MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected), Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform - IEDs and Armored Vehicles in Iraq, Pentagon Organizational Adaptation, Force Protection, Fallujah, Up-Armored Humvees

Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this study examines Mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, which 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 5 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.

IEDs and Armored Vehicles in Iraq * The IED Challenge and Initial Armor Decisions * The Political Problem: IEDs and the Home Front * Pentagon Organizational Adaptation * MRAP Requirements: The Lost 2 Years * Strategy Significance: The MRAP Impact * Explaining Delayed Fielding of the MRAPs * Armored Vehicles and the Requirements System. * Armored Vehicle Requirements in Iraq * Irregular Warfare and Force Protection * The Pentagon Record on Irregular Warfare Requirements * Skilled Incompetence and Pentagon Decisionmaking * Conclusion