**Updated below**
I posted not too long ago on Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham’s thoughtful paper, Behavioural Conflict. Sky News’ Geoff Meade has been reading it too. He seems underwhelmed by the UK military’s efforts to get its message out:
Although those deployed to run media centres at Lashkar Gah and Kandahar are much better trained than a the start of the conflict, I have lost count of the officers who have needed me to explain to them how the media works before they could start to do their job effectively.
Some have piled in too enthusiastically, aspiring to editorial control and seeking to harness independent journalists as a weapon in their arsenal.
“That’s not what you were brought here to write,” scolded one who took exception to the tone of my report.
It’s an inexact science, expediting what restless news teams want to cover, trying to exert subtle influence to ensure at least some of the military’s message gets across, all without being open to claims of gagging or censorship.
That is why the British need to go the way of the Americans, Canadians and others nations. Make media ops a respected accredited speciality, not a siding into which can be shunted those unable to find a useful billet elsewhere.
I disagree – the military doesn’t need better media officers, it needs officers, especially senior ones, with a good understanding of influence.
Journalists might be frustrated at lack of understanding by the military of their profession (the incomprehension is, I suspect, generally mutual). But at one level, the public affairs folk seem to do a fair job: media teams visit, do some good journalism, and make some great documentaries. If people choose to do so, they can get a rough picture of what is going on in Afghanistan. Not perfect, given diminishing budgets and the problems of operating independently of the military – but something. Telly might focus incessantly on the tactical and on human interest stories – notably ‘our boys’ in gripping combat action – but there’s strategic analysis on offer in print and new media outlets.
The problem is that the picture we get from Afghanistan isn’t (with very occasional exceptions) great, as we discuss here interminably. Can perceptions of that picture be changed? Perhaps, to some degree, though not without considerable difficulty.
The armed forces have advanced an approach to warfare that emphasises ‘influence’, but have, as yet, a sketchy understanding of the circumstances in which influence might achieved, of who should be influenced, and by whom. For example, we know that the violence and chaos caused by insurgencies can shift precipitously. Why? What are the population dynamics through which public perceptions of security shift? This strategic-level thinking about communication and influence is, to me, much more important than the day-to-day interaction of hacks and media officers.
Meanwhile, here‘s a handy guide for budding journalists reporting the military, from the BBC’s newly public College of Journalism website.
**Update**
Here’s some corroboration, from MG Michael Flynn and colleagues, authors of a new CNAS report that was picked up by the Guardian today:
The vast [US] intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US and allied forces operate and the people they seek to persuade. Ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the power-brokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers – whether aid workers or Afghan soldiers – U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Kenneth:
Good insights. I also raise again my concern that in addition to the issues you raise, “western” nations (and in particular their militaries) have a larger problem of trying to conduct “influence” operations under the glare of media klieg lights that seem to always cast such efforts as propaganda and therefore anathema to an open society of representative government yada yada….
MG Flynn’s critique of the intelligence system’s failures to understand Afghanistan need to be kept in wider perspective. At some level, conventionally-oriented “western” (to use Cincinnatus Jr.’s grammar) military intelligence is enemy-centric because that’s what commanders the intel apparatus support want (or used to want).
The difference is that McChrystal is no ordinary commander and Flynn is struggling to get the behemoth to change course on his boss’s behalf. Instead of keeping his criticisms “in-house,” he is using the CNAS platform to shame the Beltway-focused intelligence community (IC) that contributes case officers and analysts to get on-side through its wider coverage in the mainstream media. As I noted on Twitter, I don’t think the timing of the report just after the CIA operation blew up in its and the Jordanian GID’s faces was deliberate, though it is certainly being linked in much of the reporting.
Strikes me as squarely on the money – well worth a read. How can militaries influence? First understand the target for influence.
This from the Times Online:
“Ignorant CIA should copy Raj agents to avoid failure says spy chief”
Jerome Starkey in Kabul
The job description reads like a modern-day blend of Shackleton and the Raj: US officials are looking for “the best, most extroverted and hungriest analysts” to revolutionise the way they foster intelligence on Afghanistan’s volatile frontlines.
In a scathing attack on Nato’s failures, the top US intelligence officer in Afghanistan is demanding urgent changes to the way the military does business.
After the death last week of seven CIA agents in the country, when an al-Qaeda suicide bomber infiltrated their base, Major-General Michael Flynn describes the agency as “ignorant”, “disengaged” and unaware of the power structures it seeks to influence. In a report released by a Washington think-tank, he called for a return of district level experts, reminiscent of Britain’s Raj-era political agents. The work, he said, would be “among the most challenging and rewarding … an analyst could tackle”.
Based in the provinces, with orders to travel in and out of Afghanistan’s most dangerous districts, applicants would endure near constant danger. But, General Flynn insisted: “The stakes are too high … for us to fail.
“Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the US intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy.
“The vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US and allied forces operate.”
He called for teams of analysts to focus on specific areas, and “write comprehensive district assessments covering governance, development and stability”.
Crucially, General Flynn and his two co-authors argued that analysts’ reports should be made readily available to soldiers and civilian development workers. His report warned that most of Nato’s intelligence officers were “ignorant of local economics and landowners”.
“US intelligence officers can do little but shrug in response to high level decision makers seeking knowledge, analysis, and information,” General Flynn said. “It is little wonder then that many decision makers rely more upon newspapers than military intelligence.”
Only a handful of Nato soldiers speak Pashto, the language of the Taleban, and few spend more than a year in Afghanistan at a time.
General Flynn warned that Nato had concentrated too much on plotting out terrorist networks to launch kill-and-capture missions at the expense of understanding the local people they were trying to win over.
But in a rare example of an operation in which intelligence was working, he said US Marines in Nawa, Helmand, had managed to build up a detailed picture of the people around them. “As the picture sharpened, the focus honed in on what the battalion called ‘anchor points’ — local personalities and local grievances that, if skilfully exploited, could drive a wedge between the insurgents and the greater population.”
Such knowledge was the currency of Britain’s Raj-era political officers, who — armed with little more than wit and a keen sense of adventure — often disappeared into the hills for years at a time, penning detailed dispatches to their political masters in Delhi and London.
“The collection of information is one of the most important military duties,” wrote Winston Churchill in his first-hand account of a British campaign along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The Story of the Malakand Field Force, published in 1897, includes reams of colourful detail about local tribal dynamics.
General Flynn argued that soldiers needed to learn from recent mistakes. He cited one example in which local women destroyed a new well in their village because it denied them a chance to walk to the river each day and gossip.
His warning was clear: “Without the ability to capture this simple history, prosaic as it may be, others are doomed to repeat it.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6977046.ece
In regard to that CNAS report – most of the types of information mentioned can only be analyzed if collected by the units that do the reconnaissance patrols. Maybe commanders should place a little more emphasis on answering intelligence requirements if they want their intelligence analysts to glean insights from it.
Excellent observation! It brings to mind many times as a recon Marine platoon commander the frustration I felt when whipsawed between the G-2 and G-3 officers who usually had far different perspectives and senses of priority that were rarely reconciled before my teams were inserted into the enemy “rear.”
What then followed was usually a very inefficient, extremely fatiguing and quite dangerous pattern of having to move on foot (this was in the days before the LAV etc.) quickly yet surreptitiously over vast areas of difficult terrain in horrible weather to obtain information for 2 masters with widely differing views of the battle space, time, priorities etc. To this day I marvel at the skill and stamina of those Marines carrying out those missions.