Foreign Policy – Quincy Institute Forum: A New Vision for America in the World

Ravi Agrawal is the managing editor of Foreign Policy. Before joining FP, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade, including his most recent position as the network’s New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. Previously, he served as a senior producer in CNN’s New York and London bureaus, receiving a Peabody Award and three Emmy nominations for his work. Agrawal is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

Emma Ashford is a research fellow in Defense and Foreign Policy, with expertise in international security and the politics of energy. She writes about Russia, Europe and the Middle East, along with U.S. foreign policy more broadly. Her current projects include a book draft on the foreign policy of petrostates, an article on the politics of restraint, and papers on the future of U.S. foreign policy and the liberal international order. Emma has published long‐​form articles in publications such as Foreign Affairs, the Texas National Security Review, and Strategic Studies Quarterly. Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, Vox, The National Interest, and War on the Rocks, among others. Emma co‐​hosts the Power Problems podcast, a biweekly podcast which explores key questions in international security. She holds a PhD in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Peter Beinart is Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York. He is also a Contributor to The Atlantic, a CNN Political Commentator and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace.   His first book, The Good Fight, was published by HarperCollins in 2006.  His second book, The Icarus Syndrome, was published by HarperCollins in 2010. His third, The Crisis of Zionism, was published by Times Books in 2012.  Beinart has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, the Atlantic, Newsweek, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Polity: the Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Studies Association.  The Week magazine named him columnist of the year for 2004. In 2005, he gave the Theodore H. White lecture at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has appeared on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” “Charlie Rose,” “Meet the Press,” “The Colbert Report” and many other television programs.   Beinart graduated from Yale University, winning a Rhodes scholarship for graduate study at Oxford University.  After graduating from University College, Oxford, Beinart became The New Republic's managing editor in 1995. He became senior editor in 1997, and from 1999 to 2006 served as the magazine’s Editor.

Congressman Andy Biggs is an Arizona native and currently serving his second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lives in Gilbert with his wife of 35 years, Cindy. They have six children and five grandchildren. Congressman Biggs received his bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies from Brigham Young University; his M.A. in Political Science from Arizona State University; and his J.D. degree from the University of Arizona. He is a retired attorney, who has been licensed to practice law in Arizona, Washington, and New Mexico. Most recently, Congressman Biggs served in the Arizona Legislature for 14 years – the last four as the Arizona Senate President. He was awarded “Champion of the Taxpayer” from Americans for Prosperity for his cumulative service in the Arizona legislature, and has been honored numerous times by the Goldwater Institute as a “Friend of Liberty.”

Rosa Brooks teaches courses on international law, national security, constitutional law and criminal justice. She joined the Law Center faculty in 2007, after serving as an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. From 2016-2018, Brooks served at the Law Center’s Associate Dean for Graduate Programs. Brooks is also an Adjunct Senior Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute and a Senior Fellow at New America.   Brooks has combined teaching and scholarship with stints in government service and a successful career in journalism. From 2009-2011, Brooks served as Counselor to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and founded the Defense Department’s Office for Rule of Law and International Humanitarian Policy. In July 2011, she received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. From 1999-2000, she served as a senior advisor at the US Department of State. Brooks previously wrote weekly opinion columns for Foreign Policy and the Los Angeles Times, and her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and dozens of other national and international publications. Her most recent book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2016; it was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize and named one of the five best books of the year by the Council on Foreign Relations. Brooks is also the author of Can Might Make Rights? The Rule of Law After Military Interventions (with Jane Stromseth and David Wippman), published in 2006, and A Garden of Paper Flowers (Picador, 1994).  In 2006-2007, Brooks was Special Counsel to the President at the Open Society Institute in New York. Brooks has also served as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, a fellow at the Carr Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, a board member of Amnesty International USA, a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a lecturer at Yale Law School, a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Fragile States. She currently serves on the advisory board of the Open Society Foundation’s US Programs, the advisory board of National Security Action and the board of the Harper’s Magazine Foundation. Brooks received her A.B. from Harvard in history and literature, followed by a master’s degree from Oxford in social anthropology and a law degree from Yale.

Dr. Patrick M. Cronin holds a new Chair for Asia-Pacific Security at the Hudson Institute, where he is also a Senior Fellow.  Prior to joining Hudson in January 2019, he was the Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington, D.C.  Previously, he headed the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University, where he simultaneously oversaw the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs.  Prior to leading INSS, Dr. Cronin served as the Director of Studies at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).  Before joining IISS, he was Senior Vice President and Director of Research at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  He has also served as the third-highest ranking official at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Director of Research at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.  His most recent reports include: Total Competition: China’s Challenge in the South China Sea (CNAS, 9 January 2020), and The Cornerstone and the Linchpin: Securing America’s Northeast Asian Alliances (Hudson Institute, October 2019).

