text: Appendix C
  18. Remember the global audience. One of the biggest differences between the
  counterinsurgencies our fathers fought and those we face today is the omnipresence
  of globalized media. Most houses in Iraq have one or more satellite dishes. Web bloggers;
  print, radio, and television reporters; and others are monitoring and reporting your every
  move. When the insurgents ambush your patrols or set off a car bomb, they do so not
  to destroy one more track, but because they want graphic images of a burning vehicle
  and dead bodies for the evening news. Beware of the scripted enemy who plays to a global
  audience and seeks to defeat you in the court of global public opinion. You counter this by
  training people to always bear in mind the global audience, to assume that everything they
  say or do will be publicized, and to befriend the media. Get the press on-side—help them get
  their story, and trade information with them. Good relationships with nonembedded media,
  especially indigenous media, dramatically increase your situational awareness and help get
  your message across to the global and local audience.
  19. Engage the women, beware of the children. Most insurgent fighters are men. But
  in traditional societies, women are hugely influential in forming the social networks that
  insurgents use for support. Co-opting neutral or friendly women, through targeted social
  and economic programs, builds networks of enlightened self-interest that eventually
  undermine the insurgents. You need your own female counterinsurgents, including
  interagency people, to do this effectively. Win the women, and you own the family unit. Own
  the family, and you take a big step forward in mobilizing the population. Conversely, though,
  stop your people from fraternizing with the local children. Your troops are homesick; they
  want to drop their guard with the kids, but children are sharp-eyed, lacking in empathy,
  and willing to commit atrocities their elders would shrink from. The insurgents are watching:
  They will notice a growing friendship between one of your people and a local child,
  and either harm the child as punishment, or use them against you. Similarly, stop people from
  throwing candies or presents to children. It attracts them to our vehicles, creates crowds the
  enemy can exploit, and leads to children being run over. Harden your heart and keep the
  children at arm’s length.
  20. Take stock regularly. You probably already know that a body count tells you little, because
  you usually can’t know how many insurgents there were to start with, how many moved into
  the area, how many transferred from supporter to combatant status, or how many new fighters
  the conflict has created. But you still need to develop metrics early in the tour and refine them
  as the operation progresses. They should cover a range of social, informational, military,
  and economic issues. Use metrics intelligently to form an overall impression of progress—not
  in a mechanistic traffic-light fashion. Typical metrics include percentage of engagements
  initiated by our forces versus those initiated by insurgents; longevity of friendly local leaders
  in positions of authority; number and quality of tip-offs on insurgent activity that originate
  spontaneously from the population; and economic activity at markets and shops. These mean
  virtually nothing as a snapshot; it is trends over time that help you track progress
  in your sector.
  GROUNDHOG DAY
  C-8. Now you are in “steady state.” You are established in your sector, and people are settling into that
  “groundhog day” mentality that hits every unit at some stage during every tour. It will probably take you at
  least the first third of your tour to become effective in your new environment, if not longer. Then in the last
  period you will struggle against the short-timer mentality. So this middle part of the tour is the most
  productive—but keeping the flame alive, and bringing the local population along with you, takes immense
  leadership.
  21. Exploit a “single narrative.” Since counterinsurgency is a competition to mobilize popular
  support, it pays to know how people are mobilized. In most societies there are opinion
  makers—local leaders, pillars of the community, religious figures, media personalities,
  and others who set trends and influence public perceptions. This influence, including the
  pernicious influence of the insurgents, often takes the form of a “single narrative”: a simple,