Mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles offer an excellent
case study for investigating the current debate over the Pentagon's
approach to developing and fielding irregular warfare capabilities.
MRAPs first gained prominence for their ability to protect U.S.
forces from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and because the
Pentagon did not deploy them en masse to Iraq until almost five
years of fighting had passed. More recently, following
extraordinary efforts to field more than 10,000 MRAPs quickly, the
program has been criticized as wasteful and unnecessary. Secretary
of Defense Robert Gates often cites the slow fielding of MRAPs as a
prime example of the Pentagon's institutional resistance to
investments in irregular warfare capabilities. Some irregular
warfare requirements traditionally bedevil the United States-such
as human intelligence-but quickly producing and fielding vehicles
is something the country has done well often in the past. Moreover,
the Pentagon assessed MRAPs as 400 percent more effective at
protecting U.S. troops than other vehicles, and Congress was eager
to pay for them. Thus, the slow fielding of the MRAPs certainly
seems like prima facie evidence for the Secretary's claim that the
Pentagon does not do a good job of providing irregular warfare
capabilities. Yet some analysts now argue that MRAPs are not really
useful for irregular warfare and are prohibitively expensive. By
the time the vehicles finally flowed into the combat zone, the need
for them had diminished because the insurgency and the IED problem
in Iraq were on the decline. Now the Pentagon's planned procurement
of MRAPs is being slashed, Congress is demanding more
accountability for controlling their costs, and the MRAP program is
being accused of sidetracking important future acquisition programs
such as the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and the Future Combat
System. As General Barry McCaffrey, USA (Ret.), asserted, "It is
the wrong vehicle, too late, to fit a threat we were actually
managing." Thus, MRAP proponents, who think their delayed fielding
was unconscionable, and detractors, who consider them a misguided,
emotional response to casualties, both view the MRAP saga as an
acquisition disaster. For incoming senior officials who are vowing
acquisition reform, the MRAP experience seems to strengthen their
cause. The controversial MRAPs raise two questions. First, does the
MRAP experience support Secretary Gates' contention that the
Pentagon is not sufficiently able to field irregular warfare
capabilities? To resolve this issue, we have to determine whether
MRAPs actually are a valid irregular warfare requirement, and if
so, whether the Pentagon should have been better prepared to
provide the kind of force protection armored vehicles like the MRAP
provides. Second, what factors best explain the MRAP failure,
whether that failure is determined to be the delayed fielding of
MRAPs or the fact that they were fielded at all? More specifically,
is the acquisition system to blame, as is commonly supposed? We
conclude that MRAPs are a valid irregular warfare requirement and
that the Pentagon should have been better prepared to field them,
albeit not on the scale demanded by events in Iraq. We also argue
that the proximate cause of the failure to quickly field MRAPs is
not the Pentagon's acquisition system but rather the requirements
process, reinforced by more fundamental organizational factors.
These findings suggest that achieving Secretary Gates' objective of
improving irregular warfare capabilities will require more
extensive reforms than many realize.
General
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