1st Birthday Celebrations - Personal Thoughts on a year of blogging...

Today (2^nd July) marks the 1^st anniversary of my return to blogging on ThinPinstripedLine. Now nearly 90 articles and well over 100,000 article views later, I want to quickly set out my strictly thoughts on the blog and the state its in.

This blog was initially born in late 2011 when I worked for the MOD and as a Reservist to capture my personal frustrations about the poor coverage in the media of Defence issues, and in particular the dreadful stereotyping of the MOD Civil Service, who to this day I believe is the vital 4^th arm of Defence and this nations security. I stopped the blog on request in 2014 when it was felt by others that it had run its course and did not restart it until after my circumstances changed.

The role of this site is a very simple one, I want to set out in my own time, sitting in the spare room at  home, my take on the world of defence and national security based on publicly available open source media. I believe that the UK MOD, and the UK is a globally relevant, capable and credible power that acts as an inspiration to others, sets the benchmark for how a modern military should run, and provides this nation with far more influence than we like as a nation to admit.

Furthermore, I believe that many difficult decisions are often taken for extremely good reasons that are hard to rationalise unless you are in full possession of the facts. I work to the assumption that things happen for a reason that we as outsiders are not usually privy to.

Finally I believe that there is an exceptional ‘good news’ story to be told about the way that the UK is fortunate enough to have exceptional armed forces personnel at all levels who sacrifice much to keep us safe, superb public servants in the Ministry of Defence doing a difficult job well and a world class defence industry that underpins our ability as a nation to deliver so effectively on operations. We should praise these three pillars of our security far more than we do, rather than do them down and take them for granted.

But while this blog will remain a champion of defence, it cannot function without the concept of ‘loyal opposition’. I am not afraid to raise concerns where I hold them, but equally I hope that this is done in a constructive manner that looks for the positive in situations wherever possible. I do not wish to bash for the sake of bashing.

The State of Defence Blogging today

I am an optimist on the state of defence blogging in the UK and beyond right now. Firstly because there are some brilliant journalists out there who have really begun to engage, and more importantly take measured comments onboard from their twitter followers and put out some great work.

I’d like to highlight the work of the ‘defence crew’ in the form of journalists like (in no order of any kind!) David Willetts, Deb Haynes, Larrisa Brown, Alistair Bunkall, Mark Hookham Jonathan Beale, Francis Tusa, Gareth Corfield and others who are active on Twitter and really engage with their followers. They post stories that don’t always sit well with Defence, but they do so in a way that gets debate flowing – its been a privilege and pleasure to engage virtually with them this year.

There is also a great wider community of sites and individuals like Think Defence, UK Defence Journal, Save the Royal Navy, and also commentators aplenty who have created a great and welcoming environment for defence and national security followers. Twitter is the main driver of hits to this site, so engagement is essential to make it work.

The final bunch of users is the military community – this is a bit mixed. There are some great individuals, often forced to post under pseudonyms or deactivate accounts when they get promoted. Apparently being a senior officer in the armed forces can give you the ability to authorise operations where people get killed, but you can’t be trusted to hit ‘send’ on a tweet without a lengthy approval chain. It would be great if more people from Defence could use twitter in a personal capacity, not merel;y the (very good) PR hits that come out.

Part of the challenge seems to be getting inside the OODA loop and getting interesting content and rebuttal online quickly. HMS ENTERPRISE really nailed it, and HMS PROTECTOR is good too – as is HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH (and Ships Cat) at setting the outline of what they are up to and then informing people about the fabulous work of the armed forces.

But what would be great would be for the MOD to be far more supportive of the ‘thinking culture’ and the ‘challenge culture’ and let people tweet anonymously in a private capacity without them being in fear of their livelihood. Too many good people have fallen off twitter, or been punished at work for the crime of expressing a personal point of view in their spare time, and their departure is to the detriment of the debate that this nation needs to have about Defence.

Until the concept of ‘challenge’ is properly bedded in, and it is accepted that this means letting intelligent people at all ranks and rates question appropriately privately and anonymously online, but publicly support in their official capacity, then arguably Defence will fail to have this debate. The more that people try to clamp down on the expression of views that deviate even one iota from officially sanctioned lines, the less it is possible to really make the case for defence in an informed way – how can you debate the merits of capability investments if you are expected to say nothing more than a bland line to take?

