Does Sending a Gunboat Work?

 

“Send a Gunboat” is a traditional cry heard whenever a crisis erupts around the world. As violence increases and citizens need help, governments often respond by deploying warships to monitor a situation and stand ready to assist if required. This has been amply demonstrated over the last few weeks as the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas terrorists continues. A number of nations, including the UK, US, France and others have dispatched naval forces into the Eastern Med, with at least two US Navy carrier battle groups currently operating in the region. As part of these deployments several ‘PHOTEX’ evolutions have been held to take images of ships working in partnership to send a message to audiences. But is this something that really works?

MOD Image - Crown Copyright 2023 

Historically images of warships at sea can be very powerful in building a public narrative – look at shots of the Grand Fleet sailing en masse with battleships ready for action, or the Falklands Task Force sailing to war, sending a message of defiance and intent to Argentina. The sight of a US or Royal Navy carrier battle group at sea, with aircraft arranged on deck, escorts nearby is visually stunning – it sends a message of capability, reach and power that few nations can match. The formations they are steaming in are not remotely tactical but the symbolism is clear – it states that somewhere off your coast is a floating arsenal that you cannot easily find, attack or damage, and which in turn has the ability to monitor and intervene at a time and place of its choosing. This is a very powerful message to send but is it really relevant anymore in an era where audiences receive their information from increasingly diverse channels?

As audiences have gained access to many different social media channels, their ability to be discerning in what they view has changed. Careful use of algorithms means it is easy to miss out on content you are either not interested in or that you may not want to see. The images of a carrier group at sea would have been unmissable in the days when people only had limited TV or newspapers to choose from, but today these are a tiny number of the channels that people can engage with. As such, how do you stage a show of force or ‘gunboat diplomacy’ when there is every likelihood that the audience you’re trying to reach has no idea that you’re actually out there? What is the point of gunboat diplomacy in an age when the public may be wilfully oblivious to your presence?

Sending ships off a coast to maintain a presence can be a powerful tool for domestic audiences, with governments issuing a press release and photographs that reassures their population that ‘something is being done’. Foreign governments who you’re trying to influence may also factor in the presence and imagery as a reminder of your interest and intent – arguably though this becomes more potent when your activities and actions demonstrate not just presence, but also intent. Its easy to sail a ship on a course and do little, but when governments can not just see ships off their coast, but intelligence indicates they are acting in a way that could indicate preparing to do something, then gunboat diplomacy becomes far more powerful – ships can far more quickly move up and down the escalation ladder than land or air units. A ship can be at action stations off an enemy coast at dawn, but sailing for friendly waters by lunchtime in a way that a land deployment cannot. They remain valuable means of exerting pressure through presence, as long as the presence is credible.

Influencing target populations is a different matter – do they know that foreign ships are present – do they even care? Relatively few people understand the subtleties of naval warfare and capabilities, and most people pay little attention to the media beyond seeing an image of a ship. In addition media can be used to manipulate images and report fake news -in the early stages of the Israeli operations, a fake twitter account pretending to be a BBC World journalist used imagery of US carriers at sea to claim that Iranian and Lebanese forces were operating in support of Hamas. While laughable to experts, it is a good reminder that to the many millions who don’t understand naval warfare, this could seem credible and believable.

Sometimes PHOTEX imagery can be extremely powerful in sending messages of resolve to domestic audiences, or influencing traditional rivals. For example the message sent by the deployment of HMS PRINCE OF WALES to the States is one of joint operations and significantly enhanced F35 capability that can, and will, be employed in future. Intelligence analysts in nations like Russia will be seeing this imagery and having to reassess how they could defend against this improved level of capability. Similarly the images of PWLS conducting a multi-national link up with US and French warships sends a strong reminder to others that the UK, US and France can deploy multiple advanced aircraft carriers with jets and sustain them at distance from their homelands – a message both Russia and China are likely to note with interest and caution. Imagery can be very valuable at showing presence in a low key way that sends a very powerful message – for example HMS TAMAR has been busy in Australia working alongside her Royal Australian Navy cousins and berthed in Sidney. Images of the White Ensign flying proudly on the other side of the world are a powerful reminder of global reach. In a similar way the British Army has also done some very effective messaging showing its engagement with Finland and South Korea, with images showing British troops operating in these very diverse environments.

But equally imagery can backfire or at the least generate negative domestic comments. The endless whinging by ill-informed idiots about the ‘carriers without planes’ saga in the UK continues to rumble on, as every time a carrier leaves harbour, people fixate on the lack of jets on her deck. This has been taken to the next level by the temporary return for HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH to Portsmouth this week, where despite having multiple jets on deck, people were moaning on social media “is that it” – as if apparently having an aircraft carrier with a squadron of the worlds most advanced fighter jet in port is a reason to be embarrassed. The imagery was impressive but still generated waves of negative reporting by people who seem determined to be angry at the QEC class, no matter what they get up to.

It would be instructive to assess the impact of evolutions like ‘PHOTEX’ and the reach of the images they generate in how this can influence actors in a crisis. Does the shot of a US and allied carrier battlegroup at sea really send a message of deterrence and resolve to support, or does it merely look like a warship at sea? Do national policy makers change their plans when they see that another warship has entered their area or do they assess that it poses no real change to their plans? In a conventional operation, such as a NEO or supporting troops ashore, these images may be powerful – they tell foreign governments that there is a range of capability arrayed against them and that it can, and will, be used if necessary. But does it influence actors such as terrorist organisations like Hamas, who are fighting an unconventional war, or the civilian population who are being bombarded by information and propaganda?  With millions of tweets and Instagram videos being uploaded every hour there is an explosion of information in the public domain that can shape how people see and assess news. With fake reports, doctored images and disinformation all over the place, will the target audience ever see these images and be influenced by them? While there will always be a place for the use of naval power in maintaining presence and providing governments with options, it would be interesting to ask whether in the information age ‘sending a gunboat’ has the same impact and effect as it did in previous years, or if presence and imagery alone is no longer enough.