South Asia - Articles

General Stanley Allen McChrystal is back home. Al Qaeda barons are raising their arms, palms open and turned upwards to thank the Lord. The web site of Rolling Stones might have felt a load of traffic that it has rarely experienced. But along with Rolling Stones’ website, another concept is also in duress. Armies, even far beyond the American continent are wondering, if embedded journalism is good for all that it pays, or if it is not worth the risk that sends a General back home; in this case away from a challenge not every General will want to bet his medals on.

Embedded reporting allows correspondents a free interactive relationship with military units. The concept flows from the belief that war is a national effort; definitely not the militaries’ alone. It also strengthens the postulate: Media – the fourth estate - is the fourth pillar of the state; an equal contributor along with the other three: Executive, Judiciary and Military.

Militaries need to dominate the information environment in the twenty-first century and manage perceptions in areas they need to operate. The same holds true for domestic audiences back home, to ensure continued support for the war effort. The Indian media did an excellent embedded reporting exercise during the Kargil War and generated sweeping empathy for the soldier in our populace by using open media in the embedded format.

In the area(s) of force projection, be it in active insurgency within national boundaries, or beyond our borders, if a favourable perception is orchestrated by utilizing media, use of kinetic weapons of war and attendant destruction, reduces. This necessity has led to viewing the media as a force multiplier. The concept does essentially undertake certain risks in execution. But, battles have rarely been won without taking risks.

In this case of McChrystal’s departure a few questions arise. Did the Rolling Stones article serve the US war effort in Afghanistan? Will it contribute to success of a mission that is still being considered as worthwhile notwithstanding a couple of thousand mostly American lives, already having borne the price?

The buzzword of democracies is transparency. The tax payer has a right to know: the tell-all stories. Contrarily, militaries retain secrecy as a fundamental principle. Democracies face subordination by a congregation of violent forces: Islamist terror, ethnic warlords, and arrogant dictators, belligerent state and non-state actors. The men in combat gear, battle these forces within the limits enforced by the resoluteness of their nation’s populace to adhere to democratic values. It’s a case of trying to satisfy domestic audiences’ strident virtuous posits, and the need to be as cunning as your enemy can be mean. All for an end so passionately looked forward to by the populace back home: victory.

The larger dilemma faced by senior military officers while employing their men within the constraints of national values remains, is he risking the lives of his men beyond a line that those who have patrolled in Helmand, Afghanistan know and often question their commanders about? Is he launching them into an uneven combat; especially in counter insurgency operations?

When an embedded journalist spends weeks with military formations or units he gets much more than information to write a piece. He shares their moods, can gauge their resolve and gains an understanding of what irks them.  It is rare that he turns a critic or strengthens his criticism by stitching in between, the emotional content of shared moments, at appropriate junctures in the narrative.

Military men and women also tend to be more frank and trusting. When you live amidst dangers, you tend to drop all guard when back in your barracks. Surely, if all the conversation between staff officers in any headquarters is recorded, as has been quoted in the Rolling Stone report, very few commanders would be there who would not have faced the Waterloo.   And if every gesture and grimace on a commander’s face is considered as irrefutable evidence of loyalty or otherwise, no commander will emerge entirely virtuous by the yardsticks democracies can lay down to ascertain allegiance to the concept of civilian ascendancy; at least, not those commanders who can take the risks to win the wars.

The soldier has human failings.  By retrofitting combat gear on a human being he doesn’t become a robot without an emotional range in his expressions; at least not when he has his guard down.

There is also a need perhaps for editors to sit back and debate all that it involves being the fourth pillar of the state. Maybe there is more scope of their deliverables serving the war effort in terms of being the force multiplier that militaries have stared touting the media as, while concurrently serving transparency in free societies and retaining freedom.

In the case of General McChrystal, the winners might be many, but most of them are those who send American body bags home and have that nation grieving. He had hit the al Qaeda hard in Iraq and was stamping on them quite effectively in Afghanistan.