Michael,

Excellent article. I would consider publishing it here rather than at Infantry, more eyes will see it. (Although it is certainly a great thing to be published there).

Your experience reflects mine. I would consider expanding on the following, this is what I wrote briefly on the subject last year if you think it fits:

8. Understand perceptions matter far more than truth. Counterinsurgency is political conflict for power, and control of the population is the primary means to gain that power. History is replete with examples of counterinsurgents winning the tactical battles while losing the strategic campaign for the support of the host and home nations . We have learned that operations will be assessed through the lens of information effects. Information engagement is not a staff section’s responsibility or an operations order annex, but a commander’s program through which all efforts, lethal and non-lethal, must be viewed. Counterinsurgents must constantly ask, “What are the various audiences, and how will this action be perceived by each one? Then, ask what can we do to shape that perception to our advantage?” A successful counterinsurgent is proactive in shaping the information message of his actions. When reacting to events in the current media environment, speed and accuracy are key. To increase tempo, media engagement authority must be decentralized as much as possible out of theater and corps headquarters down to battalions and companies. Creating credible perceptions of increasing success and momentum are critical to re-establishing legitimacy and restoring the population’s confidence and trust in the host government.

9. Communicate effectively. We transmit, but how well is our message received, understood, and accepted? Too often we communicate using methods the populace doesn’t understand or use in ways that undermine our message. Early on, we distributed Arabic language flyers into Turkoman-speaking populations, and wondered why our messages didn’t resonate. Once we learned and understood how the host nation communicates, we used those streams, and our efforts improved markedly. In some areas messaging may best be carried out in tea shops, use newspapers in another area and local leaders in a third. Once we learned to communicate though appropriate mediums in the host nation our successful results multiplied. We learned to place local figures at the forefront. A local citizen is always more credible than a foreign one in any setting. Many Iraqis believed “Baghdad Bob’s” fantastic tales of victory because he was an Iraqi.
And finally, credibility matters most. The narrative and tactical actions have to agree. If I say I'm here to protect the people, yet my actions are focused on chasing the bad guys, I am not credible. What do we call a person who says one thing and does another? You guessed it. Too often our narrative spouts platitudes our actions don't reinforce.

Congrats on writing your experiences for publication. More need to do it.

Niel