The dire state of British military blogging by serving personnel
War on the Rocks founder Ryan Evans provided tips for getting published, and challenged British service personnel to get writing.
On Thu 8 Jun, the British Army Intrapreneurs Network (BrAIN) and the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum in the UK (DEF UK) hosted Ryan Evans, founder and editor in chief of War on the Rocks (WOTR). Ryan has an MA in war studies from KCL and worked with the British Army in Helmand as part of the Human Terrain Team. He is also a long-time supporter of DEF in the US.
A challenge. BrAIN founder Kirsty Skinner welcomed attendees and noted the importance breaking through the barrier of what can and cannot be said. She also thanked the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research (CHACR) for kindly hosting the event.
James Elliott, who organised the evening, welcomed Ryan to Sandhurst. He recognised the passion with which members of the British military debate various issues, but challenged them to break out of their stovepipes and translate words into actions. He also remarked upon the importance of good networks in enabling this.
Ryan stated his aims quite clearly at the outset: share tips on how to get published on WOTR, and challenge British service personnel to emulate their American peers in writing publicly on strategic topics.
Changing the discussion in the US. Ryan described how the genesis of WOTR was his own disappointment with the quality of writing in Washington, DC. Ryan felt that too often articles are written by beltway twenty-somethings with very little experience of the real world. Ryan created WOTR to specifically raise the quality of strategic discussions, and influence key decisions makers in the US national security community. He’s key success metric is reports that senior leaders are reading WOTR articles.
Ryan noted that there is now a robust conversation underway in the US military community. While there are some overzealous public affairs officers, the standard disclaimer on each article (“the views and opinions of the authors expressed herein …”) by and large allows serving personnel to voice their own opinions. This has certainly not always been the case: following the Vietnam War, when over-classification and political sensitivity prevented open debate, officers had to use the Peloponnesian War analogy as a Trojan horse to enable discussion.
The importance of special knowledge. In the spirit of WOTR, Ryan argued strongly that the core of a good article is special knowledge: some insight the author can uniquely offer, ideally to challenge conventional wisdom on an important topic.
Special knowledge is not sufficient though. Because people are inherently lazy, or at the very least have decreasing attention spans, Ryan advised budding authors to follow a hook-engage-act framework:
Hook. Articles need a strong lede to hook readers. This probably involves an interesting story, rather than something abstract. This should be followed by a clear thesis. Longer articles (more than 1,500 words) also require some overview (summary) of the article’s structure.
Engage. This boils down to compelling content, but a clear structure and section headings are important too. Ryan argues, contentiously perhaps, that the author should bring herself into the article to increase credibility.
Act. Strong articles need a recommendation or call to action, even if imperfect.
The author’s job used to be done when an article was submitted. Ryan argues that authors now need to advocate for their article (via social media, for instance) to prolong its shelf life and increase its impact.
More guidance on getting published on WOTR can be found here.
The dire state of British military blogging by serving personnel. Ryan stated clearly that he thinks the UK is punching below its weight on military blogging.
This caused heated debate among attendees, whose views can be roughly classified in four ways:
Service personnel need encouragement to write. There may be interest in writing, but service personnel (particularly soldiers) don’t believe they can write effectively on topics of interest, and are loath to risk their peers’ opprobrium (the tall poppy syndrome). Some writers will face career retribution.
Officers are glorious amateurs. They don’t read enough or take their profession seriously, so can hardly be expected to write anything of value.
Getting permission to publish is difficult, and it should be. The UK media is unique and will jump on any deviation from the party line. Politicians will not allow any open communication with the public. The military needs to guard its reputation.
Getting permission to publish is unnecessarily difficult. Most service people won’t write on topics that are of interest to the broader public, but starting an open dialogue across the military will bring huge benefits. Once it becomes more common, it will be normalised and the occasional misstep will hardly be noticed.
Lead it, or be led by it. As with any disruptive trend, there is always a belief among the establishment that they can maintain control. As indicated by blogs such as Wavell Room and Fall When Hit, and Twitter activity more generally, military blogging by serving personnel will inevitably grow. The only question for the chain of command is whether they want to lead it, or be led by it.
