Bill,

Thanks for having noticed Strategic Narrative. I have been checking in at and learning from the contributors at Small Wars Journal for years. I used the site a few years ago to do an informal survey of the ways that “narrative” was being used in the defense community (the results are in "Narrative as an Influence Factor in Information Operations," in the 3rd quarter 2010 IO Journal)

Your kind words, and your remarks on “going with trends” got me to sign up and actually show my face here. From my vantage (not as a member of the military but as a close observer of the role of communication in it for the last decade), this point you and others are making about “going with” instead of “forcing against” is crucially important in the information realm as well. I have said in a number of venues that the concept of “counter-narrative” is counter-productive—it simply produces potentially lethal versions of shouting matches. The beauty (and challenge) of information contained in narrative form is that it is porous.

Narratives are composite, shifting things and they will inevitably reveal open areas, points of vulnerability, or internal contradictions—gaps between what others say and what they do--into which new information that directs a story in a more favorable way can be inserted. I thought that the language of “counter-narrative” may have begun to wither but someone who works at NSC recently told me that there, at least, the concept of “counter narrative” is alive and well as a communication strategy.