Often read discussions on what are good measures of effectiveness for COIN on this site. Some debate the importance of capturing/killing insurgents, decrease in IEDs vs # of schools built, unemployment rate, etc.

Here's one that I heard today that I thought particularly ingenious: How many meals do your squads eat with Iraqi families in any given week?

One of the best COIN minds in the Corps (and an outstanding proven combat leader as well) mentioned this measure of effectiveness in a PME today. Brief background: Simultaneous with his Bn clearing or he prefers "securing" towns and villages in the Al Qaim AO a year or so ago, he dragged bulldozers behind his unit and built 14 plt-sized battle positions; previously there had been 2 FOBs in the AO a good distance from the people.

Anyway, once a village was secured and a platoon moved in, he tasked all plt cdrs with creating a chart on a dry erase board so that his squads could compete with each other to see which squad spent the most time with Iraqi families sharing a meal. When visiting his platoons, this was among the primary indicators he used to determine if the plt cdr was doing his job. Not surprisingly, he validated his belief that more meals shared = more info/intel from the people = more security.