Strategic Communication Laboratories

Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) is a London based communications company set up by former advertising executive and old-Etonian Nigel Oakes. It calls itself, “the leading supplier of strategic communications, information operations and public diplomacy to governments and military clients around the world.” SCL’s approach to propaganda is based upon a methodology developed by the associated Behavioural Dynamics Institute. This apparently secret methodology was – according to SCL’s website - developed with $20 million funding from SCL’s backers.

Origins of the company

The company’s website states that SCL was formed in 1993 although the company was not registered at Companies House until 20 July 2005. In September that year the company officially launched as a military communications company at the Defence Systems and Equipment International (DSEi) arms show at London’s Excel Centre. Reporting the launch, The Observer called SCL a UK political communications consultancy firm, which it said was re-launching as a psyops operator. What legal personality the company had prior to the 2005 re-launch - if any - is not clear. Companies House lists no former companies under that name although there were several companies affiliated to the founder Nigel Oakes during the 1990s so perhaps it existed in name only, whilst legally taking the form of a network of offshore entities. It must have existed in some sense because several newspapers in 2000 reported that the company had worked for the Indonesian government. Australia’s The Age reported at the time that SCL had operated in Indonesia since the final days of the Suharto regime which confirms the company’s existence at least as far back as 1998. What it was, and what it was doing between its purported formation in 1993 and its first appearance in the press in 2000 however is unknown.

Activities

SCL is clearly involved in military propaganda operations although few specific details are known of its operations. SCL’s website states that:

'The demand for the agency grew out of the failure and frustration many clients experienced when trying to apply traditional marketing techniques to non-commercial issues, such as resolution of wars and civil strife, strike aversion, international crises and riot control.'

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, the opening page of SCL's website clearly states its objective:

"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it nothing can succeed. He who molds public opinion is greater than he who enacts laws."

Here is another, perhaps more methodologically appropriate, quote often attributed to Lincoln:

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Who are SCL out to fool and with what, is not immediately obvious from their description of themselves. They are pioneers of "a new methodology" based on "16 years of academic research and development conducted at 42 universities around the globe." But what is it?

"The methodology uses 'scientific techniques' from a variety of social sciences to make ‘communications with groups’ far more effective (and measurable)."

What this scientific methodology does is enable governments 'and countries' to 'manage their relationships with their key audience groups through more powerful communication.' SCL offers various solutions based on this methodology to help countries in specific governmental areas such as defence, foreign affairs, internal security, health, finance and tourism. The site also tells us that SCL are the 'leading supplier of strategic communications, information operations and [public diplomacy] to governments and military clients around the world'. Communication can be more than just propaganda. Their section on Homeland Security [1] tells us they are in the business of 'population control.'

Public diplomacy, information operations and strategic communication are the polite terms for propaganda, spin and psychological operations, a further look at the site reveals that this methodology has a name (and an institiute) the 'Behavioural Dynamics Institute' a 'virtual lab' led by Professor Phil Taylor of Leeds University.

At times their tone can be a bit ominous "In a world where the perception is the reality, all countries need to have the capability to manage their own perceptual alignment – otherwise someone else will." But they are not without humour, and quote Sourcewatch on their own site. Nigel Oakes, their CEO has stated: 'We used to be in the business of mindbending for political purposes....'

SCL's website gives the following vague accounts of past operations:

• Design and develop a permanent military strategic communication facility capable of delivering strategic and operational psyop campaigns for a South Asian country.
• Production of a five-tiered training programme covering strategic, operational and tactical Psyop and the design and re-equipping of a communication facility. The personnel had to be able to take over the new facility after only six months.
• Design, build and install a Homeland Security Centre for an Asian country. The Opcentre can override all national radio and TV broadcasts in time of crisis.
• Design, build and install a diplomatic communication centre staffed by researchers, writers and spokespersons for an International Organisation.
• Design and installation of a Strategic Communication Centre to improve a country's ability to conduct Public Diplomacy.
• Recruitment, training and equipping an operational and tactical Psyop and Civil Affairs military unit for a British Commonwealth country.

Areas of operation

The company pledges strict confidentiality, saying that “absolutely no information concerning any of our past projects will be made available under any circumstances”. However, Nigel Oakes did tell Slate Magazine that they have worked for post-Apartheid South Africa and the United Nations. SCL are also known to have operated in Indonesia until 2000 and were reportedly operating there since at least 1998 (see the page on SLC head Nigel Oakes for further details).

