I guess the hardest part is understanding what needs to be done, and measuring the right things. If my operational goal doesn't address the root causes in COIN (i.e. approaching from my POV rather than the populations), all the EBO won't help if the enemy is playing baseball while I'm playing football. That's where COIN IPB comes in.

Absolutely and it is all about targeting the effort against the correct things. That is nothing new but when you get into the realm of non-lethal IO synchronization of that effort with lethal operations becomes critical. What happens when we separate the tactical IO effort from the tactical maneuver effort? We get a desynched result and one often working at cross purposes. that was our experience in trying to develop Tac IO TTPs separate from "real operations". They got shoved aside, marginalized, or completely ignored. As you know better than most that is not a good thing in COIN.

best

Tom