Board of Advisors

Douglas J. Feith

Douglas J. Feith is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, where he heads the Center for National Security Strategies. He is the author of War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, published in 2008 by Harper. He was a professor of national security studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

As Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until August 2005, he helped devise the U.S. government’s strategy for the war on terrorism and contributed to policy making for the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns. Mr. Feith’s duties included managing the Defense Department’s international relations and representing the Department in interagency policy making.

Mr. Feith helped plan the worldwide changes in the U.S. defense posture, develop new U.S. strategic partnerships with India and Pakistan, promote NATO enlargement and reform and craft U.S. policy toward China. Mr. Feith advised President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on the range of national security issues, including the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran, the counter-insurgency in Colombia and Palestinian-Israeli peace diplomacy.

Before President Bush appointed him in July 2001, Mr. Feith was for fifteen years the managing attorney of the Washington, D.C. law firm Feith & Zell, P.C. In the Reagan Administration, Mr. Feith worked at the White House as a Middle East specialist for the National Security Council and then served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations Policy. After each of his Pentagon tours, Mr. Feith received the Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Defense Department’s highest civilian award.

Mr. Feith’s writings on foreign and defense affairs have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Commentary, The New Republic and elsewhere. He has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James W. Muller, ed., Churchill as Peacemaker; Douglas J. Feith, et al., Israel’s Legitimacy in Law and History; and Uri Ra’anan, et al., eds., Hydra of Carnage: International Linkages of Terrorism.

Mr. Feith holds a J.D. (magna cum laude) from the Georgetown University Law Center and an A.B. (magna cum laude) from Harvard College.

Gert Demmink

Gert Demmink has built a career in legal, auditing, compliance and the judiciary. He studied Law in Amsterdam and Forensic Auditing in Rotterdam. His roots lie in international cooperation and exchange of information between intelligence, police and prosecution. He first acquainted the compliance arena when setting up the Financial Intelligence Unit in the Netherlands Antilles in 1996 - 1997. Soon after he joined the Netherlands Central Bank in Amsterdam to help design and implement compliance supervision and effectively head the expert centre for compliance & integrity in banking supervision. It was then that Gert gained in-depth knowledge of US export controls, OFAC and USA PATRIOT Act. It was at that time that Gert also closely liaised with FED, OCC and FBI.

In 2006 he left the Central Bank, after having succeeded in establishing an internationally recognized set of standards for supervision on compliance with applicable international financial and financial crime laws. After a year as an executive director with the Netherlands Compliance Institute, in September 2007 he set up The Eagle Compliance Company of Haarlem, the Netherlands, acknowledging the need for expert advice and training on US & EU export controls in the manufacturing & banking industry and in A&D supply chains. 

William A. Root

After an impressive 33-year career at the Department of State, Bill became an Export Control Consultant in 1983. He guides the development of OCR licensing software and export license screening tasks that come naturally to a man of such accomplishment. Bill advises the Industry Coalition on Technology Transfer and is also the primary author of the Defense Trade Controls Handbook. Among his many areas of expertise, he served as a member of the Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee (and its predecessor) for 27 years. At DOS, his responsibility covered Management and Budget, General Economics, and service as a Director in Export Controls, with responsibilities including COCOM matters and scientific and technical cooperation with the USSR.

A veteran of the U.S. Navy, Bill received his AB in Math and Physics from Colorado College, a Certificate from the Columbia Russian Institute, and his MIA from the Columbia School of International Affairs.