Before reporting from Washington, Indira spent a dozen years as a foreign correspondent, including seven years based in China. She covered the Bosnian War and the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and interviewed and profiled leaders including Benazir Bhutto, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. She embedded with sea pirates in the Philippines, Maoist rebels in Nepal, and Khmer Rouge holdouts in Cambodia. Her reporting exposed child labor in Bolivia, illegal logging in Brazil, corruption in China, and helped end the incarceration of innocent children in Nepal.

Indira graduated from Harvard University and did graduate studies at Oxford University as a Rotary Scholar. Her awards include the Nieman fellowship at Harvard.

Professor Walt is the author of The Origins of Alliances (1987), which received the 1988 Edgar S. Furniss National Security Book Award. He is also the author of Revolution and War (1996), Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy (2005), and, with co-author J.J. Mearsheimer, The Israel Lobby (2007).

Professor Walt earned his bachelor’s degree in international relations at Stanford University and his M.A and Ph.D. in political science at the University of California – Berkeley.

Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is an American diplomat and author. For more than 30 years he served in the State and Defense Departments, beginning in 1965 with assignments in India and Taiwan and on the State Department’s China desk.  He was the principal interpreter during President Richard Nixon’s first visit to the People’s Republic of China in 1972.  He was later appointed deputy director for Republic of China (Taiwan) affairs.  After assignments in Washington, he became deputy chief of mission in Beijing, China and then in Bangkok, Thailand.  In 1986 he was selected as principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs.  He became United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in November 1989, serving during Operation Desert Storm.

Ambassador Freeman was a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies (1992-93); assistant secretary of defense, International Security Affairs (1993-94); and a Distinguished Fellow, United States Institute of Peace (1994-95).  In 1995 he became chairman of the board of Projects International, Inc. in Washington, a business development firm arranging international joint ventures.  He serves on the boards of several diplomatic institutes, corporations and non-profit advisory groups.

Ambassador Freeman is a past president of the Middle East Policy Council, co-chair of the U.S. China Policy Foundation, and vice-chair of the Atlantic Council.  He has been honored with two Distinguished Public Service Awards, three Presidential Meritorious Service Awards, and a Distinguished Honor Award. He speaks fluent Chinese, French, Spanish and Arabic.

Matthew J. Goodwin is an academic, writer and speaker known mainly for his work on British and European politics, populism, Brexit and elections. He is Professor of Politics at Rutherford College, University of Kent, and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. He is the author of five books, including the 2015 UK Political Book of the Year, Revolt on the Right (Routledge), as well as Brexit: Why Britain Voted to Leave the European Union (Cambridge University Press). He has published dozens of academic studies and research reports with Chatham House on European politics and populism. He writes regularly for international media, including the New York Times, Politico and Financial Times. Between 2011-2015, he sat on the UK government’s working group on tackling prejudice and has advised many governments and departments, including Number 10 Downing Street and the US State Department.

Avril D. Haines is the Senior Research Scholar for Columbia World Projects at Columbia University.   She most recently served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama.  Previously, she was the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and before that she served as the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council.  Before joining the NSC, she led the Treaty office at the Department of State, was the Deputy Chief Counsel for the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, worked for The Hague Conference on Private International Law, and served as a law clerk for Judge Danny Boggs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.  She received a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the University of Chicago, a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and founded and ran a bookstore café for five years while engaged in community service in Baltimore.

On January 1, 2018, economist Thea Lee will become the next President of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, DC.  Ms. Lee comes to EPI from the AFL-CIO, where she served most recently as Deputy Chief of Staff and as Policy Director and Chief International Economist.  Previously, she worked as an international trade economist at EPI and as an editor at Dollars & Sense magazine in Boston.

Ms.  Lee has spent her career advocating on behalf of working families in the national policy debate, focusing on wage inequality, workers’ rights, and fair trade, among other issues.  She played a key role in the management of the 12.5 million member AFL-CIO, helping to craft a vision for the organization and implement its policy agenda.

She has authored numerous publications, including A Field Guide to the Global Economy.  Her research projects have included reports on the North American Free Trade Agreement, on the impact of international trade on U.S. wage inequality, and on the domestic steel and textile industries.

She has served on several advisory committees, including the State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the Export-Import Bank Advisory Committee, and on the Board of Directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ms. Lee holds a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor’s degree from Smith College.

Evan S. Medeiros is Managing Director for Asia at the Eurasia Group.  His Asia-Pacific team—the firm’s largest practice group—helps corporations and institutions assess risks and navigate developed and emerging markets.

In June 2015, Dr. Medeiros stepped down from the position of special assistant to the president and senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC).  He had served for nearly six years as President Obama’s top advisor on the Asia-Pacific, coordinating US policy toward the Asia-Pacific across the areas of diplomacy, defense policy, economic policy and intelligence affairs. He developed the initial proposal for the Sunnylands Summit, planned the president’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2014, and managed numerous high-level US-China interactions.

