August Cole

Adjunct Fellow

Expertise: American competitiveness; Economics and national security; Defense industry strategy, policy and oversight; Intersection of financial markets politics; Battlefield and Intelligence Contracting; “Smart Power”

August is a former Wall Street Journal reporter and writes about American competitiveness, military and intelligence spending and the defense industry for ASP’s Flashpoint blog. Read his blogging here.

August Cole is a writer focusing on national security issues. His fiction writing tackles themes at the core of American foreign policy and national security in the 21st Century, including the privatization of military and intelligence operations and the future of American power in the Pacific.

His research centers on how operational and policy priorities, political shifts and budget cuts impact the defense industry and U.S. national security.

From 2007 to 2010, Cole reported on the defense industry for The Wall Street Journal from Washington. He covered companies ranging from Boeing to Blackwater, as well as broader defense policy and political matters. From 1998 to 2006, he worked as an editor and a reporter for MarketWatch.com, a financial Web site, where he began covering the aerospace and defense industry. In 1998, he worked as an intern at the Freedom Forum’s European Centre in London and as an intern at the NBC News London bureau.

Cole earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Diplomatic History and French from the University of Pennsylvania and earned a Master in Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He is also a senior analyst at Wikistrat, a crowd-sourced geopolitical analysis and forecasting group, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

August Cole also authored ASP”s White Paper on American Competitiveness: