Media management

Considering that the news of the 200th fatality arising from our expedition in Afghanistan was released only about 7pm last night, it says something for the technical skills of the print media that the news made most of the front pages of the Sundays today.

However, such was the timing that only hasty re-jigging got the news in, without sufficient leeway for the editorial and comment pieces that would have accompanied such news, had the details been available earlier.

The same also applies to the 201st fatality. Although incurred – in Sangin again – earlier on Saturday, the release was held back until the Sundays had gone to press, thereby robbing them of the news "hook" which would have cleared the front pages and most of the rest of the "book".

Even in the grisly arithmetic of battlefield casualties, therefore, news management plays a central part in the drama, the controlled release thus enabling Gordon Brown to hit the TV studios today (featuring on the Andrew Marr show) in a carefully planned exercise in damage limitation, before the Monday papers get to chew over the issue.

This was always going to be the case. As long as the media is intent on using the completely artificial "milestone" of 200 deaths as a trigger for a torrent of (largely hostile) coverage – the government will attempt to manage the news, to mitigate the adverse effects.

In fact, the KIA stand at about 170, others having been killed in accidents, illness or suicide, directly or indirectly related to the action in Afghanistan. But, as we pointed out in the forum, Service-wide non combat deaths far exceed those experienced in combat, the largest single cause being vehicle accidents. These, however, escape under the media radar. Until recently, they were not even recorded centrally.

The distinction between total fatalities and KIAs, however, leaves it open to the media to come back for a second bite at the cherry, recording the event when the KIAs reach 200. By that time, total casualties will be close to the "magic" figure of 255 – the number lost in the Falklands War. That, in turn, will trigger more press comment.

There is no point in decrying this dynamic. That is how the media works and to expect it to do otherwise is like expecting the archetypal cat to bark. But what today's media response – and the response in days to follow – does illustrate is that media management is as much a part of modern warfare as is engaging with the enemy, and just as important.

What is not as clearly recognised is that media response also has tactical and strategic implications. With the headline treatment of fatalities, commanders have been known to adjust tactics – contrary to theatre requirements – in order to minimise casualties, or even delay operations which might give a casualty spike, in order to avoid politically sensitive events, such as domestic elections.

Both these dynamics were evident in the Iraqi campaign, with the retreat to the bases in Basra (and the evacuation of Camp Abu Naji outside al Amarah) dictated more by the need to keep casualties down than for any sound tactical reasons.

Similarly, the decision to abandon Musa Qala in 2006 was very heavily influenced by the increasing difficulties experienced in re-supplying the platoon house by helicopter, and the fear that it was only a matter of time before a Chinook was lost, the casualties arising having a devastating political effect.

The problem confronting the military, however – and also the politicians – is that they need to square the circle: they need to be able to keep the casualty rate down, without compromising operations or strategic aims. And that requires something in which neither the politicians nor the military have shown any great skill – forward planning.

It is highly significant in that context that the 201st fatality reported today is the 100th to die from an IED. Take those (or a substantial number of them) out of the equation and the media storm that is about to break would not be occurring. But, to have been able to deal with the IED would have required a whole new set of equipment and tactics, which neither the politicians nor the military have been able to devise in time.

Thus, in the absence of effective battle management, all the government has left is media management and, as we write, there is evidence that this is not going to be enough. New Labour is at last beginning to discover that even the most skilful "spin" cannot trump reality for ever. The body bags are telling their own story.

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Jumping the gun

Like vultures watching for the dying man to expire, the serried ranks of hacks and their editors are poised, keyboards at the ready – with picture editors on standby – waiting for the 200th soldier to be killed in Afghanistan.

The suspense, however, has proved too much for The Times, which has already published a piece from its defence editor Michael Evans on the impending death, allowing it to display the statutory graphic showing not 200 but 199 "thumbnails" in a grisly montage (pictured above).

Evans's piece is headed "200th death in Afghanistan will raise questions over UK strategy," with the strap declaring: "The decision to begin the campaign in Helmand with such a small number of troops was dangerously shortsighted."

Nevertheless, it begins with a statement of the obvious, telling us that the MoD "is preparing itself for an outpouring of emotion - and possibly recrimination". No more or less did we write last Sunday, when the headline figure had reached 196.

We are reminded though that all but five of the deaths have arisen since the government's decision to send a brigade to Helmand province in the spring of 2006 and, writes Evans, judging by the comments from ministers and military commanders at the time, there appeared to have been no concept, let alone intelligence assessment, of an impending campaign that would, within three years, increase the number of deaths of members of the Armed Forces to 200.

In hindsight, and with the 200th British death sadly imminent, we are then told, the decision to send just 3,300 troops to Helmand was dangerously shortsighted. It was never going to be enough for a province of such size.

