Alastair Campbell: We have learnt the wrong lessons from Iraq
[The writer was spokesman and strategist for Tony Blair 1994-2003.]
Britain is at war in Afghanistan. It does not feel like it for a population for whom the concept of war remains defined by the second world war with its millions of deaths and bombs falling on London. But war it is.
Giving evidence to the Iraq inquiry last week, when asked what lessons I thought we should learn, I expressed my fear that because of the controversies surrounding the communication of the Iraq war, we had already learnt the wrong lessons for our handling of Afghanistan. Political and military leaders know why we are there, but too often members of the public say they do not. That is a failure of strategic communications, not military planning or execution. Despite the controversies of Iraq, I believe the job of big picture communication is more, not less important.
If politicians constantly apologise for being in politics, if all communications is seen as spin, if much of the mass media show only the bad side of a story, and if senior military officers brief against the chief of defence staff and their ministerial boss, as occurs too regularly, it does not build the platform needed for strong communications when we are at war.
This focus on strategic communications is even tougher in an era of the internet and 24-7 media, in which embedded reporters send only snapshots of the war and every casualty is reported as a news-leading event; the media are eager to cover “setbacks” while ignoring steps forward; there is a virtual fusion of news and comment and our enemies are sophisticated at exploiting our media, so that terror becomes our fault, not their wickedness. Osama bin Laden can send a video from a cave and it is seen as genius public relations, yet when we explain why we are worried about a threat, it is denounced as spin.
So, what should we be learning instead? First, take strategic communications seriously. When I spoke at a recent Nato conference for military leaders, the generals were encouraged by Barack Obama’s decision to send an extra 30,000 troops and felt they had what they needed militarily to fight the Taliban. But they complained about poor strategic communications. They saw this as critical, not just because of the risk of losing domestic support, but also for clarity of purpose on the ground. In military strategy, you must make the weather. It is the same in communications. The agenda has to be set by those communicating, not those covering you.
Second, in a multinational alliance, you have to internationalise communications so that key aims can be communicated across time zones and political systems. The Blair government’s thinking on this deepened with Kosovo, when Nato forces took on Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. We all made assumptions about Nato. It is a great brand, but personnel levels and structures made for normal times were inadequate. There came a point when President Bill Clinton and Tony Blair decided that though it might be a one-sided military contest, the PR battle was being lost by democracies with liberal media systems to a dictatorship with total control of his. Countries focused on national, not overall interests, and military/civilian co-ordination was poor. So we agreed that no major news line would be deployed without the agreement of a small media team, on behalf of their leaders. We convened twice daily international conference calls; issued no reaction to breaking news without a call to agree lines and shared access to each other’s knowledge. Those systems were adapted for use after the September 11 attacks and in the Iraq war, successfully in the build-up, less so in the aftermath. Military leaders in Kosovo later said it was only when these international systems of media management were in place that they could focus fully on the military mission.
It was hard to discern that approach in the run-up to the Afghan surge being announced, or after it. The surge should have been followed by co-ordinated communications across the alliance. That job is not being done with the vigour and consistency that it should, and the systems of co-ordination have weakened since Iraq...
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Britain is at war in Afghanistan. It does not feel like it for a population for whom the concept of war remains defined by the second world war with its millions of deaths and bombs falling on London. But war it is.
Giving evidence to the Iraq inquiry last week, when asked what lessons I thought we should learn, I expressed my fear that because of the controversies surrounding the communication of the Iraq war, we had already learnt the wrong lessons for our handling of Afghanistan. Political and military leaders know why we are there, but too often members of the public say they do not. That is a failure of strategic communications, not military planning or execution. Despite the controversies of Iraq, I believe the job of big picture communication is more, not less important.
If politicians constantly apologise for being in politics, if all communications is seen as spin, if much of the mass media show only the bad side of a story, and if senior military officers brief against the chief of defence staff and their ministerial boss, as occurs too regularly, it does not build the platform needed for strong communications when we are at war.
This focus on strategic communications is even tougher in an era of the internet and 24-7 media, in which embedded reporters send only snapshots of the war and every casualty is reported as a news-leading event; the media are eager to cover “setbacks” while ignoring steps forward; there is a virtual fusion of news and comment and our enemies are sophisticated at exploiting our media, so that terror becomes our fault, not their wickedness. Osama bin Laden can send a video from a cave and it is seen as genius public relations, yet when we explain why we are worried about a threat, it is denounced as spin.
So, what should we be learning instead? First, take strategic communications seriously. When I spoke at a recent Nato conference for military leaders, the generals were encouraged by Barack Obama’s decision to send an extra 30,000 troops and felt they had what they needed militarily to fight the Taliban. But they complained about poor strategic communications. They saw this as critical, not just because of the risk of losing domestic support, but also for clarity of purpose on the ground. In military strategy, you must make the weather. It is the same in communications. The agenda has to be set by those communicating, not those covering you.
Second, in a multinational alliance, you have to internationalise communications so that key aims can be communicated across time zones and political systems. The Blair government’s thinking on this deepened with Kosovo, when Nato forces took on Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. We all made assumptions about Nato. It is a great brand, but personnel levels and structures made for normal times were inadequate. There came a point when President Bill Clinton and Tony Blair decided that though it might be a one-sided military contest, the PR battle was being lost by democracies with liberal media systems to a dictatorship with total control of his. Countries focused on national, not overall interests, and military/civilian co-ordination was poor. So we agreed that no major news line would be deployed without the agreement of a small media team, on behalf of their leaders. We convened twice daily international conference calls; issued no reaction to breaking news without a call to agree lines and shared access to each other’s knowledge. Those systems were adapted for use after the September 11 attacks and in the Iraq war, successfully in the build-up, less so in the aftermath. Military leaders in Kosovo later said it was only when these international systems of media management were in place that they could focus fully on the military mission.
It was hard to discern that approach in the run-up to the Afghan surge being announced, or after it. The surge should have been followed by co-ordinated communications across the alliance. That job is not being done with the vigour and consistency that it should, and the systems of co-ordination have weakened since Iraq...