I know what follows is not perfectly in line with the official FM/JP 3-13 definitions. Any time your definition requires a definition (who knows what information superiority is, anyway?) there is a real problem. It seems to me that the official definitions are sooo Cold War.

We talk about the art of war and we send folks to SAMS to make the proficient in the art of maneuver. IO is nothing more complicated than the art of influence.

Mao TseTong (sp?), if I may paraphrase, said the population is to the guerilla (insurgent) as water is to fish. Our initial efforts in COIN were something like standing on a riverbank with a fishing pole, congratulating ourselves on every catch and thinking somehow we would eradicate all fishes from the water. To eliminate fish (insurgents) you must make the water (population) untenable for them.

To achieve that we attempt to control information. The official definition of information superiorty speaks to controlling a greater quantity of information than the opponent. In my opinion, that is irrelevant. We need only to control the right information. All of the original 13 elements of IO play a part. IO (influence) cannot be net-centric because the population we are trying to influence is not net-centric. Regardless of how many hours you spend a day on the internet, you still, at some point, talk to actual people. You still are influenced by your culture, your nation, etc. First we must understand the influences on that population, then focus on what we can affect. While I don't like this terminology, the population, not the insurgent, is the target because the population is the insurgents center of gravity. First identify what it will take to influence the target, then bring that to bear. Just like you would not shoot a T72 with an M16, don't send PSYOP out to a village without water - send the resources to get them water that the insurgent cannot provide. I have heard of Vulnerability Assessment Teams (network stuff) going out to areas with a 30% literacy rate in support of below BDE ops. That reeks of "Sprinkle a little IO on it, the generals will be happy and we can go back to killing bad guys." Bad guys are like potato chips, kill all you want, they'll make more.

Influence is an art, something not subject to algorithms and cold logic. The current definition simply does not fit into current operations. IO will continue to be nothing more than a point of confusion until a relevant, current definition is provided.