To be clear, fault does not lie with the MRAP, MATV, or any other armored vehicle. It lies with how commanders are using the vehicles due to their aversion to risk and their attempts to minimize coalition injuries at the expense of the broader counterinsurgency mission. The vehicles' size would not be a hindrance to that mission if junior coalition commanders were also authorized to use other smaller vehicles to access the difficult areas of Afghanistan. For example, if a unit needed to access a village that was only accessible by pickup truck or Humvee, then that is what they would use.
This, however, was not the case during my most recent tour in southeastern Afghanistan, which ended in February of this year. What I found is that commanders were mandating the use of MRAPs only. If a unit did not have MRAPs or some other type of armored vehicle, then troopers were not allowed to leave the base at all.
This sounds like a minor tactical issue, but its consequences are having strategic effects on how we conduct the war and our ability to access the population. As one frustrated company commander told me after the directive, "If an MRAP can't get there, we don't go there. I need the flexibility to decide what type of vehicle to use."
Another commander, looking up at the hills and mountains surrounding his camp, lamented that he was now unable to access more than 70 percent of his assigned districts. "My men can only walk so far with their body armor on," he said as we chatted near the line of Humvees he could no longer use. To make matters worse, there was an additional requirement of a minimum of four vehicles in order to leave the wire even when a unit didn't have enough working MRAPs to meet the requirement.
This seemingly cautious approach not only contradicts the principles behind our counterinsurgency strategy, but it is actually reckless: It will end up causing more casualties in the long run than it prevents in the short run. Using only these behemoth vehicles prevents U.S. troops from accessing large portions of the populace and allows insurgent IED cells to flourish in areas relatively easy to reach by other means. We cannot protect a populace we do not allow ourselves to access.
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It may be counterintuitive, but we actually need less armor, and we need to be more flexible and unpredictable. Instead of dictating that no unit can leave its base unless in an MRAP or MATV, we must allow them to use Humvees, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, and ruggedized pickup trucks when appropriate. Knowing their movements are being watched at all times, units need to use deception, such as varying the time of day and night they move, their routes of travel, and the types of vehicles in which they conduct missions, to keep the insurgents constantly guessing. Insurgents cannot possibly booby-trap and watch every road, trail, and wadi in Afghanistan but they can and do hammer us on the few roads that will support armored vehicles.
This is a very unconventional war being waged in the most difficult terrain possible, and we are responding very conventionally. Instead of allowing such ingenuity and its associated risk, the coalition's default response has been to add more armor and widgets to ever larger vehicles that are the very antithesis of basic counterinsurgency operations.
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MRAPs, armour, and tactical flexibility
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