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obtaining equipment they would otherwise probably
not have acquired as quickly. This can also result in
what some experts call the hyper-specialization of
land forces, with armies’ procurement and logistic
needs geared to the operational needs of a counterinsurgency
(COIN) campaign. 28 Admittedly, modernization
has also been positively informed by the
practical experience of addressing urgent operational
requirements, even at great expense. For example,
when faced with new threats such as IEDs, allied land
forces have chosen to move rapidly toward adopting
better-protected vehicles. 29
For many nations, the urgency to meet this need
required purchasing vehicles from outside their own
countries. Following its engagement in Afghanistan,
the Netherlands purchased 76 Thales Australia Bushmasters
between July 2006 and August 2009. Similarly,
after seeing dozens of their armored vehicles
destroyed by IEDs, the British contracted in November
2006 with Force Protection Inc., the producer of
the American-made Cougar Mine-Resistant Ambush
Protected Vehicle (MRAP) and supplier to the U.S.
Marines Corps.
The Mastiff and Ridgeback variants of the Cougar
MRAP are major items of expense at $623,000 and
$600,000, respectively. One study estimates that the
UK purchase of more than 750 vehicles under urgent
operational procedures, mostly from U.S. suppliers,
cost more than £260 million (€313 million). 30 Norway
has approached BAE Systems for the upgrading of
103 CV90 combat vehicles, which were purchased
from the mid-1990s onward, and the supply of 41 new
CV90s between 2015 and 2017, accounting for a total
outlay of about $1 billion. 31 In these cases, fleets could
be too piecemeal or too small to be run effectively.
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