Western Doctrine has become a bit "phase-obsessed" of late. What can be a helpful organizational construct in general, can in fact, become a mental straitjacket as well.

Often it is far more helpful to think of your operations in terms of what phase YOUR OPPONENT is in, in a given area, with a given populace, perhaps even time of day. Particularly this is true for COIN, which, by definition is a counter to another's operations.

Instead of thinking in terms of I need to get from Shape to Clear to Hold to Build (becuase you can do all of those things in theory and not affect what phase the insurgent is in a single, significant bit); it is to my way of thinking far more instructive to have your intel guys (hey, after all they love to brag how intel drive ops...) produce a product for you that shows you what phase the insurgent is in across your battlespace.

In this village or district they may be in phase I during the day, but surging to phase II at night. In this city they may be in high phase 0. In a district along historic ratlines in the mountains they may well be in Phase II 24-7. The goal never being to get your own operation to "Build," but rather to reduce the insurgent operations among critical populaces first, but expanding to everywhere, to Phase 0. This does not mean an end to insurgent activity, merely that you have reduced violence to below the socially acceptable level for that particular culture and populace, and have brought the populace within the ability of the civil governance to serve without military assistance.

Perhaps that is too disorderly for a SAMS trained planner to work with; but insurgency by its nature is disorganized and such an approach not only lends flexibility to ones operations, but it also has a built in exit strategy. You can even build a color coded overlay for your map that shows Green (ph 0), Amber (ph1), Red (Ph 2) and Black (Ph 3) regions. This allows you to explain to politicians, the media, and the populace back home, that you are not here to FIX (build?) the country, but merely to bring the situation within the realm of civil capacity.