Weaponization of the Toyota Truck

Some people may remember pictures from the late 1980s and 1990s that include crews of terrorists in white Toyota trucks, with machine guns bolted down in the truck bed. The trucks were puny and fragile compared to militarized versions of vehicles. They were repurposed civilian vehicles, drafted into military duty by low-budget and cagey terrorist enemies.

And today, I came across L3Harris’ promotional pages about their VAMPIRE system (Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment) that bolts down in any civilian truck bed, with ostensibly no more effort than mounting a 5th wheel RV package.  The truck has changed color, but it sure looks like a civilian Toyota truck in the L3Harris press release.

War is changing. We’re not really ~going~ to war anymore. We’re sort of just living in a cloud of continual conflict, where civilian technology and military capability is blurring. The pattern was set after World War II. Since then, I don’t think any war has been won with Clauswitzian capitulation. Instead, one of the parties sort of just moves on to the next conflict. We’ve done it. Others have done it to us.

I remember the Star Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon” that teaches (in Kirk’s words) “War is supposed to be ugly.”