Suzanne DiMaggio is the Co-Chair of the Quincy Institute, and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she focuses on U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East and Asia. She is one of the foremost experts and practitioners of diplomatic dialogues with countries that have limited or no official relations with the United States, especially Iran and North Korea. For nearly two decades, she has led these track 1.5 and track 2 conversations to help policymakers identify pathways for diplomatic progress on a range of issues, including regional security, nonproliferation, terrorism, and governance. DiMaggio directs the U.S.-Iran Initiative, which is carried out through a combination of policy dialogue, research, and a series of private roundtables and public events, with the aim of exploring possible grounds for constructive engagement and generating diplomatic solutions to the issues that divide the two countries. The project’s centerpiece is a long-running dialogue that she established in 2002, which helped to provide the foundations for the secret talks between Iran and the Obama administration that led to the 2015 nuclear agreement. She is currently directing a U.S.-DPRK dialogue that has included several visits to North Korea. As part of that process, she facilitated the first official discussions between the Trump administration and North Korean government representatives in Oslo in May 2017. In 2009, DiMaggio launched and directed a task force and an accompanying U.S.-Myanmar dialogue aimed at generating policy options to advance the normalization of bilateral relations. In 2016, she initiated a U.S.-China dialogue focused on great power interests in Myanmar and Southeast Asia more broadly. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Advisory Committee for Securing a Peaceful Transition in Myanmar. Before joining Carnegie, DiMaggio was a senior fellow at New America (2014-2018), where she directed several high-level policy dialogues, including with Iran, North Korea, and China. She was the vice president of Global Policy Programs at the Asia Society (2007-2014), where she set the strategic direction for moving the Asia Society’s work in the policy arena from a public program-focused forum to a global think tank aimed at addressing the most critical challenges facing the United States and Asia. She was the vice president of Policy Programs at the United Nations Association of the United States of America (1998-2007), where she directed programs that advanced multilateral approaches to global problem solving and advocated in support of constructive U.S. international engagement. Before joining UNA-USA, she was a program officer at the United Nations University (1993-1998), a research institute that links the UN system with international academic and policy communities. First based in Tokyo, Japan, and later at UN headquarters in New York, her work at UNU focused on international security issues and development. DiMaggio is an associate senior fellow in the Disarmament, Arms Control, and Nonproliferation Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). She holds a BA from New York University and an MA from City College of New York (CUNY). She is a frequent commentator in the news media and her op-eds have appeared in national and international press outlets. She resides in NYC’s Greenwich Village with her husband, jazz bassist and composer Ben Allison, and daughter.

Matt Duss is Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders. Prior to joining Senator Sanders' staff in February 2017, he was president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. From 2008-2014 he was a national security and international policy analyst at the Center for American Progress and director of the Center's Middle East Progress program.

Amb. (ret.) Gerald Feierstein is senior vice president at MEI. He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in May 2016 after a 41-year career with the personal rank of Career Minister. As a diplomat he served in nine overseas postings, including three tours of duty in Pakistan, as well as assignments in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Lebanon, Jerusalem, and Tunisia. In 2010, President Obama appointed Amb. Feierstein U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, where he served until 2013. From 2013 until his retirement, Amb. Feierstein was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

Mehdi Hasan is an award-winning British journalist, broadcaster, author and political commentator. He is the presenter of both UpFront and Head to Head. Mehdi is a senior contributor at the The Intercept (TI), and host of TI's Deconstructed podcast. He has been named one of the 100 'most influential' Britons on Twitter, and was included in the annual global list of 'The 500 Most Influential Muslims' in the world ('The Muslim 500').

