FP Virtual Dialogue: A New Cold War?

Congressman William R. (Bill) Keating was elected to the United States House of Representatives on November 2, 2010 - one of only nine new Democratic Members to be elected that year. He represents Massachusetts’ 9th Congressional District, which encompasses the state’s South Shore, South Coast, Cape Cod and the Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
In Congress, Bill has established himself as a hardworking civil servant and passionate advocate for the people of Massachusetts – a reputation he had earned since his days in the State’s legislature. Bill’s legislative priorities reflect a keen understanding of the issues facing his constituents and a commitment to addressing them: working to create jobs by supporting our small businesses and increasing educational opportunities; strengthening our middle-class families; improving our domestic security; providing our senior population with the resources they need; ensuring our veterans receive the benefits they deserve; and protecting our unique ecosystems.
Additionally, over his time in Congress, Bill has cemented his role as one of the lead national security and foreign policy experts in Congress. He is a senior Member of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, and he currently serves as Chairman of the Europe, Energy, the Environment, and Cyber Subcommittee. He also sits on the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Global Counterterrorism as well as the Armed Services Subcommittees on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems and Intelligence and Special Operations.
Bill has been the leading Congressional voice on the fight for democracy in Belarus and the Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion. Further, he is an expert on Northern Ireland issues, and has recently returned from a trip there to solidify the US’s support for the Good Friday Agreement. Other notable Congressional achievements include renewing the national focus on perimeter security in our nation’s airports - an issue on which he is the leading voice. Bill was also the lead Congressional investigator into the Boston Marathon bombings, making two fact-finding trips to Russia at the time.
Prior to being elected to the United States House of Representatives, Bill had already exemplified a life of public service and a commitment to the state of Massachusetts. Born in Norwood, attended Boston College where he received his B.A. and Masters in Business Administration. To put himself through college and his graduate program, he worked as a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service.
In 1977, at the age of 23, Bill was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. While serving in the State House, he entered Suffolk University Law School and became a member of the state bar in 1985. The same year, he began serving in the Massachusetts State Senate. Bill was then elected to be Norfolk District Attorney, a position he held from 1999 until his election to Congress. As a District Attorney, he pursued some of Massachusetts’ toughest cases. He was instrumental in programs targeted to increase community-based crime prevention, prevent senior abuse, reduce incidents of domestic violence, provide post-traumatic stress disorder services for veterans, stop bullying in our schools, and keep drugs off our streets.
Bill and his wife, Tevis, reside in Bourne and are the proud parents of two children, Kristen and Patrick.

Michael J. Abramowitz is the president of Freedom House, a non-partisan voice dedicated to promoting democracy. There he oversees a unique combination of analysis, advocacy, and direct support to frontline defenders for freedom, especially those working in closed authoritarian societies. Formerly he directed the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education, and before that he led the museum’s genocide prevention efforts. He spent the first 24 years of his career at The Washington Post where he was National Editor and then White House correspondent. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the Hoover Institution. A graduate of Harvard College, he is also a board member of the National Security Archive, a member of the Human Freedom Advisory Council for the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and a member of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy.

Timothy Garton Ash is the author of ten books of political writing or ‘history of the present’ which have charted the transformation of Europe over the last half century. He is Professor of European Studies in the University of Oxford, Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His essays appear regularly in the New York Review of Books. He writes a column on international affairs in the Guardian which is widely syndicated in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Tomi Huhtanen studied International Politics and Economics at the University of Helsinki and spent a year in Spain at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid studying International Law and Political History. He also holds an MBA degree from the United Business Institutes in Brussels. Tomi started his career by working for the Finnish delegation of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament. From 1999 to 2007, he was a Political Adviser and subsequently a Senior Adviser for the EPP, mainly focusing on economic and social policy. During this period, he launched the European View policy journal, of which he became Editor-in-Chief. In 2007, Tomi was put in charge of launching the political foundation of the European People’s Party, the Centre for European Studies (renamed the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies in 2014); in the same year, Tomi was nominated as the Centre’s Director, and is since October 2015 its Executive Director. Tomi speaks Finnish, Swedish, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Greek and has basic knowledge of German.

Dr. Alina Polyakova is President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) as well as an adjunct professor of European studies at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Polyakova is a recognized expert on transatlantic relations, European security, Russian foreign policy, digital authoritarianism, and populism in democracies. She is the author of the book, The Dark Side of European Integration, which examines the rise of far-right political movements in Europe, as well as dozens of major reports and articles in outlets such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic, and others. She is a frequent commentator in major media outlets, such as Fox News, CNN, and BBC. Prior to joining CEPA, Dr. Polyakova was the Founding Director for Global Democracy and Emerging Technology at the Brookings Institution and prior to that served as Director of Research for Europe and Eurasia at the Atlantic Council. She has held numerous prestigious fellowships, including at the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Fulbright Foundation, among others. She also serves on the board of the Free Russia Foundation and the Institute of Modern Russia. Dr. Polyakova holds a Ph.D. and MA in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Economics and Sociology from Emory University.

Reena hosts the Foreign Policy podcast The Hidden Economics of Remarkable Women. She is also a television journalist who has worked as a White House correspondent, foreign reporter, and news anchor for ABC, CBS, and Fox News. Reena has reported around the world from India to Israel, Libya to Lebanon. She was the anchor, most recently, of the CBS evening news on Saturday nights. Reena is the founder of Good Trouble Productions, a media company focused on creating content with purpose.