The British Army is right – social media is a new battlefield

‘News media representatives will be escorted at all times. Repeat, at all times.’ Fifteen years ago, US Central Command circulated Annex Foxtrot. Centcom had had its fingers burnt by the reporting of Vietnam, and it wasn’t going to make the same mistakes this time. The narrative of the Gulf war belonged to them. Today, the story couldn’t be any more different.

Psy-ops and social media: the butts of a thousand jokes, and there were plenty after the British Army announced the formation of a 1,500 strong ‘social media unit’. Reportedly named after the Chindits, the British guerrilla unit that operated far behind enemy lines in Burma during World War II, the 77^th Brigade’s ‘unconventional’ methods will focus on the digital fronts that have opened up over the last decade or so.

The announcement that a unit focusing on social media was met by howls of derision in certain quarters. Would such a unit be equipped with the mandatory fix-wheel bikes and thick-rimmed glasses of social media ‘experts’?