International and security issues in the immediate areas of Indonesia’s interests—including ASEAN and Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Indo-Pacific continue to be the main focus of CSIS’ Department of International Relations in 2018. This year, we began our flagship program, CSIS Lecture Series on Regional Dynamics. We design the lecture series to be a regular event that aims to broaden interests amongst policy makers, intellectuals and diplomatic community for the rapidly evolving dynamics in the Indo-Pacific, as well as to generate critical yet constructive policy debates on prominent issues in the region. Since February, we have held 13 lectures with prominent speakers, such as Dato’ Saifuddin Abdullah (Malaysia’s Foreign Minister), The Hon. Mark Field (United Kingdom’s Minister for Asia & the Pacific), and Professor Amitav Acharya (American University). Another notable initiative that we started this year is a newsletter, titled CSIS Foreign Policy Insight, which covers the recent events organized by the department, as well as our upcoming programs, commentaries and/or working paper published by our scholars.In 2018, the IR Department completed three projects on violent extremism, transnational crime, and Indonesia’s foreign policy. The department also started two new projects—peace operations and cyber security—and submitted a number of proposals for new research projects. We collaborated with international institutions and agencies to organize international conferences, such as with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the European Union.