Ricky Gill likely to be Trump’s top NSC India hand, David Feith for tech role
If appointed, both Ricky Gill and David Feith will report to Trump’s national security advisor pick Michael Waltz
Washington: Ricky Gill, a California-born, Princeton and University of California Berkley-educated Indian-American lawyer, is likely to be the senior director for South Asia in Donald Trump’s National Security Council (NSC), multiple people familiar with the development said.
Gill, 37, served as the NSC director for Europe and Russian affairs in the final year of Trump’s first term. He was also a senior advisor in the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations at State Department between 2017 and 2020. If appointed, Gill will succeed Lindsey Ford, a former Pentagon official who has handled the India account in NSC in the final lap of the Joe Biden administration.
David Feith, who served as the deputy assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and as a member of the Secretary’s policy planning staff in Trump’s first term, is likely to become the NSC senior director for technology and national security, the people familiar with the development said. Feith was a former Wall Street Journal journalist in Hong Kong.
Feith is currently an adjunct fellow at the Centre for New American Security (CNAS), a well regarded Washington DC think tank, and serves as an advisory council member. He is also a partner at Garnaut Global, an advisory firm that focuses on China and serves asset managers and corporate clients. He will succeed Tarun Chhabra.
If appointed, both will report to Trump’s national security advisor pick Michael Waltz. It is important to note that these appointments have not been finalised, and people familiar with the appointment process have cautioned that last minute decision making should always be factored in.
Gill was born in California to Sikh parents who are doctors. He started his public service career early when he became a member of the California School of Board Education in his late teens, before heading to Princeton‘s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and then UC Berkeley.
Gill, a Republican, then contested in the 2012 elections for a House of Representatives seat from California 9th district but lost. He was only 25, just meeting the age threshold to contest elections, and won accolades for his fundraising skills and putting up a fight in a Democratic district.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Gill is a policy advisor to TC Energy, which provides consultancy services to energy companies on European and Asian energy security and is a principal and general counsel at Gill Capital Group. He is also a term member at the Council of Foreign Relations.
The importance of the NSC senior director position handling South Asia comes from the fact that the holder of the office ends up being a key participant in bilateral negotiations especially at the middle levels, coordinates inter-agency meetings on India (and the rest of the region) at a functional level, provides key inputs to NSA and implements directives, is often present in meetings between the principals (top leaders) as a note taker, and can shape policy by prioritising issues on the desks of the national security leadership.
Feith, in his role in the State Department in Trump 1.0, played an important role in crafting the administration’s stronger position in the Indo-Pacific. At WSJ, in Hong Kong, he wrote editorials on Asian security issues. He was also an oped editor for the paper in New York and worked as an assistant editor of Foreign Affairs. Feith’s father, Doug Feith, was the undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W Bush administration from 2001 to 2005 and is widely considered among the architects of the Iraq war.
Feith is also an advisory council member at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at University of Purdue and has highlighted how tech diplomacy belongs at the centre of US diplomacy and requires deep internal coordination. “History reminds us of this need — and so do our adversaries, who everyday invest in technology, acquisition, theft and innovation.”
The importance of the NSC senior director for tech has increased in general in recent years because the occupant of the office works closely with the political and national security leadership as well as departments of commerce and state in determining steps to be taken to keep US leadership ahead in the competition with China. In the case of India, the position has become more critical with the inception of the initiative of critical and emerging technologies (iCET). Chhabra, a close confidante of Joe Biden’s NSA Jake Sullivan, played a central role in driving iCET and while the political leadership will decide on whether to continue with the mechanism and in what form, the India-US relationship is now structured in ways that tech will play a critical role - on semiconductors, space, defence, telecom, biosciences, supply chain diversification. This is the role that Feith is likely to step into.