Elected in 2016, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is now serving her second term in Congress representing Washington’s 7th District, which encompasses most of Seattle and its surrounding areas. She is the first South Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and one of only 14 naturalized citizens currently serving in the United States Congress. Congresswoman Jayapal is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, where she serves as Vice Chair of the Immigration Subcommittee, and on the House Education & Labor and Budget Committees. She is also the elected Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents approximately 40% of the entire Democratic caucus; the Immigration Subcommittee Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific Asian Caucus; and a Vice Chair of the Congressional LGBTQ Equality Caucus. In Congress, Representative Jayapal has been a leader on immigration, including fighting the Trump Administration’s inhumane policies of separating children from their parents and crafting legislation to help expand legal immigration to America. She has also championed legislation to address income inequality, such as the $15 minimum wage and expanded collective bargaining rights for workers.  She has worked extensively on healthcare issues as the lead sponsor of the Medicare for All bill in the House, and she is the author of the College for All Act, which would ensure every American has access to higher education.  She has authored other landmark pieces of progressive legislation including the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act and the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights.  She has also prioritized legislation to transition our economy to 100% clean energy and address the crisis of climate justice. Prior to serving in elected office, Congresswoman Jayapal spent twenty years working internationally and domestically in global public health and development and as an award-winning national advocate for women’s, immigrant, civil, and human rights. She spent almost a decade working on global health and development for the international nonprofit organization, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), and spent 12 years as the founder and Executive Director of OneAmerica, the largest immigration advocacy organization in Washington State and one of the largest in the country. Representative Jayapal was born in India, grew up in India, Indonesia and Singapore, and came to the United States by herself at the age of 16 to attend college at Georgetown University. She later received her MBA from Northwestern University, worked in a number of industries in both the public and private sector, and published her first book in 2000, Pilgrimage to India: A Woman Revisits Her Homeland. She is married to Steve Williamson, a long-time labor leader and strategist, and is the proud mother of a gender non-conforming child Janak, step-son Michael, and 65-pound labradoodle, Otis.

Congressman Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, and is serving in his second term. Rep. Khanna sits on the House Budget, Armed Services, and Oversight and Reform committees and is first vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He also serves as an Assistant Whip for the Democratic Caucus. Rep. Khanna is committed to representing the people and ideas rooted in Silicon Valley to the nation and throughout the world. For each job created in the high-tech industry, another four jobs are created. The tech multiplier is even larger than the multiplier for U.S. manufacturing. Rep. Khanna will work to ensure the technology sector is at the forefront of U.S. economic policy and strive to provide opportunities to those our changing economy and technological revolution has left behind. To do so, the U.S. must implement policies that will not only create tech jobs in Silicon Valley but across America. This includes job training programs, economic development initiatives, re-wiring the U.S. labor market, and debt-free college to help working families prepare for the future. A dedicated political reformer, Rep. Khanna is one of just six elected officials to refuse contributions from PACs and lobbyists. He also supports a 12-year term limit for Members of Congress and a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Rep. Khanna was born in Philadelphia, PA, during America’s bicentennial, to a middle-class family. Both of his parents immigrated to the United States in the 1970s from India in search of opportunity and a better life for their children. His father is a chemical engineer and his mother is a substitute school teacher. Rep. Khanna’s commitment to public service was inspired by his grandfather who was active in Gandhi’s independence movement, worked with Lala Lajpat Rai in India, and spent several years in jail for promoting human rights. Prior to serving in Congress, Rep. Khanna taught economics at Stanford University, law at Santa Clara University, and American Jurisprudence at San Francisco State University. He wrote the book Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America’s Future and worked as a lawyer specializing in intellectual property law. Rep. Khanna served in President Barack Obama’s administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed him to the California Workforce Investment Board. He has also provided pro bono legal counsel to Hurricane Katrina victims with the Mississippi Center for Justice, and co-authored an amicus brief on the fair housing U.S. Supreme Court case, Mount Holly v. Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, Inc. Rep. Khanna graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in Economics from the University of Chicago and received a law degree from Yale University. As a student at the University of Chicago, he walked precincts during Barack Obama's first campaign for the Illinois Senate in 1996. In his free time, Rep. Khanna enjoys cheering for the Golden State Warriors, watching movies, and traveling. He and his wife Ritu call Fremont, CA, home.

Rachel Esplin Odell is an expert in U.S. strategy toward Asia, Chinese foreign policy, and the politics of international law. She is an International Security Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at MIT. She is working on a book manuscript that studies global variation and evolution in states' interpretations of the international law of the sea. Odell previously worked as a Research Analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and interned in the China Affairs bureau of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. She has written several working papers and policy reports, organized public forums and Track II workshops, and prepared and participated in numerous briefings to U.S. government officials. Odell is a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Smith Richardson Foundation World Politics and Statecraft Fellowship, and the Alexander George Award for Best Graduate Student Paper from the Foreign Policy Analysis Section of the International Studies Association. In November 2017, she was a Visiting Research Fellow in the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies at Waseda University in Tokyo. She holds an AB summa cum laude in East Asian Studies with a secondary field in Government from Harvard University and has advanced proficiency in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.

Trita Parsi is an award-winning author and the 2010 recipient of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is an expert on US-Iranian relations, Iranian foreign politics, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He has authored three books on US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Iran and Israel.

Mark Perry is a writer, foreign policy analyst and author of ten books including Four Stars (The Joint Chiefs of Staff in War and Peace), A Fire In Zion (The Israeli-Palestinian Search for Peace) Talking To Terrorists (Why America Must Engage With Its Enemies) and The Most Dangerous Man In America (The Making of Douglas MacArthur). He served as an unofficial advisor to the head  of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, from 1990 to 2004. His articles have appeared in major national publications, including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Foreign Affairs, Politico and Foreign Policy. He is a senior contributing editor at The American Conservative.