Readers expecting any discussion of strategy, however, are going to be disappointed. The focus is entirely on troop numbers, as we are told that in 2009, Britain has 9,140 troops in Afghanistan, about 6,200 of them in Helmand, and the province is awash with thousands of US Marines and counterparts from Denmark, Estonia and other coalition members.

But, writes Evans, "the Taleban appear to have an inexhaustible supply of reinforcements and they fight in the same way the Mujahidin fought the Russians in the 1980s - with territorial cunning and knowhow and by intimidating the locals to protect them and provide refuge."

Thus, he says, the landmark of 200 deaths - 195 of them in the last 41 months - will reinforce the growing realisation that, like the Russians before them, the British are learning the hard way about the resilience of Afghan insurgents.

Therein lies an example of the superficiality of our contemporary media. Of what we know of the Taleban, their number is relatively modest, perhaps no more than 20,000 effectives throughout the whole of Afghanistan.

While that is obviously an estimate (possibly not even the Taleban knows how many men it can call upon) the one thing we do know with certainty is that the Taleban are not "fighting in the same way the Mujahidin fought the Russians in the 1980s."

What is so very different, as the casualty details attest, is that the Taleban are largely avoiding direct contact with coalition forces. Instead, they are resorting to the use of IEDs on an industrial scale, devised with increasing sophistication and emplaced with considerable tactical skill.

In so doing, the Taleban are not attempting to win territory by force or arms but, in slaughtering coalition troops, are sending messages to the populations of the member nations, undermining popular support in the expectation that the abhorrence of the steady toll of deaths and mutilation will eventually force the withdrawal of troops.

Thus the use of the IED as a strategic weapon is entirely new and, as Gen Sir Richard Dannatt has finally recognised, the "disappointingly large number" of deaths from roadside bombs could lead to a reduction in public support for operations in the country.

That much though, even the so-called experts such as Professor Michael Clarke, director of the Royal United Services Institute, do not seem to understand, in common, it seems, with Michael Evans.

Dannatt, of course, has left it far too late, while Army doctrine is still floundering. On the 40th anniversary of the start of Operation Banner, when British troops were sent to Northern Ireland in what was initially said to be a "limited operation", we are now into the eight year of yet another "limited operation" and, it would appear, about as ill-equipped (both intellectually and physically) to deal with this one as we were in 1969.

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How to lose the war

Imagine the effect on morale if, instead of the headline (shown left) proclaiming the invasion of France on 6 June 1944 – and many more like it – the newspapers had run with: "Thousands dead in Northern France – troops slaughtered on the beaches".

Then imagine the newspapers running pictures of the dead, like the one below, zealously totting up the count for every following day – with absolutely no news on how the campaign was going. And how long do you think support for the war would have lasted?

Yet, is not that exactly what our media are doing, with a particularly egregious example in The Daily Telegraph today – straight out of The Independent school of journalism? The paper prints a picture of every single one of the 50 soldiers killed as a result of service in Afghanistan (including those killed in accidents) and then, on the front page, gives a graphic account of how one soldier met his untimely death.

Then the paper has the absolute gall to print a commentary (down page of course) from Con Coughlin, headed, "Now we must stiffen our resolve" - stunning in its platitudinous banality.

"The latest British military fatality in Afghanistan," writes Coughlin, "the 50th since Britain committed its forces to the country's troubled Helmand province a year ago, will inevitably raise questions about the value of persisting with this seemingly intractable mission." Too right it will – the paper made absolutely sure of that, lovingly recounting the deaths of those individuals.

As we remarked in an earlier piece, this is not journalism. It is war tourism, a grotesque example of voyeurism, exploiting the deaths of brave men, simply to fill the space in a rag which still has the temerity to call itself a newspaper.

And the irony of that title is right there in the front page piece, when the paper reports: "There was also frustration that the conflict in Afghanistan registers little with the public." Its author, Thomas Harding then cites a soldier from 1st Bn Royal Anglian Regiment, saying: "This is a war, a proper war but no one back in the UK wants to know."

I have news for that soldier – we do want to know. But the media doesn't. It wants to fill its pages with tat and trivia, in the guise of news, paying attention to the war only when it has bad news to report, indulging its own morbid fascination with death and destruction.

But, if the media stands accused, an even worse offender is the MoD website, which gives reports of soldiers' deaths absolute priority, topping the page with initial reports and then obituaries.

Balanced only occasionally by reports of the activities of our Armed Forces, and their increasing successes, often badly written in the style of a second-rate PR release, the site takes on the aspect of a vast, official obituary column.

One can only observe that, if the media and the MoD between them want to lose the war on the home front, these cretins are going the right way about it.

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