Strategic Communication Laboratories

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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.[1]

Origins of the company

The company’s website states that SCL was formed in 1993[2] 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.[3] 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[4] 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.'[5]

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."[6]

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.[7]

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.[8] Nigel Oakes, their CEO has stated: 'We used to be in the business of mindbending for political purposes....'[9]

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”.[10] However, Nigel Oakes did tell Slate Magazine that they have worked for post-Apartheid South Africa and the United Nations.[11] SCL are also known to have operated in Indonesia until 2000 and were reportedly operating there since at least 1998[12] (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.[13]

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.[14]

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’.[15]

People

Board of Directors

Former Directors

Known staff

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,[21] 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[22] (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[23] 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[24] the consultancy company run by ‘terrorism expert’ Paul Beaver. He was also formerly listed as a friend on Ian Tunnicliffe's Facebook page.[25]

Address

SCL are based at 33 St James's Square London SW1Y 4JS, [26] according to their website, this houses 18 separate companies. These include Anglo & International Corporate Finance Ltd, Kobe Steel Europe Ltd, and Scotland & Associates. [27] The Website according to http://www.whois.net was registered by REGISTER.COM, INC. [28] 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

notes

  1. Strategic Communication Laboratories, History, (20 June 2008)
  2. Strategic Communication Laboratories, History, (20 June 2008)
  3. Oliver Morgan, ‘Lobby firm goes to war’, The Observer, 11 September 2005
  4. Simon Mann, ‘PR tweaks president, then folds his tent’, The Age, 7 August 2000
  5. SLC Website, Strategic Communication Laboratories
  6. SLC Website, Strategic Communication Laboratories
  7. Quote DB Authors :: Abraham Lincoln, accessed February 2007.
  8. SCL Strategic Communication Laboratories, reposted from Sourcewatch
  9. Lobby firm goes to war Oliver Morgan Sunday September 11, 2005 The Observer
  10. Strategic Communication Laboratories
  11. Sharon Weinberger, ‘You Can't Handle the Truth: Psy-ops propaganda goes mainstream’, Slate Magazine 19 September 2005
  12. Simon Mann, ‘PR tweaks president, then folds his tent’, The Age, 7 August 2000
  13. Google html version of the file http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets/Programme.doc
  14. British Psyops for Pentagon, Intelligence Online, 20 April 2007
  15. Global Policy Partners Mid-Year-Report 2007
  16. British Psyops for Pentagon Intelligence Online, April 20, 2007
  17. Strategic Communication Laboratories
  18. SCL Key Management, Retrieved from the Web archive dated 30 December 2005, accessed 9 January 2008
  19. Sharon Weinberger, ‘You Can't Handle the Truth: Psy-ops propaganda goes mainstream’, Slate Magazine 19 September 2005
  20. BDEC Online Company Details for STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION LABORATORIES, (accessed 23 June 2008)
  21. Jenny Davey 'Tchenguiz turns focus to green projects' The Times (London), 31 January 2006, Tuesday Pg. 45
  22. Strategic Communication Laboratories Annual Returns made up to 20 July 2006
  23. Whois Record of electioncampaignservices.com retrieved from Domain Tools on 19 June 2008 at 10.44am
  24. Beaver Westminster, News for September 2005 (PDF), (accessed 20 June 2008)
  25. Google Cache of <http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian_Tunnicliffe/753527169> as retrieved on 24 May 2008 17:48:11 GMT, (Accessed 20 June 2008)
  26. Strategic Communication Laboratories
  27. Postcode
  28. www.whois.net, accessed 14/02/07