The DISAM Journal of international security assistance management.

Security cooperation continues to play a key role in the successes that we are achieving around the world. This Journal feature articles focus on the nation of Croatia with an overview of the country in general as well as a discussion of the various facets of U.S. security cooperation programs benefiting us as partners. Force modernization is preeminent and the year-old program at their Armed Forces Leader and Staff Simulation Center is leading the way.

If you are interested in policy issues, this edition has more than enough to whet your appetite. The final allocations for fiscal year 2002 security assistance programs follows excerpts of remarks made by the Secretary of State to a House Appropriations Subcommittee outlining plans for fiscal year 2003. Additional articles spotlight policy issues centrally related to security cooperation such as human rights, economics, export control, and disarmament. Others are more regionally centered in South America and Europe. All are written at the Under Secretary or Assistant Secretary level - and all provide direction as to where our programs are headed in the future.

Tom Keithly's article, "A Planning Guidance for the Security Cooperation Community," ties together the various goals of security cooperation with the tools of security cooperation. This is done under the umbrella of performance based budgeting and in the context of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. A results orientation clearly impacts the need for effective planning and programming of resources, and documenting the results of those processes is essential. Although difficult to quantify many of the results of security cooperation efforts, we all need to be taking notes similar to those of Mr. Joel Williamson and Dr. Jennifer Moroney as they view the Central Asian "ring of access."

Education continues its prominence in this issue as the Defense Acquisition University announces a new Online (entry level) International Acquisition Course, which could have implications for security assistance and foreign disclosure personnel. DISAM, like many other schoolhouses, has seen a renewal of MET/MTT commitments over recent months, including the visit to Egypt profiled within this Journal.

DISAM announces its course offerings for fiscal year 2003 (this is also available on our website), as well as the procedures to enroll. The bottom line, DISAM desires to place students in courses at the optimum time for you as the user and within the physical constraints we have. As the article states, please let us know if you have difficulty obtaining a quota through the standard channel. We normally have unused quotas for a number of our classes, and will work with organizations individually to fill each one of them. The military departments and DISAM pledged to work together at our most recent curriculum review (held in February) to facilitate the process for you. So please feel free to let us know when there is a difficulty on your end.

Thank you for your support of DISAM; we hope that this edition of the Journal reinforces the importance of the role you play in security assistance/cooperation. Keep up the great work!

Commandant