Day 2-4: U.S. Foreign Policy, Regional Dynamics, and a tour of DC

The last three days have been very interesting. On Day 2 (Thursday), I came in around 7:45 a.m. and checked to see if the coffee was made and then turned on all of the TV screens. The first full day of seminars focused on U.S. foreign policy, how it’s made, and how the governmental structure of the United States works. It was basically a year’s worth of a high school government class packed into an hour and a half long session with half of the time devoted to Q&A. It was actually a great refresher course for me as well, because it gave me a chance to learn about a lot of the stuff that I didn’t learn in high school. The other session was the basic breakdown of the intelligence community in the United States, which was completely new for me, considering I do not know the first thing about the intelligence community. That section was eye-opening. At the end of the day, we split up into discussion groups that we called “breakout groups”. It was a pretty interesting discussion, as the group simply brought up questions about what they had heard in the earlier session.  A lot of the different questions revolved around the intelligence community, and in particular how massive amounts of information could be spread so covertly within the intelligence community. 

      

Friday was a shorter day because the participants were given the afternoon off to visit their respective embassies. The morning was spent discussing the regional dynamics of the NESA region, and how the United States' national interests relate to many of the issues on the ground in the Middle East, such as issues with immigration in North Africa, drug trafficking, and of course, the rise of terrorist organizations. 

       

Saturday was quite an eventful day. NESA offered the chance for participants to go on a tour of DC and get a historical lesson of the significance of many of the famous memorials around DC, such as the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the Washington Monument, Lafayette Square, and the White House from a NESA faculty member. This was the second time that I had been on the DC tour. If you recall from awhile back, I also helped tour a group of Pakistani military officials for our Pakistani Military Seminar. It was really nice to see the monuments again, especially since I didn’t have to see these monuments immediately following a massive snowstorm. Seventy-five degrees and sunny, it was the perfect day to walk around and see the sights of DC. Afterwards, we drove to Woodbridge, VA to the Potomac Mills Shopping Mall, where the participants had about two hours to eat lunch and shop around this incredibly huge shopping mall.

       

So what was my job throughout all of this? My job was to distribute the interpretation devices so that the participants who didn’t speak English could understand the tour guide. I also was part of the crowd control so that we could keep the group together. You would be surprised how difficult it was to keep 24 participants in one group. There were always a few people that would just run off and do their own thing and then I would have the lovely task of trying to look for them in a mile-long stretch of monuments. Nevertheless, it was still a great experience because I really got to know a lot of the participants a lot better. 

     
On Monday, the CT Seminar will hold sessions on transnational threats in a greater context, the rise of illicit support networks, and a discussion on the different sources of insurgency and political violence, and I'll let you all know the different tasks that will be in store for me.  Until then, take care, and hope you all enjoy the rest of your day. Peace!

Combating Terrorism Seminar: Day 1

Right now, you’re all probably looking at the title wondering whatever happened to my seminar on Yemen.  Well, it turns out that NESA was planning on holding two seminars at the same time, the first being the Yemen Bilateral Seminar, and the other the Combating Terrorism Seminar.  Little did I know until late last week that I would be assigned to the Combating Terrorism Seminar and not the Seminar on Yemen, so I will be taking you all on a daily look of my role in the Combating Terrorism Seminar.  While I was looking forward to helping out with the Yemen Seminar, I’m also really excited this upcoming Terrorism seminar as well.  The Combating Terrorism Seminar, as the title already suggests, involves high ranking government officials from 17 different countries in various ministries discussing and debating the more pressing transnational and domestic issues revolving around terrorism, and discussing what can be done to take steps forward towards ending it.

With that being said, I will be giving you an insider look at the work that goes behind the scenes during the Combating Terrorism (CT) Seminar as well as a description of some of the events that will be going on during this seminar for the next five days.  The first event actually began on Tuesday evening, where the interns, planners, and participant program assistants hosted a Welcome Reception at the hotel that the Seminar participants were staying in.  My job for the evening was to direct the participants into the Jefferson Room inside the hotel and then prepare the interpretation devices so that the non-English speakers will be able to understand everything that the course director was saying during the speech.  After the reception, I had the chance to mingle with the participants over a delicious dinner.  The evening ended around 9 pm and then we all had to be back in NESA at 7:30 pm am for the first day of the CT Seminar.

