Another issue that’s drawn my attention here is the question of consistent, coherent narratives. If you don’t want to get caught saying one thing to one crowd and another to another, you’d better be consistent in your messaging. Right? This is the orthodoxy, and I’m not at all sure it’s right. Consider a couple of the big messaging tensions to be negotiated:
1. To the domestic UK audience: this war is about stopping terror on the streets of the UK, but we’re leaving anyway.
2. To the Afghan audience: we’re here to stay v. to the US/UK audience: our commitment is strictly limited, and we’re about to start leaving.
3. To the Afghan audience: the government is your best shot at improving your lot. It is honourable to join the government. To Afghan elites: your corruption is a big problem, and we’re going to tackle it.
Squaring those tensions is tricky. But perhaps you don’t need to. For one thing, people can tolerate a degree of dissonance – the amount dependent on all sorts of factors. People might not have the attention or the motivation to consider the tensions inherent in messages. All news is local, as they say.
For another, there’s the difference between saying something and being heard. People bring to bear widely disparate attitudes, beliefs and desires, all of which affect not just whether they pay attention to a message, but also the way in which it is perceived. For example, some people are convinced that Elvis is dead, and refuse to accept the wealth of compelling evidence to the contrary. If I provide some evidence that is deeply challenging to your viewpoint, you have a choice – change your mind, or ignore my evidence. Guess which way many people choose?
At some level, our values may be similar: people are the same wherever you go. There is good and bad in everyone. So while talk of democracy, freedom and human rights might not resonate with those who associate the terms, if anything, with decadent immoral foreigners, talk of justice and honour need not be so far removed from those sentiments.
But at another level, the norms and attitudes of groups can vary widely – between social groups and within them. The story in one valley might be quite different to that next door, and even within the same valley, people will hold different views.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
The dissonance is in the policy, not the way it is presented. If you really think otherwise, than please tell the KoW readers what the clear and consistent policy is.
Media management is key – there are necessarily different approaches towards targeting different demographics, domestic and in-theatre, there are bound to be mixed messages.
The need to be coherent is important – it seems a short term boon for domestic politicians to mention that “troops will be withdrawn soon”, the limited popularity spike that such statements may bring to a largely disinterested or at least somewhat apathetic public are far outweighed by the lack of trust this inspires in Afghanistan itself, and, dare I say it; even the operations of the enemy itself. The single most important consideration in gaining a victory over the Taleban (sic) in terms of information dissemination is the clear and coherent message that there is no exit strategy until the situation improves and there is a functional Afghan army. Talk of an early exit is an absolute boon to anyone seeking to sow the seeds of fear and distrust in the Afghani populace.
It’s been a problem right the way through the conflict, one that B.O recently made a mess of. Frankly, it is the prospect of phased withdrawls which undermine the entire war effort.
The domestic audience has very little capacity to change the situation, I think a bit of honesty wouldn’t go amiss. The situation is dire, and it will be a decade or more before there is a viable state capable of taking on and overwhelming the threat.
“For example, some people are convinced that Elvis is dead, and refuse to accept the wealth of compelling evidence to the contrary”
wow, I never thought I belonged to a minority
KP,
You are on to a winner here. There is no consistent message, for several reasons. The first is as Jeff M says: there is no clear understanding of the problem, and no clear or consistent policy/strategy for solving it.
Beyond that though, there are multiple audiences, even within one geography. Take for instance the UK audience you mention. Clausewitz helpfully reminds us that there are three parts to that audience: the British people, the British government, and the British armed forces. Each component has different needs and interests, and to be an effective, there needs to be a ‘strategic narrative’ for each of them.
However, discerning what the needs/interests are, and determining how unitary those needs/interests are, is not easy. There are many options, across a spectrum. Some of the British people need to hear that the UK is a full-fledged partner with the US in fighting the good fight; others want their army to be a force for good; others want the have the ‘boys home for Christmas’. Multiply the options (and therefore the inconsistency) by factoring in what the needs/interests are of the government (itself broken into cliques and tribes, from the civil service to the parliamentarians, to the Cabinet, with all the party-political ramifications). Finally, the Armed Forces itself is an audience. Some need to be feel that they are fighting a new kind of war; others need to have a connection with more conventional lines of operations…the list goes on.
Part of the ‘messaging’ strategy is to try and fulfill those needs and part of it is to shape them. In an age of new media and relatively free access to information, this is not easy and does not lend itself to coherence.
The problem with picking ‘a local’ to deliver your message is that he could be more corrupt than the rest and undermine your efforts. Hang on……..
As a member of the UK domestic audience, what I’ve been getting from government statements for some time is “We said we were in Afganistan to prevent terrorism in the UK, but we’ve realised that doesn’t actually work, because there are plenty of alternatives to Afganistan. In fact we may well be making things worse, and it’s costing a fortune. But we can’t admit the policy was a mistake, so we’re declaring victory and leaving.” Once spin has become accepted practice, government statements are going to be viewed very cynically.
I suspect that the Afgan auddicence reaction translates as “Here to stay? Yeah, right. You’ll be gone in five years. And you say this is ‘our’ government? No, it’s yours, and you can’t even run it effectively.”
Having those contradictory messages might not be a problem in the sense that all news is local, but I wonder if this is going to create another situation where twenty or thirty years down the road some group is going to say ‘you broke the promises you made and betrayed us’.
I don’t mean to insult the U.K writers and readers on this site but the messages the British government gave to different groups in the Middle East in the first half of the 20th century are a good example of this. As colonialism became more impossible to maintain Britain gave promises to the Kurds, the Palestinian Arabs, the Palestinian Jews, the Arabs throughout the Middle East during World War I and dozens more groups throughout the region and then tried to (in my reading of events) make its way through with governments that could not create a firm policy and did not keep those promises leading in part to the problems we have today. Having many messages designed to placate everyone can easily lead to disaster.
Not many UK citizens will get upset about statements along the lines of “you didn’t do a very good job of the last days of Empire”. We know. Personally, I can console myself by remembering that at least we didn’t do it as badly as some countries, and it’s had at least one positive legacy in the international sport of cricket. But that doesn’t make the British Empire a good thing by modern standards.
Reflecting on the FB’s comments about strategy and Clausewitz. I would look at the British people and government rather than the ability of armed forces to deliver tactically. I suspect today things are more complex than in Crossman’s time at the PWE. Reading these posts I tempted to think so what does this tell us about ourselves not just the problems of communicating and managing perceptions in our media infested world. As the character of conflict changes are we able to ‘do’ contested state building as an international coalition? It takes time, blood and treasure and patience. And it carries lots of risk not only the cost of conducting such campaigns but also a risk to reputation both to politicians and indeed militaries. Furthermore it is the US credibility on the line not the UK if one thinks about other interventions. Therefore what drives a British politician? Real problems at home with the economy I suspect and wider political survival as we know.
We might look at ourselves as part of the way we are prepared to ‘do’ war. We are a fickle society more tuned to emotion, inclined to sympathy rather than respect, fact and logic. The great British public is more empowered through new media, less respectful of elites (whom it exposes) and individual rather than communal. Perhaps networked but that might be different. This self analysis might help explain why our politicians act as they do. Moreover, we do not like to admit mistakes, are increasingly short term focused (I suspect not helped by new media) and our leaders lack an appreciation of grand strategy that might just guide decisions.