An M-ATV, rolls into a parking lot outside of Camp Dubs.  The remains of the Royal Queen's palace are in the background.

The M-ATV is two analogies and a seriously bad idea.  Using the M-ATV for true combat operations makes about as much sense as its name.

The "M" stands for MRAP which is Mine Resistant Ambush Protected.  The "ATV" stands for All Terrain Vehicle.  The All Terrain part should be in air quotes because there is a lot of terrain in Afghanistan the M-ATV is not rated for.

Manufactured by Osh-Kosh , the M-ATV is a case study in the news media, risk averse officers and defense contractors driving tactics.

Here is how it works:

1. The news media runs endless stories about how military vehicles are not armored enough to withstand road side bombs
2. Risk averse officers who don't want to be on the bad end of a headline demand more armor 
3. A defense contractor builds and armored monstrosity of a vehicle, sends press kit to the media
4. The Pentagon and risk averse officers purchase the monstrosity of a vehicle no matter how useless it is

The US military response to the roadside bomb has been more armor and gadgets.  The enemy responds with bigger bombs, armor penetrating bombs and gadgets that are better than ours and cheaper.

M-ATV with M-14 leaning against a tire.

Because the military has these great big armored things to drive around in, they drive around in them.  If they didn't drive around in them, there would be a 60 Minutes story on why soldiers were getting shot with bullets when they could be in the armored vehicles.  The vicious cycle repeats itself again and again.  I'm not sure I blame the military as much as I blame people who watch 60 Minutes.  The Media is just doing what they do, which is getting mad at gravity because you fell down. 

Of course the ultimate solution to the road side bomb threat is to defeat the people who put bombs on the roads.  Defeating the enemy cannot be done from behind four inches of hardened steel and ballistic glass while sitting more than four feet off the ground.  If Mao urged the insurgent to swim among the people like a fish, the M-ATV forces Soldiers to float above the people in a boat--which is where the Taliban wants them.

With a crew of three, the M-ATV can only bring two soldiers who will actually put their boots on the ground  to gather intelligence on the location of the enemy, interact with the public and actually engage the enemy in a close up fight.  When used by a regular sized platoon, the M-ATV cuts the number of Soldiers with their boots on the ground by 60%.  When mounted, only one soldier is able to engage the enemy--the gunner. (The up armored Humvee does the same thing.  The most efficient soldier delivering MRAP vehicle is the Caiman.)

M-ATV parked next to an up-armored Humvee.

The original idea for the M-ATV was that the military needed a vehicle smaller and lighter than a regular MRAP.  The M-ATV is just as tall as an MRAP Caiman, is not much shorter or lighter and holds fewer soldiers.  In short, if someone ordered a vehicle with all the draw-backs of the the MRAP and the Humvee but none of their individual advantages they would come up with the M-ATV.

It is big, tall, heavy, slow, loud, obvious, cuts down combat power and is the anti-thesis of effective countery insurgency tactics.  The M-ATV doesn't put Soldiers in a bubble, it traps them in a cave.

And this is where the two analogies come in.

View from back seat window of M-ATV.

In the allegory of the cave in Plato's 'Republic' the philosopher argues that what we really see is not reality, that humans are essentially like people in a cave who only see what is reflected on the walls or the limited vision through the mouth of the cave.  The M-ATV limits vision and sensations of the environment in whole new ways.

I often move around Afghanistan in unaromored Toyota 4-Runners, taxicabs and on foot.  That low to the ground, a person with even a little experience can sense the mood of the public just from facial expressions and movement.  An M-ATV limits the view to a few slits of thick glass in the steel that force you to look down on people's heads as you drive past them in vehicle that looks like it was rejected from a James Cameron movie.

What I saw while riding in an M-ATV on the exact same roads I had walked on or driven a Toyota on was a shadow of reality.  What a solider sees when driving in an M-ATV is not reality and limits his ability to fight the war.

The second analogy is the serious one.

In all the great stories, legends and myths the hero ventures into some type of cave to endure an ordeal.  The cave can be literal or it can metaphorical.

The tactics dicated by the news media, timid officers and defense contractors has guaranteed that too many young men and women in the military will endure a potentially mortal ordeal inside the confines of an M-ATV.

I road around in M-ATVs on this trip and in unarmored Toyotas.  I felt safer in the Toyotas.  I felt the safest on my own two feet.

The M-ATV is the visual representation of all that is wrong with the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.  The Soviets tried to defeat the Mujahadeen from BMP armored personnel carriers and that didn't turn out so well.

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