Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics - AKA 2017 in Review

As 2017 draws to a close, it is a good time to take stock on the state of Defence, and in particularly whether 2107 was ‘the year of the Royal Navy’. The headlines in December focused on the perceived lack of Royal Navy ships overseas, with outbreaks of near hysteria among some commentators that the UK would somehow lose influence because of not having an escort ship deployed somewhere outside of home waters. This period perhaps summed up a year where Defence felt like it was on the back foot against often ill-founded criticism.  For the MOD 2017 has been a year in which much was promised, commitments were kept, orders were made, but somehow the public relations battle was lost.

On the positive side the UK throughout the year continued to demonstrate its global reach, presence and capability. As the MOD reminded us over Christmas there will be thousands of British personnel deployed on 25 live operations in 30 countries. There are UK assets deployed right now on every continent on earth, conducting complex and difficult work. Only two other countries have a similar global footprint – the United States and France.

Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright 

The year has also shown that Defence retains the ability to deploy globally at very short notice to respond to a crisis, highlighting the investment in strategic airlift and logistics as key enablers. The response to Hurricane Irma (known as OP RUMAN) was a brilliant example of the sheer flexibility of the UK – an astonishingly fast deployment of significant capability to bring lifesaving equipment to bear and which was noticeably faster than any other country.

More widely the armed forces have worked tirelessly in support of a diverse and often hugely complex range of tasks. The ongoing operations in the Middle East, supporting operations in the Med and the standing commitments in the South Atlantic, Brunei, Diego Garcia, Cyprus, Gibraltar and so on have all been carried out with enormous professionalism. In home waters there has been continued delivery of long standing commitments ranging from fishery protection to counter terrorism duties. Defence has had a very good year operationally, delivering without failing across all the continents of the earth. That’s not bad going really.

The challenges Defence has faced are two-fold – firstly the continued battle for resources, and secondly the inability to be proactive enough on pushing the incredibly good news story that the MOD can portray.

The resource challenge is clear, Defence does not have enough money to do everything that it wants to do without either stopping some things, scrapping some things or deciding to do less than it currently does now. There is a clear resource challenge in the Department, which has led to a defence review barely two years after the last defence review. The findings of this review are reportedly nowhere near ready for decision making, which has left a void that can be filled with stories of leaked options (the ‘save the LPD’ campaign springs to mind here) and incomplete half truths designed to influence as well as inform.

This steady drip of leaks from well placed individuals within the MOD is, frankly, disgraceful. The people who are leaking material to the press are betraying the trust placed on them by the system, and more importantly are potentially having an adverse impact on the reviews outcome. By trying to influence media, Parliamentarians and others to lobby against proposed cuts, all these people are doing is shifting the focus as to where the cuts go to other areas, threatening different cuts instead. There is no chance that more money will be found, and the ability of the MOD to put together a genuinely balanced force package is restricted by those who want to protect their narrow vested interests. Humphrey has little time, and plenty of contempt, for those who would do long term harm to the nation to support their short term vested interest.

It is likely that the continued uncertainty on how Defence fares in the SDSR will continue into the new year, with the Prime Minister having to face the difficult choice between listening to the National Security Advisors recommendations, or overruling him and retaining the support of the backbenches instead. The problem is that the sort of recommendations that will be reached seem likely to involve more spending on intangible but current threats, such as cyber security, counter terrorism and protecting national infrastructure, and less on physical military hardware.

Any reduction in force levels will enrage the back benches, who do not wish to be seen as the party cutting defence – particularly at a time when Labour, led by a committed pacifist is threatening them in the polls. But, is bowing to the backbenches and investing in hardware the right solution for the UK?

There is a school of thought that the MOD is doing badly in the review mainly because it is seemingly unable to articulate its case coherently and relying on leaks and ‘special pleading’ to insist on more money, without always being able to justify this. The frustration is that every time the MOD looks like its getting close to a solution, the same old leaks emerge and suddenly it becomes essential to protect the Loamshires and their mounted troop at all costs

Similarly, there is a sense that Defence relies heavily on pleading for more money without necessarily being able to give a good account of how it is stretching every penny it has to deliver best effect at the moment. The MOD is a well financed department, and has significant delegated latitude to spend money as it sees fit. It is within the remit of the MOD to move, change and alter spending levels if that is what is needed to deliver a capability. But this may mean closing somewhere, or doing less of something else.

 The challenge is every time difficult cuts are mooted, which would free up cash to upgrades, investment and delivery of nice but essential kit that keeps the UK on the top table of global influencers, there is an outpouring of anger as people feel losing front-line capability is a disaster, regardless of whether it is needed to meet UK goals.  This challenge will be only be more pronounced as greater investment is needed for enablers like cyber, C4ISTAR and other capability that is hard to explain in measured ways why this will deliver success over things like assault ships or other hardware.

The worry has to be that the longer the MOD continues to expect special treatment, without demonstrating that it is taking really tough decisions, the harder it becomes to make the case for more money. Why reward someone for bad behaviour, when there is no evidence to suggest this will change the problems?

There is a strong case to be made for proper funding of Defence and National Security, and the level at the moment feels about right for the threats we as a nation face. There is also an equally strong case to be made that the MOD needs to be given the room to take hard decisions on capability, locations and operations without it leaking or having their room to manoeuvre restricted by political or media pressure.

The Media

At the same time though, Defence needs to make a compelling case for what it is delivering to the UK – sadly it has felt at times this year that the narrative on Defence has been pureed down to a bland mix of baby food, intended for easy digestion and little debate. One only has to look at the manner in which the Department seems determined to hide from engagement with journalists or more openly, and how short and at times empty official statements are.