It is also extremely likely that SCL are involved in operations in Afghanistan. A word document previously posted on RUSI’s website lists retired colonel Ian Tunnicliffe of ‘Strategic Communications [sic.] Laboratories’ as a presenter of a talk at the RUSI event Countering Asymmetric Taliban Strategies in Afghanistan, held on 26 March 2008. The session Tunnicliffe co-presented was entitled Winning and Maintaining Indigenous Support: Current and Future Strategies.

Lobbying the Pentagon

In April 2007 it was reported that:

Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), has retained the lobbying firm Global Policy Group to help it win contracts with the American government, and specially from the Pentagon. The U.S. military already employs several psychological operations (psyops) consultants in Iraq and, to a lesser degree, in Afghanistan.

Congressional filings indicate that SCL spent approximately $20,000 lobbying the Department of Defense, Congress and the Department of Labour on ‘defense’ and ‘foreign ops’.

People

Board of Directors

• The Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Pattie Chairman
• Nigel Oakes Chief Executive Officer
• Alex Oakes Director
• Alexander Nix Director
• Roger Gabb Director
• Julian Wheatland Director
• Rear Admiral John G Tolhurst CB FRAeS Advisory Board
• The Rt. Hon. Sir James Mitchell Advisory Board
• John Bottomley FCIS Company Secretary
• Ian Tunnicliffe Director of Information Operations: 'SCL's information director is colonel Ian Tunnicliffe, a former strategic communications expert at Britain's Defense ministry, who also served with the Office of Strategic Communications run by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad.'
• Dr Andrew Stewart Advisory Board
• Lord Birdwood Advisory Board
• Lord Ivar MountbattenAdvisory Board
• Professor Phil Taylor BA PhD – Behavioural Dynamics Institute Advisory Board
• Gavin McNicoll Advisory Board

Former Directors

• Peter Varnish was listed as a member of the Advisory board in December 2005.

Known staff

• Mark Broughton, public affairs director (in 2005)
• Alexis Everington, Marketing Manager.

Shareholders

Several of the company directors hold shares in the company and there are a number of non-executive shareholders. In early 2006 it was reported that the Iranian born London property tycoon Vincent Tchenguiz had acquired 23 per cent of Strategic Communications Laboratories, and in May that year the investment company Viatrade PLC bought a small stake. Conservative Party treasurer and venture capitalist Jonathan Marland also holds shares, as does his company Herriot Ltd.

The company’s latest Annual Returns (made up to 20 July 2006) list the following shareholders. They are arranged in descending order according to their share allocation.

Name: Nigel Oakes

Shares held: 14,849

Name: Roger Gabb

Shares held: 11,266

Name: R M Gabb, M A Gabb and M J Thompson as Trustees of the Glendower Settlement

Shares held: 11,266

Name: Share Nominees Ltd on behalf of the Fund

Shares held: 9,013

Name: Alexander Waddinton Oakes

Shares held: 7,429

Name: Paul David Ashburner Nix

Shares held: 5,633

Name: Alexander James Ashburner Nix

Shares held: 5,249

Name: Jonathan Peter Marland

Shares held: 563

Name: Viatrade PLC

Shares held: 507

Name: Herriot Ltd

Shares held: 338

Name: S Marland & P Addington as Trustees of J P Markand’s child.

Shares held: 225

Subsidiaries

Election Campaign Services

The website http://www.electioncampaignservices.com contains no information except a picture of a blond female model and a message stating that ‘Campaign Election Services is a subsidiary of Strategic Communication Laboratories’, followed by a link to SCL’s website. However there is no company ever registered at UK Companies House under that name. A Whois search reveals that the domain is registered to one Alexis Everington, who gives Nigel Oakes’s home address. Everington is known to have worked as an analyst at Beaver Westminster the consultancy company run by ‘terrorism expert’ Paul Beaver. He was also formerly listed as a friend on Ian Tunnicliffe's Facebook page.

Address

SCL are based at 33 St James's Square London SW1Y 4JS, according to their website, this houses 18 separate companies. These include Anglo & International Corporate Finance Ltd, Kobe Steel Europe Ltd, and Scotland & Associates. The Website according to http://www.whois.net was registered by REGISTER.COM, INC. whose principal activity is to provide internet domain name registration and other online products and services such as web hosting, email, domain name forwarding and advertising.

Affiliated Companies

• Behavioural Dynamics Institute. associated research company
• Advanced Strategic Initiatives, Inc, partner
• VT, partner