On 27 November 2023, the Director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), James (Jim) Hursch, met with representatives from the Near East South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies.

During the briefing, NESA Center Acting Director COL David Lamm, USA (Ret.) provided an overview of NESA’s programming and real-world examples of NESA’s positive impact on partners. Dr. Gawdat Bahgat summarized NESA Core Programs conducted in Washington, D.C., and an example of how an overseas program would be structured. Other NESA programs were explored in some detail: the Maritime Program, led by Professor Jeffrey Payne; the Professional Military Education (PME) Program, led by Professors Richard Wiersema and Charles Marks; and a country-specific Foreign Military Sales Program, focused on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the direction of Matthew Holbert.

NESA Center Chief of Program Support COL William Turner, USA (Ret.) and NESA Center IT Specialist Peter Klu demonstrated NESA’s new online dashboard that will allow data collection to be simplified and automated. Director Hursch was accompanied by Dr. Celeste Gventer, CMSgt Mikael Sundin, Christopher Hannigan, Catherine Tappert, and Donald Borowski.

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