10 Years of ThinPinstripedLine

 

Ten years ago today, the first ever PinstripedLine blog was published. The site was set up in late 2011 as a result of frustration on several fronts. Firstly, the lack of understanding in the media about complex defence debates, which translated into a poor public understanding of the complexity of defence and why issues were not always clear cut.

Secondly the blog was designed to counter the narrative that the UK and the MOD is a failure. There was a strong sense at the time that somehow we had magnificent armed forces, but at some indeterminate point in the system this competence vanished and was replaced by incompetents who seemed determined to screw over the armed forces.

This was coupled with a view that the UK nationally was an irrelevance, a nation whose views did not matter, and where influence was waning. The UK was seen by many as a failing state without power or influence compared to others.

Finally it was a desire to communicate clearly the case for the brilliant Civil Service, so often maligned and targeted as the reason for things going wrong – even when this was clearly not the case. The MOD Civil Service is, and remains, a magnificent organisation which does not get the praise it so richly deserves when it gets things right. The blog was an attempt to stand up for the MOD Civil Servant at a time when it was felt by many that they were convenient opportunity targets.

It is interesting to view the world of 10 years ago and look at the assessment of the threats we faced and global security challenges at the time. A Channel 4 news assessment from the time opens with

NEW WORLD ORDER: It’s coming… but we don’t know how fast. As China becomes more assertive diplomatically, a weak US administration is consumed by a wavering economy, social and political problems at home and the inconclusive war in Afghanistan.

Fast forward 10 years and its entirely plausible to say that the same paragraph could be reused verbatim as an opening line to an assessment for the predictions of the world in 2022. While China has grown in strength, it is not yet the dominant global superpower, and a hallmark of the last 10 years has been the steady rise of democratic nations seeking to counter this challenge, trying to find ways to slow the rise of Chinese dominance – whether this is enough to preserve a global security construct where China is one of two superpowers, or if it emerges as the dominant global power is yet to be seen.

The article also focuses on the security challenges posed around the globe, including Somalia, Yemen and the challenges between the two Koreas, as well as the risk of cyber security and drug trafficking. There are wider concerns on Iranian nuclear aspirations, the democratic deficit in Africa and the challenges posed by economic growth and climate change.

It is hard to not to argue that the world we face today is not materially different from that of December 2011. We still have security challenges across the Middle East, drugs continue to pose a threat to stability of nations, the India / Chinese relationship remains strategically complex, and Europe remains introspective in attitudes. The world is arguably no more, and no less, a security challenge than it was in 2011.

For the British Government this is perhaps vindication that its long term analysis made during the 2010 SDSR, and reaffirmed in 2015 seems to be holding broadly correct. The threats we face are long term in nature, they will not be solved quickly and they often require complex multi-faceted responses, not just boots on the ground and a spot of airpower to fix.

The common theme throughout writing this blog has been that decisions are long term and complicated. Planners in the MOD need to be able to make decisions where the consequences of their actions may not be felt for 5-10 years and look ahead with confidence about the likelihood of their assessments coming to pass.

As this blog started, the Royal Navy in particular was feeling the pain of the loss of the Harrier, and the reduction in the fleet pending decisions taken under the SDSR to draw the fleet down in size from 23 – 19 escorts.

At the time this site argued that the former decision actually made broad strategic sense, given the need to focus resources in Afghanistan, draw down there and then recover and regenerate forces pending their redeployment in the 2020 timeframe. This timescale has, broadly, proven accurate with the time needed for the generation of the Carrier Strike Group taking many years to bring together.

Other decisions made then will take longer to fix – the decision to pay off the Type 22C Frigates made financial sense at the time given the enormous financial pressure facing the MOD. Better to pay off a small subclass of ship with specific weapon systems (e.g. Seawolf) and reap wider savings throughout the supply and training chain than keep them running over other ships.

Without doubt this was a painful decision, but it was the right one to take given the circumstances planners faced at the time. The challenge now though is the recognition that the wider impact of dropping to 19 hulls was too great, and the force needs once again to grow- first mooted in 2015, and reaffirmed in 2021, we are unlikely to see a material growth in the RN escort fleet until the early 2030s.

In other words, changing the outcome of a decision is now sufficiently long term to be measured in decades – we are likely to be celebrating the 20^th anniversary of Pinstripedline before the RN escort fleet grows beyond 20 hulls.

