Mark C. Askew

Mark C. Askew is an active duty Army lieutenant colonel with twenty-one years of service, nine of them in the field practice of strategy. He currently teaches at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he works with senior officers on strategy, history, and decision-making. Previous assignments include concept writer and branch chief at Army Futures Command, war plans officer at USARCENT, and assistant professor of history at West Point.

He holds a PhD in military history from Texas A&M. His research engages strategy, the American Civil War, military occupations, and counterinsurgency: how armies write the scripts they later follow, and what happens when the script fails. His first book, Hard War, Soft Empire, traces that story through the career of James H. Wilson.

Off duty he fly fishes, loses at pickleball with dignity, and keeps a Call of Cthulhu campaign alive against long odds.