab-Israeli peace, economic security and strategic capacity building and stability. None of these is exclusively a regional issue; they are all global issues that we must face honestly and intensively.

As we face these central issues, we hope also to help reduce misconceptions about the United States and our values and policies and to listen to concerns and recommendations that we can convey to policy-makers and other stakeholders. We do so by continuing to build bridges between and among military and civilian leaders in the region and in the United States.

In addition to our programs in Washington and in the region, I plan to intensify outreach efforts, strengthen our alumni program and increase and improve the ways we communicate with our alumni, potential participants and stakeholders.

I look forward to working with each of you, in Washington and in the NESA region, in furthering the goals that are so important to our mutual interests.

With best wishes,

James A. Larocco
Director
NESA Center for Strategic Studies