The aim of this site has been to try to provide context to why this is the case, and why we cannot just ‘click our fingers’ and wish more ships, tanks and aircraft into existence. Hopefully it has helped explain the challenges and pressures faced, and how decisions are taken for reasons that make good internal sense, even if they are perhaps not always communicated effectively.

Looking across the site and the 519 articles written, there are several common themes that remain constant. Firstly, articles on the Royal Navy and the fleet we have, and the fleet we wish to acquire. There are many articles explaining why things are not as bad as naysayers make out, that the fleet we have today (and have had over the last 10 years), remains exceptionally capable and is very much in the ‘top tier’ of global navies.

Trying to arrest fears and doubts about the state of the RN is a common theme, in particular armament of vessels. Addressing the constant demands for ‘upgunning’ ships to add ever more spectacular weaponry is a regular theme, as the internet is full of people who believe that it is an easy and insubstantial matter to materially change a ship class to add lots of extra weapons. Trying to explain why this is a time consuming, complex, expensive and ultimately arguably very pointless thing to do is likely to remain a long term goal here.

Another core theme is trying to counter ‘crisis comms’ and address some of the more hysteria generating articles that appear in the press. There has been a constant flow of articles that when you read them seem to imply the nation is doomed for ‘reasons’ or that Civil Servants are incompetent, or that the UK is an utter failure because of something.

The constant  challenge is to try to address these claims in a calm objective manner, which sets out alternative perspectives, and provides a different approach. To date the blog seems to have done reasonably well at this, for example the reports that HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH was ‘sinking’ were able to be quickly rebuffed.

The aim in doing these articles is to provide a speedy response, using open source media, in a way that helps challenge the argument before it becomes dominant. Sometimes an MOD response can take a while to emerge, providing an information vacuum that can be exploited. The goal with this blog is to offer alternative views that may not chime with the media article, but which provide a more balanced perspective than is reported. Hopefully it will long continue in this fashion.

A final constant theme of articles is that of our people, and the good work that they do and trying to look at, and question, why we do things in a certain way. This has ranged from questioning the ongoing justification for the Parachute Regiment, to whether the Royal Marines have a future, to suggesting that the RN needs to get rid of its carrier force. The aim of these is to consider the debate, the merits and cons of a course of action and spur further debate, not to necessarily take a side or strong view either way.

Of particular importance is the focus on people and trying to make the continued case for pushing for gender equality. This often winds up some commentators, who from their perspective as white middle-aged, middle-class individuals think its all a lot of ‘woke PC claptrap’. Clearly, they have suffered greatly from discrimination in their lives.

Our workforce is only as good as the people in it, and if we do not take every step to make it welcoming, supportive and inclusive of everyone, and not just the men, then we are failing to make the best of our talent and people. It is not ‘pc gone mad’ to want to create a workplace which encourages people of all gender, races and sexual orientation to aspire to join in order that they too can defend our nation.

This blog will always push the case for the diversity agenda, because you do not need to be a white straight male to be able to inflict hideous violence on our enemies – the sooner certain parts of society accept this, the better.

In terms of the defence space, the big change that has yet to be really embraced is this drive for bringing in people with skills in a way that makes employable sense. The rapid growth of cyber (which is emphatically not a new domain, given its been around for over 50 years), calls for people with skill sets that may not fit the military mould.

At the same time the next generation of recruit is not the recruit of 40 years ago -they are driven, committed and work incredibly hard, but they are also more questioning of authority and challenge in a way previous generations did not. It would be interesting to reflect if those who joined 10 years ago feel that there is a difference between ‘their generation’ and the one entering recruiting offices now.

Understanding these changes, and how people work differently will be central to the ongoing relevance of the armed forces – there is no point delivering a career structure that has one point of entry, fairly slow progression and limited opportunities for empowerment and control of your career if this isn’t what the next generation want to have. The military need to strike a challenging balance between a military career model that works for the armed forces, and one that appeals to people who have grown up in a digitally interconnected world.

Looking back, from a communications perspective, perhaps the most profound change has been that of the way that the defence debate is held in public. 10 years ago there were a small number of specialist defence journals, some defence journalists and most engagement was held on forums and not more widely.

Today the defence debate appears to occur in three different spaces – the public who encounter defence via the mainstream media, the social media space and channels (e.g. Twitter) and the specialist defence press, which is getting ever smaller in its presence.

The challenge in this period has been, candidly, the emergence of the ‘amateur commentator’ (or alternatively that horrible word ‘influencer’)  who can shape the defence debate in a range of ways.

