The Pentagon celebrated its Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected vehicle program at the Pentagon on Monday, but the biggest question was left hanging: did the nearly $50 billion investment in MRAPs make sense?
The headline asks if MRAPs are brilliant or a waste of billions of dollars.
The answer is that they were a brilliant choice and the lives saved were well worth the billions spent. Just how many additional American troops should have died to save those billions of dollars? In an age when we spend trillions we don't have for results that don't seem worthwhile, saving the lives of American troops isn't obviously worth the price of even billions?
How many Solyndra's could we have allowed to fail on their own without government subsidies to save money to pay for those MRAPs, hmmm?
This is what I wrote five years ago about the worth of MRAPs:
The MRAP will surely help save the lives of our troops in many circumstances even as the enemy adapts to their presence. We are a wealthy nation and so the price is well worth paying. And as long as our troops exit the vehicles to patrol, live, and fight, protecting them en route better is a good thing.
But this new vehicle is not the end of the problem. Even in my brief history of armor in Iraq I noted the early appearance of shaped-charge EFPs. In the end, tactics defeat IEDs. We need to aggressively pursue the bomb makers and suppliers to protect our troops before the IEDs are planted.
After so much invested in complaining about insufficient armor, I am amused that the MRAP is viewed by some as having too much armor. Indeed, after this war, the best thing we can do with the MRAPs is sell them off because Iraq has been unique in the history of warfare in this regard and we are unlikely to face the widespread threat of IEDs again.
MRAPs were not the total solution. And we have beaten the threat of IEDs in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is far more difficult now for the enemy to kill us with IEDs than before we focused on the problem.
But while MRAPs weren't the silver bullet technology solution to the problem, they were an important part of the solution and helped save a lot of American lives.
Further, by saving lives, MRAPs helped sustain our troops' morale even as home morale faltered in Iraq; and by saving lives maintained home support long enough to win the Iraq War.
So yes, MRAPs were brilliant. Next stupid question, please.
NOTE: More than a year later I noticed the actual link to the Time article was missing. Oops.
