Narratives are a cancer
The military seems to love the word “narrative”. This was probably the result of having to create and stick to campaign narratives on Op TELIC and Op HERRICK. Of course this had some pretty pernicious impacts. We got told to exaggerate unit readiness. We got told to change the KPI “traffic lights” in Basra. We got told not to write negative reports in Afghanistan. But these were put in the context of playing the game and getting ourselves back home.
Now that Op TELIC and Op HERRICK have finished we’re in a slightly different place: business as usual. This involves Israeli-style drone strikes and facing down the Russian bear in Northern Europe. But military leaders are still trotting out the narrative concept to control the flow of information. This is problematic because the current threats won’t be changing anytime soon — and we no longer have the option of declaring victory and running away. Our backs are to the sea and we’re facing existential threats.
It’s time stop kidding ourselves with “narratives” and start telling the unvarnished truth.
First, narratives are clearly bullshit — they’re like an echo from forty years ago when the government controlled all the information and people trusted their leaders. Any Russian with a laptop can now tell you that the military’s ability to generate effects abroad is declining precipitously. There’s no money. There’s no willpower. And our demographics are upside down and getting worse. No amount of accounting tricks and “lines to take” are going to change those truths.
Second, they’re self-serving. To the extent the military is an innocent victim of a wishy-washy PM and a tight-fisted Exchequer there may almost-but-not-quite be a justification to pretend things are better than they are. But you don’t have to look far to see all the generals’ mistakes: just open High Command, Ministry of Defeat, or Losing Small Wars. The narrative justifies sweeping all these things under the rug: it’s just too easy to switch your target audience from Russia, to your own elected government, to the civil service, to your boss.
Third, they’re anti-democratic. It is the fundamental nature of complex adaptive systems that it is extraordinarily difficult to identify cause and effect. For this reason, in our increasingly complex world, it is hard for voters to determine if the military should be blamed for an outcome or not (pace all the civilians who covet the apparent binary win-loss structure of military operations). This is one of the reasons the generals have escaped relatively unscathed from the operational train-wreck of the last fifteen years: most people don’t have a Scoobie what happened or who to blame. Further, given the stakes voters cannot wait for an outcome like losing a war to decide whether the defence of the realm is being competently managed.
Voters can therefore only judge the process and behaviours that got us to an outcome. They can demand action in response to a hollow force or dishonest generals, for instance. But in controlling the narrative the generals are busy repressing this information; they are in effect saying “trust us”. The problem is simple: we shouldn’t trust them. The military is an institution and like every institution it has its own agenda. Look no further than the “use it or lose it” argument for rotating battalions and brigade headquarters through theatre, which was frankly scandalous.
Put another way, the self-serving and anti-democratic nature of narratives force you to answer a very simple question: can the military self-correct? I’ll inform your answer with two anecdotes. I recently saw one of the most senior generals in the British Army struggle to come up with a single lesson from the last fifteen years of war. I also recently had an argument with one of the most senior generals in the British military over whether our operational reputation had suffered over the same time period. Are they that arrogant? Or are they totally disciplined about staying on message? Or do they believe their own bullshit? Most importantly, as a voter or elected leader, how can you tell?
Fourth, narratives are fundamentally destructive to the integrity of those in uniform. The arguments in favour of maintaining a narrative apply at all levels: “they” don’t understand what’s happening here; the metrics are wrong; we need more time; if I get sacked my successor will be shit; the organisation can’t take a scandal … but if the military as a whole is lying to its elected leaders, then why shouldn’t I lie to you?
Earlier this year, Leonard Wong and Stephen Stephen Gerras published a US Army War College paper entitled “Lying to Ourselves”, in which they write:
This study found that many [U.S.] Army officers, after repeated exposure to the overwhelming demands and the associated need to put their honor on the line to verify compliance, have become ethically numb. As a result, an officer’s signature and word have become tools to maneuver through the Army bureaucracy rather than being symbols of integrity and honesty. Sadly, much of the deception that occurs in the profession of arms is encouraged and sanctioned by the military institution as subordinates are forced to prioritize which requirements will actually be done to standard and which will only be reported as done to standard. As a result, untruthfulness is surprisingly common in the U.S. military even though members of the profession are loath to admit it.
I’ve always said that being in the army is like having a guerrilla war waged against your integrity. Every day presents you with the opportunity to cut corners. Of course you cannot be an army shit; as Patton said, “A leader is a man who can adapt principles to circumstances”. But integrity is a muscle. If the first time you want to show some backbone is when CGS asks you how well trained your platoon is, with your commander glaring at you over his shoulder, then you don’t have a chance.
Healing an organisation, and returning it to high performance, begins with squeezing out the lies — at all levels. So let’s get started.
Simply put: when someone uses the word narrative, there can be only one response:
Update: Lt Gen (ret) Michael Flynn, former head of the DIA, interviewed link):
Tapper: “In 2012, your agency put out a now declassified report that seems to have predicted the rise of ISIS; the deteriorating security situation in Iraq and Syria could lead to the declaration of a ‘Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.’ It was not long after you issued that report that President Obama referred to ISIS as the JV team. Do you feel as though your warnings were ignored?”
Flynn: “You know, I think that they did not meet a particular narrative that the White House needed, and I’ll be very candid with you. I have said and I believe that the people that were around the president, his sort of inner circle that were advising him, I think advised him incorrectly … I think the narrative was that al-Qaeda was on the run and bin Laden was dead … we’d beaten them. And we knew that [wasn’t true]. We’ve killed more leaders in the al-Qaeda, ISIS, AQ-I, Boko Haram — more leaders than we can say, and they continue to just multiply.”
Update 2: CENTCOM is forcing out intelligence analysts who refuted its Syria narrative (link).