These amateurs, of whom the author is one, owe no allegiance to a publisher or broadcaster. We are not bound by deadlines or owners agenda, and we are not reliant on appeasing the MOD / Industry to ensure continued access to their facilities or material. Few are members of the Defence Correspondents Association, and very few have any formal engagement with the MOD or press offices to discuss their articles.

This poses an interesting debate – one of the most fierce debates occurred several years ago when the first F35 take off and landing occurred on QUEEN ELIZABETH off the coast of the USA. Several well known journalists were onboard, filming under an agreed press embargo to maximise their coverage of the event.

After a picture of this event was seen on social media before the embargo (which the author knew nothing about) lifted, and was retweeted, the author came under significant direct pressure from the MOD press office to his twitter account to retract it and stop commenting on it – apparently because there was an embargo in place, it applied to all on social media.

Naturally this pressure was given a stiff ignoring, but it highlights an interesting challenge -in a world where events rapidly unfold, and it can take time for direct lines to emerge from the MOD, or where camera phone footage leaked can shape the global news agenda, what is the role of the amateur defence blogger in the defence communication space?

There is no right answer to this question – this blog is something I do for pleasure, as a hobby, and a chance to set out my thinking on paper – not to set an agenda, get ‘likes’ or gain five minutes of fame. I am not paid for this blog, have no privileged access to Defence media briefing, and can only comment based on the material that is publicly available. How do sites like this fit into this ecosystem where they can comment inside an organisations OODA loop, and provide a counterpoint to mainstream defence correspondents perspectives?

There has in the past been some hostility from, now departed, journalists on the defence space – perhaps we are seen as a threat – doing something for free, or perhaps there is a sense of concern that if a blogger or specialist site can provide timely coverage, in a way that can be rewritten, then what is the value of having a specialist defence writer on staff, given the expense this incurs?

Ironically at the same time this blog also attracts significant hostility from those who dislike it pushing an alternative, and usually positive perspective on events. I have always, and will always make clear that this blog is not sponsored by, and has no links to the MOD. I am not, despite some frankly borderline libellous suggestion to the contrary, a former SPAD (how very dare they), and I do not have any access to MOD press briefing or material through this site. I am clear that anything published here is openly available via google, and not provided via off the record briefings or other updates – I believe that this site works precisely because it has no special access to material or information that others do not.

The usual argument made, often by journalists, is that sites like this seem to be ‘anonymous’ in nature. My response is, and always will be, the only reason that this site continues to use the ‘Sir H’ handle is because that is what it is known by publicly.  I choose not to alter the identity of the blog in the same way as columnists choose to go under a ‘nom de plum’ – because that is what the public have come to expect of it.

I have never hidden away from the world,  and have made many strong friendships from coffee meetings and beer calls to forming virtual RPG groups, through the defence social media space – one of the greatest pleasures of the last 10 years has been forming many strong and enduring friendships as a result of writing this blog

As of today there have been approximately 3.5 million site page visits, and well over 6000 comments, most of which seem to be offering me the chance to enlarge my breasts or meet a nice escort lady – there is a reason why commenting without approval has been turned off – admittedly most of the more obscene spam comments ended up on one early article called ‘hardly a lesbian spank inferno’ (which was a niche reference to a scene from the outstanding BBC comedy ‘coupling’) but which in turn generated years of spambot comments…

For some reason the most popular article of all time (with almost 70k views) is about the Royal Navy run ashore in Mayport, Florida. In terms of site visitors, over 140k hits have come from Russia, presumably the lack of travel opportunities to Salisbury Cathedral have meant they are spending more time online surfing these days (hello Moscow Centre!).

Its been a long 10 years –  this is the 520^th article published on the site, and with an average length of roughly 2000 words, this means comfortably over 1 million words have been written on the subject of UK defence. Hopefully some of them have been of interest.

Finally this article will finish with a dedication to the incredible men and women of the Civil Service. It is very easy to attack the Civil Servant – they are misunderstood, they are easy flak absorbers for unpopular decisions, and they are seen as an unaccountable body more Mandarin than Mancunian in interests and outlook.

To this author, the Civil Service, in particular the MOD Civil Servant, is diligent, hard working and committed to serving their nation through thick and thin. So much of what is done around the globe both by diplomats, and the armed forces, could not happen without the input and support of the Civil Service.

 They are often maligned, abused and taken for granted, but the success that we enjoy as a nation is down to a diverse and wonderful group of people who do their utmost to help. We as a nation do not necessarily always deserve the public servants that we have, but we should always be thankful that we have them in public service.