Dr.  Medeiros had previously been a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, specializing in the international politics of East Asia, China’s foreign and national security policies, US-China relations, and Chinese defense and security issues.  He also served as policy advisor to the special envoy for China and the US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue at the Treasury Department.

He holds a doctorate in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science; a master’s in international relations  from the University of Cambridge; a master’s in China studies from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies); and a bachelor’s degree in analytic philosophy from Bates College.

His books and journal articles include China’s International Behavior: Activism, Opportunism and Diversification and (as co-author) Pacific Currents: The Responses of U.S. Allies and Security Partners in East Asia to China’s Rise.

Natalie Nougayrède is a columnist, lead (editorial) writer and foreign affairs commentator for the British newspaper The Guardian.

Before joining The Guardian in 2014, she served as executive editor and managing editor of France’s Le Monde, the first woman to lead the paper since its founding in 1944.  Ms. Nougayrède promoted digital and editorial transformation for the publication, focusing particularly on investigative journalism, original content, and the consolidation of Le Monde’s standing as the largest information website in France.

Ms. Nougayrède graduated from the Institut d’Études Politiques in Strasbourg, then completed her education in Paris at the Centre de Formation des Journalistes.

In 1991 she began reporting for various French media outlets, covering events in Eastern Europe following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993.  She joined Le Monde as foreign and diplomatic correspondent in 1997 and later became Moscow bureau chief.

She has been honored with two major French journalism prizes, the Prix de la Presse Diplomatique (2004) and the Albert Londres award (2005), both for her coverage of the Chechen conflict and the attack on the school in Beslan, Russia.  She has contributed to books on Vladimir Putin’s Russia and on Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.  She has a special interest in security issues and human rights.

In 2016-2017 she is a Richard von Weizsacker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. She is on the advisory committee of the Primo Levi Center in Paris, an organization that helps refugees who have been victims of torture.

Cleo Paskal is an associate fellow in the Energy, Environment and Resources department of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, an independent policy institute based in London. She is a geopolitical expert specializing in the confluence of the “three geos” (the geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geophysical).  Her research includes the geopolitical, security, and economic implications of environmental change (including climate change) and Arctic and Pacific security.

Ms. Paskal is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Geopolitics, Manipal University, India and adjunct professor of Global Change in the School of Communication and Management Studies, Kochi, India.  In 2015, she was awarded a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Visiting Fellowship to lead a multi-year research project based at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM) looking at strategic shifts in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Ms. Paskal has taught at the US Army War College, the Royal College of Defence Studies (UK), the National Defence College (India), and the National Defence College (Oman).   She has consulted for or briefed the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the German Foreign Office, the European Union, major corporations and security professionals. 

Her book Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map has won multiple awards.  Her most recent book, the bestselling Spielball Erde, was co-authored with German TV news anchor Claus Kleber, and focuses on the security implications of climate change. She has been a columnist for Canada’s National Post and Toronto Star, a radio producer for the BBC, and the author of an Emmy-winning documentary television series.

Gerald (Jerry) Seib is a columnist and former Washington bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal.  He has also been a frequent commentator on Washington affairs for CNN, CNBC, the BBC, Fox Business Network, and other cable networks. 

As a reporter and columnist, Mr. Seib has covered the Pentagon, State Department, White House and the presidency.  In the 1980s he covered the Middle East from a base in Cairo.   

The recipient of many of journalism’s major honors, Mr. Seib won the Merriman Smith award in 1988 for his coverage of the presidency under deadline and the Aldo Beckman award for coverage of the White House and the presidency.  In 1990, he received the Gerald R. Ford Foundation prize for distinguished reporting on the presidency.

In 1992, the Georgetown University Institute of Diplomacy awarded him the Weintal Prize for his coverage of the Gulf War. He received honorable mention in the Edwin Hood Prize for diplomatic reporting from the National Press Club in 1998.  Mr. Seib was part of the Journal team that won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in the “breaking news” category for its coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In 2004, the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas named Mr. Seib the winner of the 2005 William Allen White Foundation’s national citation. (Past recipients include Walter Cronkite and Bob Woodward).   In 2012 he won the Loeb lifetime achievement award for contributions to business and financial journalism.

Mr. Seib earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Kansas.

From the dystopian economic situation of his era (with obvious parallels to our own) Edward Bellamy posits a utopian, socialist future in 2000 (from which his protagonist looks back).  A classic, one of the most influential books of the late 19^th century, which can always bear re-reading and prompt discussion.

Setting is London in the year 2100.  Themes, revolution, betrayal, manipulation of the population with technology and pleasure.

London, the year 2540, the author posits and a world of reproductive technology and psychological manipulation.

The classic futuristic dystopian novel.  Big Brother is watching all the time.  All the world is at war. The “future” date 1984 has passed, but the novel is worth re-reading to see what was prophetic and to show what we fear that may still come to pass.

In the near future, ten years after World War III, the world is totally mechanized with conflict between those rich who are in charge and the rest of the population.

A man living in the near future U.S. when the economy has collapsed and violence is rising becomes part of a “reality TV show” in 2025.