Geez, this is unusual. I find myself in nearly complete agreement with one of the bloggers at TAPPED, the group blog run by the American Prospect. Robert Farley posts there today with a really insightful take on the hype surrounding the MRAP program, which got a front page spot in USA Today. MRAP is an exciting program, not least because it offers the chance to replace the Humvee on some of Iraq's most dangerous roads long before production begins on the Humvee's real replacement, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.
BAE's RG-31 MRAP after being hit with an IED.
Of the five crew members, two received concussions, two sustained minor burns.
Photo by 8th Engineer Support Battalion
Still, there's reason to worry that we might be betting a little to heavily on MRAP. Farley links to Armchair Generalist, who writes:
Let me make a few observations. We're talking about making a multi-billion dollar procurement deal on a system that hasn't been run through any operational tests, to replace a system that cost about a fifth of the armored vehicle, and the military wants to rush production of "low rate initial production" vehicles through five contractors to meet the demand. This is a capability that hasn't been analyzed prior to the decision to go with a material solution, because it would make too much sense to suggest that a non-material solution - say, eliminating the source of the IEDs rather than beefing up the protection requirement - might be a really better idea. No, it's always better to go with the high tech solution than the tougher, but more effective, common sense approach.
I'm not a regular reader of this blog, which is advertised as offering "a progressive view on military affairs," but if this is what progressives are all about, sign me up. "Eliminating the source" is indeed the only way to stop the bleeding. MRAP is a stop-gap measure, and a good one, but the idea that we should replace every Humvee in Iraq with a truck that costs $1 million a copy--at a total cost of nearly $8 billion--may be an expensive mistake. Again, Farley: "The cost is certainly a concern. It's easy to say 'we'll spend whatever we need to protect our troops', but that obviously isn't true, and every new expense takes away from something else."
Farley goes on to point out that "insurgents are going to come up with new methods of attack, and those attacks are going to destroy these extraordinarily expensive new vehicles." They will deploy more powerful (larger) and more lethal (EFPs) devices than they have in the past, just as they did when the Army started up-armoring its fleet of Humvees. EFPs in particular are certainly capable of penetrating the armor on MRAP--they can penetrate the armor on a tank. But the insurgents don't have a silver-bullet in the EFP either. Ceramic armor and reactive armor offer U.S. forces increased protection, but neither is insurgent-proof:
"A multi-slug [EFP] causes a lot of problems," said Vernon Joynt, lead scientist for Force Protection , the South Carolina-based vehicle maker known for the improvised-explosive-device-stopping Buffalo and Cougar [the two most widely used MRAPs]. "It shoots all the slugs like a machine gun in line. Problems arise with certain kinds of ceramics. They defeat the threat but do not remain in place. They are brittle. If you have one slug hitting them it will defeat the slug but shatter in the process, so if you have a multi-slug the rest [of the slugs] will come flying through like through a tunnel."
The point is, as the Armchair Generalist said, there is no technological solution to the IED, there is only "eliminating the source," i.e. killing the bad guys. And now we have the Congress and the military hopping on the MRAP bandwagon as if we're going to see a more sustainable number of casualties if only we can get our guys better protected--a game we've been playing and losing since 2004. It's a horrible approach to fighting an insurgency. There is no sustainable level of casualties, and no technology will ever get IED casualties to zero. The enemy will always find a clever way to blast a whole in metal, unless they're convinced not to plant the bombs in the first place. If we can kill enough of these guys, we ought to be able to deter the rest, provided we can also engage them politically and economically.
With so much support for MRAP in Congress, and from Joe Biden in particular, the Senate Armed Services Committee has now halted funding for JLTV. JLTV will offer much of the protection of MRAP--v-shaped hull, improved armor, advanced jamming capability--but it will also be a hybrid, meaning a significant reduction in the logistical burden compared to MRAP, which are huge, gas-guzzling vehicles. And that's not about saving the environment, its about saving lives and money--fewer Americans will be driving trucks on Iraqi roads and there will be a significant savings in the cost of supplying gas to troops in Iraq. Globalsecurity.org explains: "70 percent of the logistic burden on a battlefield is fuel, and that fuel delivery can cost between $ 30 (by Hemtt tanker) and $ 400 (by CH-47, as in Afghanistan) per gallon."
Factor in that eight companies are bidding on MRAP, many offering more than one vehicle, and we are talking about a tremendously expensive logistical nightmare--and the vehicles may be made obsolete by a clever terrorist with a few hundred dollars worth of materials. It's not that MRAP is a bad idea, but the scale of the program and the political support for it may be way out of proportion to the impact it will have--and at this scale, MRAP might even have a negative impact (it's "too big and intimidating" for day-to-day operations in friendly areas says Christian Lowe; it certainly won't help in the battle for hearts and minds). If the Democrats want out of Iraq, they shouldn't spend $8 billion on MRAP, and if they want a major reduction in IED-related casualties, they ought to support an offensive, rather than a defensive, solution. Either way, MRAP isn't the answer. The answer is to "eliminate the source."