The model should be the US Armed Forces, where there is a healthy culture of debate when articles are issued with a rider that ‘it is written in a personal capacity’. Until we reach a stage where people accept that debate is part of the vital DNA that makes up the armed forces, and encourage it and not force people who want to talk proudly and knowledgeably about their livelihood into hiding anonymously online, we are not in a great place.

Access All Areas?

One thing that has amused me is hearing reports second hand of the manner that this blog has become of interest to certain parts of the MOD. I am aware that its credibility has been openly questioned in certain sessions by some very senior people. The argument seems to be that this blog (and myself) are not in full possession of the facts, so how can I know what I’m talking about?

I quite agree that I’m not in possession of the facts. To avoid any doubt, I only blog on open source material and cite my research and stories where appropriate. I merely take what is in the public domain and analyse, question and consider it.

A more pertinent question may be ‘why if I am not in full possession of the facts is this blog deemed to be credible in the eyes of many in the MOD to the extent that it is seen as a better source than the MOD official news lines to take’? I don’t know the answer, nor am I particularly interested in a debate about it.

I’m just a person who enjoys writing this stuff in my spare time, trying to put forward my view of how I see the world. There is no secret agenda, there is no intent to make mischief or to brief lines in by stealth on behalf of certain people. One of the funniest stories that I’ve heard is that apparently I lunch with a senior Defence Official on a regular basis who feeds me lines to take on the story that I’m writing. Not only have I never met the person in question (nor did I even know who they were when I was asked if this was true), but it amused (and it parts concerned) me that other individuals in Defence who I have never met, nor heard of before were keen to make out that somehow, I’m being kept in the slipstream of the system and am under their control.

For the avoidance of any doubt, no I do not lunch with defence officials and discuss this blog. The  small number of people in Defence who I see on a regular basis socially who are privy to my blogging identity (all long standing friends and former colleagues) are utterly professional in avoiding any discussion with me about material that I am no longer allowed to be privy to. To be utterly clear -This blog is an independent site with no links of any kind to the MOD or the British Armed Forces.

 Who Is Humphrey?

One issue I feel needs to be addressed is ‘who am I’ and the relentless quest in some quarters to work out who I am. The reason this concerns me is not the efforts by some organisations to try and spot who ‘Humphrey’ is (and so far it sounds like many places have been completely and utterly wrong on that front!), but the pressure put on people who ‘may know me’ to name me. If you want to know who I am, then please do not force people who may, or may not, know me in to a situation where you want them to name me. That is wrong on several levels. I find the level of efforts put into working out my identity in some quarters quite disturbing. I wish it would stop.

Next Steps?

This blog will continue to focus on its core offer of providing occasional (usually weekly but sometimes more) thoughts and comments on the defence news of the day. I sometimes don’t write about things where I feel I don’t have enough grounding in the subject to comment knowledgably. In other areas I try to avoid being sucked into the ‘fantasy fleet’ like debates of theoretical ORBATS (nothing personal, its just I find it an incredibly dull subject to discuss).

There is no rhyme or reason to what I write – it depends on my spare time at home, the demands of a busy real life and of course what is in the news that day. I tend not to reply to comments posted on the blog more because I’m a bit remiss in checking them so often don’t see them till long after the debate is closed. Twitter is the best place to reach me, or via the site email – pinstripedline@gmail.com – I’m always happy to take emails from people.

I never set out for this site to be anything other than a repository of my thoughts, and I am very moved to hear how so many people enjoy it and get pleasure from reading it. Thank you for all your support, kind words and help over the last year. Its been a turbulent and challenging year in the real world, and writing this blog has really helped me through a personally challenging period. Many readers have become friends in real life, and I’m very proud of the informal defence twitterati network that has sprung up for prolific defence commentators who enjoy the odd glass of wine.

This blog will always be a champion of UK defence and try to work to contextualise to the best of my understanding what is going on, put the positive case on why things are happening and set out why things are happening the way they do. I suspect that over time my ability to remain current, and my understanding will slip away as new developments happen, and there will come a point where my ability to comment with knowledge or background is diminished beyond the point of credibility. I do not wish to be ‘disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ or ‘Outraged of the West Indies’. The day will come when I choose to step away from blogging for this, or other personal reasons. But that is not today.

Many thanks, and here is to more blogging for as long as it is appropriate to do so.