The first full day of the Seminar started the next morning around 7:30 am.  Most of the day was spent taking care of administrative issues and other housekeeping businesses, such as getting the participants badges to get into the building, taking a group photo, and simply getting the participants acquainted with their surroundings around the NESA building and Washington D.C. in general.  My tasks for the day involved helping out with all of those administrative tasks that needed to be taken care of, including walking the participants down to get their badges and distributing forms that needed to be filled out during the registration process.  I was also responsible for managing the TV screens around the building, which would show the participants the schedule for the upcoming sessions as well as display any pictures taken from the previous day.  In this case, I put up pictures from the Welcome.  Unfortunately, due to national security reasons, I cannot display any pictures from the Welcome Reception or the CT Seminar on the whole. Also, as interns we are assigned to make coffee and tea for our participants.  Now it may not be the best part about being an intern, but it also benefits us as interns because then we will get the opportunity to have free coffee and tea for the day.  The day ended with the Senior Vice President of National Defense University speaking on behalf of the NESA Center, welcoming the participants to NESA.  The most interesting aspect about this session was that what was supposed to be simply an introductory talk ended up turning into a discussion on Iran and its influence in the region.  The first day of the seminar ended around 4:15 for the participants, but our day was not over just yet.  We had to help clean the plenary room, which is the main room that the CT Seminar assembles, as well as prepare coffee and tea for the next day.  By the time we were all set with that, I got by around 5:45.  

Tomorrow we will begin the first full day of sessions and discussion groups, with those discussions revolving around how U.S. foreign policy is shaped and how the shaping of U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy affects the Near East South Asian (NESA) region.  Until then, take care, and hope you enjoy the rest of your day! 

What’s up world!  Hope all is well wherever you are, and for those in college, hope everyone’s finals studying is going well.  The semester is coming to a close soon, but that does not mean that things are slowing down around here at the NESA Center by any stretch of the imagination.  
     
A little while ago, I mentioned that we had the opportunity to work during NESA’s Senior Executive Seminar (SES), the seminar of the highest level.  The two-week long seminar addresses strategic concerns of the Near Eastern and South Asian countries as well as those of the U.S.  From issues such as the Arab-Israeli Conflict to how to address the Iranian nuclear issue, over thirty participants from fifteen different countries listened in on several speakers and would later separate into small discussion groups.

This is the discussion group that I sat in on for two weeks and had the opportunity to listen to diplomats and military officials about proper strategies needed to bring more regional stability to the Middle East.

         
As an intern, one of my favorite responsibilities is to sit in the breakout room and take notes on significant remarks made by the participants.  It was especially interesting to see how certain delegates from particular countries addressed certain issues.  For example, countries that are further away from the region were less inclined to discuss about the Arab-Israeli Conflict than the countries closer to the region.  From this and other encounters in the breakout room, I’ve learned that while countries recognize that their national issues affect countries around them, those same countries are out for their own national interests first and others second. 
       
The highlight of this past week was visiting the NEWSeum, a museum devoted to exhibiting the history of journalism for the last several centuries through articles and a series of different exhibits.  One of my favorite exhibits, yet also the most saddening, was the 9/11 exhibit, which displayed newspapers from all 50 states as well as about 30 different countries showcasing their way of reporting such a devastating tragedy.  What was most interesting to me was just seeing the different ways different newspapers reported the story. I would imagine if I were in that situation and I had to report on the 9/11 attacks, I wouldn’t really know where to start--I would be in such a state of shock. Another interesting exhibit was the Elvis Presley exhibit, which discussed Elvis’s impact on music, popular culture, as well as journalism.

This map shows the amount of press freedom that is recognized in each country around the world.  An extensive study conducted annually by think tank Freedom House, the map shows the countries in green as free, those in yellow as partly free, and those in red as not free.

Now for those who are following other Washington Center bloggers, they are all on their last week here in D.C.  I, on the other hand, have been asked by NESA to stay an additional two weeks to help them out on their upcoming seminar with Yemeni military officials.  So that you all can get a more in-depth look at what exactly goes down during these seminars, I plan to do a daily post starting next Monday and ending next Friday on all of the seminar events, including the people that I will get to meet, and the topics discussed, so please stay tuned for that soon! Until then, take care, and hope everyone enjoys the rest of their week.

Peace!