Providing the best armored vehicles to protect our troops fighting in wars abroad is a moral imperative. Still, there has been argument among analysts over the high cost of mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles, or MRAPs.
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An analysis from Pentagon officials last week cited evidence from the battlefield and from tests at a proving ground that MRAPs had saved "a significant number of lives" compared with their lightly armored alternatives, known as up-armored Humvees. The report, published in Foreign Affairs, was a rebuttal to an earlier analysis, also published in Foreign Affairs, by academic economists at Syracuse University, which argued that the vehicles were not worth the $600,000-per-vehicle price tag.
The question of appropriate armor for the battlefield has a rocky history. The Pentagon was unconscionably slow in getting armored vehicles to its troops in Iraq eight years ago and was also slow to respond to requests for better vehicles. Incredibly, the Pentagon told Army and Marine divisions headed to Iraq in early 2004 to leave their tanks and armored personnel carriers behind.
Defense officials mistakenly assumed the conflict was under control and left American soldiers to ride in thin-skinned Humvees that provided no protection against lethal roadside bombs. When field commanders urgently requested shipments of MRAPs, which have heavy armor and V-shaped bottoms to deflect blasts from below, they were largely ignored for more than two years. It took persistent prodding by then-Senator Joseph Biden Jr. and others in Congress and an effort under former Defense Secretary Robert Gates to speed up production in 2007 and get the vehicles deployed. Since then, more than 24,000 MRAPs have been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. The program has cost more than $47 billion.
From the start, there has been concern that the vehicles were too costly. In July, the analysis by an economist and graduate student at Syracuse concluded that vehicles given a medium amount of armor substantially reduced fatalities in a military unit compared with thin-skinned Humvees, but replacing those upgraded Humvees with MRAPs did not appreciably reduce casualties further. The $600,000 vehicle, they concluded, was no better than a $170,000 vehicle.
Now the new Pentagon report, by Ashton Carter, the deputy defense secretary, and another department expert, has analyzed fatalities per roadside bombing. Using classified material not available to the academic researchers, it concluded that MRAPs save a significant number of lives. Mr. Carter said recently that the MRAP is "singularly responsible for saving the lives and limbs of thousands of service members in Iraq and Afghanistan." Protecting the troops is paramount, and, clearly, these vehicles are better equipped to do the job.
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