Quote Originally Posted by Rex Brynen View Post
1) You treat all direct, non-IED attacks as the same--and argue that IED attacks are an inferior good, since insurgents would, if they had the resources, prefer to engage in direct fire attacks if they could.
Excellent point. I came to the opposite conclusion based on the data: that insurgents believe IEDs are by far their most effective method of attack. They only resort to other methods - less effective methods - when they've placed IEDs everywhere they can. As soon as we render IEDs ineffective, they devote all their resource to avoiding our counter measures and making IEDs effective again.