General (Ret) David H. Petraeus (New York) joined KKR in June 2013 and is Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. He was made a Partner at KKR in 2014. He is also a member of the boards of Optiv (cybersecurity) and OneStream (business software). Prior to joining KKR, Gen. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands, five of which were in combat, including command of coalition forces during the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Following his service in the military, Gen. Petraeus served as the Director of the CIA during a period of significant achievements in the global war on terror. Gen. Petraeus graduated with distinction from the U.S. Military Academy and subsequently earned a Ph.D. in an interdisciplinary program of international relations and economics from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Gen. Petraeus has received numerous U.S. military, State Department, NATO, and United Nations medals and awards, including four Defense Distinguished Service Medals, the Bronze Star Medal for Valor, the Combat Action Badge, the Ranger tab, and master parachutist wings, and he has been decorated by 13 foreign countries.

William Ruger is vice president for foreign policy at Stand Together  and vice president for research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. Ruger was previously an Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas State University and an adjunct assistant professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas‐​Austin. His most recent scholarship appeared in International Studies Quarterly, Civil Wars, and Review of Political Economy. Ruger is the author of Milton Friedman, and co‐​author of two books on state politics including the new 4th edition of Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom, published by Cato in August 2016. He is a frequent guest on television and radio, and his op‐​eds have appeared in several national publications, including Time, USA Today, Investor’s Business Daily, and the New York Daily News. He is on the Executive Council of the Inter‐​University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society. Ruger is currently an officer in U.S. Navy (Reserve), and a veteran of the Afghanistan War. He earned his Ph.D. in Politics from Brandeis University and an A.B. from the College of William and Mary.

Julianne (“Julie”) Smith is a senior advisor to the president and serves as the director of the Asia Program and the Geopolitics Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, where she coedits “Shadow Government.” She is also a senior advisor at WestExec Advisors.

Jonathan Tepperman is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy and the author of The Fix: How Countries Use Crises to Solve the World’s Worst Problems. Before joining FP, Tepperman served as managing editor of Foreign Affairs and, before that, as deputy editor of Newsweek’s international edition. He has written for a long list of publications and appears frequently on TV and radio. He has degrees from Yale, Oxford, and New York University.

Stephen Wertheim is a historian of the United States in the world. He is Deputy Director of Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute. He is also a Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Stephen specializes in U.S. foreign relations and international order, particularly concepts of global politics from the late nineteenth century to the present. He is author of a book forthcoming from Harvard University Press that reveals how, in the years prior to the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941, U.S. officials and intellectuals first decided that the United States should become the supreme political-military power in the postwar world. Stephen has published scholarly articles on a range of subjects, including grand strategy, international law and organization, colonial empire, and humanitarian intervention. His research on the intellectual origins of the League of Nations won the Fischel-Calhoun Prize from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Stephen regularly writes essays on current affairs. His pieces have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. He was previously a faculty member at Columbia University and Birkbeck, University of London, and held research fellowships at Princeton University and King's College, University of Cambridge. He received a PhD from Columbia University in 2015. He also holds an MPhil from Columbia University (2011) and an AB summa cum laude from Harvard University (2007).

arah Leah Whitson is the incoming Managing Director for Research and Policy at the Quincy Institute (February 2020). Currently, she serves as executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division from 2004 – 2019, overseeing the work of the division in 19 countries, with staff located in 10 countries. She has led dozens of advocacy and investigative missions throughout the region, focusing on issues of armed conflict, accountability, legal reform, migrant workers, and human rights. She has published widely on human rights and foreign policy in the Middle East in international and regional media, including The New York Times, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, and CNN. She appears regularly on Al-Jazeera, BBC, NPR, and CNN. Before joining Human Rights Watch, Whitson worked in New York for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. Whitson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is on the boards of the Artistic Freedom Initiative and Democracy for the Arab World Now. She speaks Armenian and Arabic.

Thomas Wright is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. He is also a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a nonresident fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He is the author of “All Measures Short of War: The Contest For the 21st Century and the Future of American Power” which was published by Yale University Press in May 2017. Wright works on great power competition, Brexit and the future of the EU, economic interdependence, Donald Trump's worldview, and U.S. foreign policy. Wright has a doctorate from Georgetown University, a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge University, and a bachelor's and master's from University College Dublin. He has also held a pre-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University. He was previously executive director of studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a lecturer at the University of Chicago's Harris School for Public Policy.