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!