29 April 2007

MRAP Buy Bad?

Christian at Defense Tech questions the virtue of purchasing a lot of new mine resistant, ambush protected vehicles for the military. His basic argument is that the military should have held out for the next generation Humvee.

I'm not impressed. The basic problem with this approach is that the United States is fighting counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq right now for which the current version of the Humvee doesn't cut it. While someday in the future there may be a better fix possible, the military needs to get with the program and find something that will deal with the immediate crisis. The MRAP, based on the Cougar vehicle initially designed for military bomb squads, is one of the better choices available right now. So, unlike Christian, I applaud the military for, under Congressional pressure, finally doing something right.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Couldn't agree with you more. Christian is an idiot.

Andrew Oh-Willeke said...

Update: A huge MRAP buy is going forward.