The trend seems to sadly be for the ‘Defence in the Media’ blog to rely increasingly on one or two paragraph rebuttals to stories that have been running for 24-36hrs, and which rely on the same bland lines to take. It is rare to see really effective press rebuttals that destroy factually incorrect stories, or which push the good news story.

There is also a sense that parts of MOD view anyone in Defence who speaks to journalists or the media as contaminated and must be treated with extreme caution. This is ironic given the manner in which some stories in the press are clearly leaked from very senior sources, yet there is a view emerging that the Department, its people and the Media are simply not able to play nicely together at the moment.

There is always a risk when engaging with journalists that you inadvertently betray a story that you shouldn’t have, or that one foolish junior says or does something that writes the next days headline. But if you make it so difficult for people to talk, to the point that it is seen in some areas as almost career ending to be even accidentally in the same location as a journalist, then the ability to influence and help shape good stories is lost. There needs to be a sensible level of engagement, not just in well organised and informative visits, but in interviews at all levels and allowing media to understand how the Department really works.

Bland press releases, heavily controlled access to senior figures and lines to take so turgid that they could be read out by mediaeval inquisitors as an instrument of torture do not make the case for Defence. What is needed is timely, proper and effective engagement, rebuttal and explanation of what is really going on. Frankly Humphrey cannot believe the number of times in the last 6 months that his short article on what is going on hits the streets 6-12hrs before the MOD one.

Paradoxically though, for all the fear of social media, the MOD is getting much better at trusting some of its units to do social media. With the right training, exposure and well-timed tweets, a social media presence can really deliver a huge effect. For example, some of the best Royal Navy feeds this year have been by (in no order), HMS ENTERPRISE, HMS PROTECTOR, HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH and HMS ST ALBANS. This was because their tweets are interesting, they have great photos, give a really good human dimension to the story and are occasionally very funny. This potent combination means the RN can locally message about what it is doing very effectively.

This was seen to best effect during OP RUMAN, when well-judged tweets by the RAF units on the ground helped quickly shape and impact on the UK public consciousness, highlighting the level of UK presence on the ground, the speed and strength of our response and just how capable the UK armed forces are.

What is essential is that this freedom to tweet continues, and that there is not high-level approval required to send a tweet or image out. There needs to be trust delegated to the lowest possible levels to let units shout out about their amazing work, and more importantly there needs to be a culture of regular tweeting and information sharing – hopefully over time the role of Unit Press Officer as an ‘additional duty’ evolves into a permanent SO3 Influence role that is seen as a full time, highly desirable post to aspire to. Each unit should treat delivery on information on its activities as importantly as it does other training and operations.

Defence must do better at engaging with the media world, and not treat it as something which is an aberration. There are some green shoots of hope at local level, but it remains a depressing picture nationally. The sooner this is tackled, the better for the Department.

The Blog

The final part of this article is a reflection on the blog to date. It has a history, dating back to 2011 (in fact the first ever article went live on 27 December 2011, six years ago today). It was paused, by request from others, from 2014 for 3 years, but I am delighted that circumstances this year meant I could restart it.

 I took a huge risk this year in walking away from what I knew and was comfortable in to take on a new career challenge. One of the benefits of this move was to give me space to restart this site and pursue a part time writing career (do email me directly if interested in discussing this further). While the huge risk has not paid off (in fact, disaster would be a better word!), the time and space it has given me to invest in this blog has been vital in keeping me focused and mentally resilient during an exceptionally difficult year.

The blog has tried to work to two key themes – firstly to provide rapid rebuttal on emerging defence stories, and secondly to provide deeper think pieces on aspects of UK defence. It is drawn in part from my prior experience, and partly from the application of common sense. It is not, despite some odd emails to the contrary, an MOD sponsored blog (I keep being accused of working for DDC), and I am definitely not still serving (and my apologies go to those who have been asked if they were ‘Sir Humphrey). Finally, despite rumours on the contrary that circulated widely round the MOD Faststream, no I am not an alcoholic and no I did not get sacked for writing this blog – which was told to me as a ‘true fact’…

What is clear is that the biggest public interest lies in the quick short rebuttal articles, and particularly on naval themes. I am not a major ‘analytical geek’ and so don’t do much work on crunching the numbers, but a quick glance at the site statistics show it has had approx. 1.3 million hits since starting, and the most read story of the year was last week, on HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH, securing over 23,000 views in two days. The majority of site referrals come from either twitter, or Facebook (very surprising as the PSL Facebook page is long dormant, and I don’t put links there), and the three biggest audiences over time have been from the UK, USA and Russia…

What is interesting is the way in which there are far fewer site comments now than before. Most of debate goes on in twitter, with relatively few people commenting online. Amusingly though, the most regular comments I get are spambot based, usually for ‘dodgy’ services and for some years now the overwhelming number have been posted on an article I did called ‘friends with benefits’!. I try to respond to comments where I see them, but usually spend my time using Twitter. This is a fascinating experience to do, and the opportunity to bring together politicians, journalists, commentators and operators in the same space can work brilliantly.

The plan for the next year is much the same as this year – continued short rebuttals and explanations, and the odd longer term think piece. I will probably do less of the latter as they generally get much lower readership and attract far less comment. The biggest constraint is, as always, time.  There are no planned articles now (but I am always open to suggestions), it will be a case of writing as issues emerge.

Finally, a big thank to all of the readers out there – I am incredibly grateful for the comments, emails of support, thanks and feedback that I get. Blogging is a hard, occasionally lonely job, and I really do appreciate all the interaction with so many different people, be it by email, twitter or even the odd coffee/pint. Long may it continue and do feel free to contact me at any point with suggestions, comments or to discuss potential writing opportunities!

Please all, have a very merry Christmas, peaceful New Year, and here is to 2018 and many defence debates to come.