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a Transcript Afghanistan: Can the Mission Succeed? Major General Gordon Messenger, Strategic Communications Officer, Ministry of Defence Chair: Dr Paul Cornish, Head, International Security Programme, Chatham House Wednesday 29 September 2010 Chatham House is independent and owes no allegiance to government or to any political body. It does not hold opinions of its own; the views expressed in this text are the responsibility of the speakers. This document is issued on the understanding that if any extract is used, the speaker and Chatham House should be credited, preferably with the date of the event. While Chatham House aims to provide an exact representation of the speaker’s words we cannot take responsibility for any minor inaccuracies which may appear. www.chathamhouse.org.uk 1 Transcript: Afghanistan: Can the Mission Succeed? Major General Gordon Messenger: Thank you very much. A bit of a first for me, because I'm actually at a personal transition point, because vanity has precluded me from wearing glasses at these things previously, and I'm increasingly struggling and the book's getting further and further away. So I'm at a point now where I've brought them with me just in case they're needed. But I'm aiming to keep them stuck in the pocket. I thought I'd cover three things. The first thing is some of the challenges of communications that I, as a novice communicator, have experienced specifically on the Afghanistan mission. Secondly, to examine, in more detail, my perspective on the strategic rationale for our mission in Afghanistan. And then thirdly, give you some insight on how things are going on the ground, based on a visit as recent as last week. My title is the sort of rather unsexy CDF Strategic Communication Officer, and of course one of the challenges we have is that we haven't really properly defined strategic communication. Although there is some doctrine on this, it is pretty loose and woolly. But I choose to define strategic communication through the nature of the message that you're trying to impart, i.e. the message needs to be a strategic message. So it's not the means of delivery, it's not the audience. It's the level of the message that you're imparting. By strategic messages, I mean the 'why we're here', 'how long we're staying', 'what does success look like' type messages. Now those messages have relevance domestically in all contributing nations. They've also got implications and interests regionally. And of course, they can and should play out at the very local level, at the sort of community level where our soldiers are dealing with. So strategic communication isn't necessarily standing up in capitals and making the point. I think it spans everywhere. So what are the challenges of communicating? I think the first thing is that we don't own, no one owns the information that you are seeking to communicate. Someone said to me a couple of weeks ago that it was simple. That it was about you, your message and your audience. And if you got that right, then it worked. www.chathamhouse.org.uk 2 Transcript: Afghanistan: Can the Mission Succeed? The problem is that it isn't just you. As you know as well as anyone, the campaign in Afghanistan is an international campaign. It is an international campaign being waged in the country of Afghanistan, which is an increasingly sovereign dynamic in this whole thing. And each of the players in this game of communication comes with very firm ideas and agendas of what they are trying to say and what they are trying to do. I'm quite clear that, as a communicator whose principle audience is the domestic public, i.e. the UK public, that I should be slightly behind, yet entirely in step with the messages that are coming out from the Afghans and from ISAF and NATO. I have to say, it is not always too easy to recognise exactly what those are to remain entirely in step and slightly behind, but that is something I think we're very comfortable in doing. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that all the agendas naturally align. A great example would be the story last week of the handover of Sangin from the British forces to American forces. In theatre, and absolutely justifiable reasons, that was portrayed as normal military, sensible reconfiguration. Because frankly that's what it was. You know that there's been many thousands of Americans coming in and with that the need for a realignment of boundaries. Sangin was very much a part of that. That's how it played out in ICAF and that's how NATO wants to play it for entirely justifiable understandable reasons. However, and they recognise this, I wouldn't say, we weren't entirely stove piped in this, from the British perspective, of course Sangin matters. Sangin matters because we lost a lot of people in Sangin. Sangin matters because it's kind of etched in many peoples' minds as the most difficult place in which we've operated. And therefore, we had a responsibility in some ways to highlight to that and to highlight the endeavours and sacrifices of those that have served there. And even if we didn't want to do it, I can tell you the press would have done. Therefore it was in our interests to go slightly front foot with that. So there was a healthy tension. I'm not saying that NATO resented it; NATO recognised this need. But let's not kid ourselves that everyone has got the same objectives out of this. The second challenge is, and I'm not into media-bashing. I think I now know enough of the strengths and weaknesses of the media. But I think sometimes we expect too much of the media as the principle means of delivering our message. www.chathamhouse.org.uk 3 Transcript: Afghanistan: Can the Mission Succeed? In the first place, much of what I'm trying to say is, as I said, strategic business. It's deep messages about why we're there that endure. The press quite understandably and legitimately are interested in readership, in the story, in the dramatic to a greater extent. And therefore, whilst they get, and I speak a lot to the defence commentators and they're a good bunch of well-informed, well-meaning defence correspondents by and large, they get that. That doesn't sell newspapers. In some ways, we ought to be looking for a different way of getting out those sorts of deep strategic messages other than the media. The second issue of the media, and I hope I don't sound unfair here, but I think there is a propensity to report negatively. I think that exists more in this country perhaps than in others. But the negative and the unexpected makes news whilst the positive and the entirely predictable tends not to. When was the last time you heard an equipment story in the newspapers? Well, an equipment story is actually the guys on the ground are extremely well-equipped, there's been a marked increase in the last 12-18 months. Which means that the reach forces are the envy of most with whom they serve. If you have an interview with an American general, for example, if he happens to stray and may say something which is mildly critical in one sentence of one interview of the British forces, that will be latched upon. Well, I can tell you that I've spoken to a lot of generals and there's an awful lot of them are genuinely hugely complimentary of the British effort. And in a deep way. That's not something that is necessarily going to be report. I think we just have to accept and live with that. The other issue of the media, and I think we need to take a little bit of responsibility for this, and we certainly try and raise this game, is that it is rather too Helmand focused, and it's rather too military focused. I hope we all know that Helmand is not necessarily representative of what's going on in the rest of Afghanistan. And indeed that the military effort there is but one of many efforts there. In fact, it is the bit that delivers what really matters, which is the governance piece and the development piece. Our approach tends to reinforce that, in that we have embedded journalists because of the security situation out there. And of course embedded journalists fly to Afghanistan, predominantly on military aircraft, embed in military units, keen to report the sort of more crunchy end of what's going on. So there tends to be something a little bit self-fulfilling about this and we are www.chathamhouse.org.uk 4 Transcript: Afghanistan: Can the Mission Succeed? looking at how we might, whilst certainly not reducing that legitimate and enduring interest, perhaps widening that lens a little bit better. So how can we do better at this challenge of communication? Well I think firstly, strong, consistent and credible political messaging. Not just in this country but everywhere else, is something which is a key plank to this. I know that governments over time have been keen to do that. Perhaps we should increase the sort of pyramid selling type methodology, that sort of word of mouth whereby those in the know feel suitably confident in the argumentation and also almost morally obliged to without becoming tub- thumping zealots, using the opportunities to get out some of those key messages.

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