Briefing on private security: The Anglo-Saxon PMC monopoly in Afghanistan

Alors que le Président Obama a annoncé en décembre dernier le déploiement accéléré de 30 000 soldats en Afghanistan, un essor des services rendus par des SMP en Afghanistan est imminent. Même si l’Afghanistan peut sembler un marché avantageux pour les SMP internationales, ce dernier a été verrouillé par l’instrumentalisation des normes sous influence américaine. Les récentes déclarations du président afghan contre les activités des SMP augurent d’une évidente incertitude sur le marché afghan, surtout dans le cadre d’un transfert des responsabilités au régime local.

As President Barack Obama announced back in December to mobilize an extra contingent of 30,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan, this policy should be accompanied by an increase of private contractors in support of the U.S. Army. According to a report by the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC), Obama’s newly announced surge in Afghanistan will particularly lead to an increase in the subcontracting of Private Military Companies (PMC) under direction of the Department of State (DoS) and the Department of Defense (DoD) of the United States.

Valued at a whopping $3 billion USD by year, the market for private military firms in post-war Afghanistan seems to be one of the most lucrative in the world. Nevertheless, international PMC’s should be familiar with the fact that Anglo-Saxon and Afghan PMC’s rapidly saturated the Afghan private security market.

The Anglo-Saxon / Afghan PMC Monopoly

Early entrants in a recently brewed market not only tend to dominate, but ally with local governments in order to preserve their competitive advantage; following this logic, Anglo-Saxon and Afghan PMC’s rapidly instrumentalized the norms regulating the activities of private security operators in Afghanistan to obstruct the arrival of late-coming competitors.

As a briefing paper from J. Sherman and V. DiDomenico from the New York University (NYU) confirms, in February 2008 the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MoI) established a PMC licensing system (manifestly under American influence) creating a considerable entrance barrier for competition from International PMC’s. At present, the Afghan MoI has only issued 39 PMC operating licenses allocated either to Anglo-Saxon or Afghan PMC’s, and to this day, no date has been given for the expedition of more licenses.

In terms of accountability, Anglo-Saxon and Afghan PMC’s operating under contract of the Department of State and the Department o Defense of the United States have limited supervision by the U.S. government. As a report from the U.S. Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan (CWC) underlines, AEGIS, a British SMP, was subcontracted to administrate the Armed Contractor Oversight Directorate (ACOD) in Afghanistan. The ACOD is responsible on reporting any incidents regarding the use of force of PMC’s under U.S. contract; by subcontracting this supervision role to a non-national agency, constraints related to U.S. domestic politics (ex. The U.S. Congress) can be easily by-passed.

The U.S. Congress to “probe” PMC contractors in Afghanistan

Anglo-Saxon and Afghan PMC’s operating under contract of the U.S. have been severely questioned by the American Congress in the late months. Reports have been made both by Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC) marking the inconsistencies of private military providers in Afghanistan.

One event that that caught the public’s attention was the scandal surrounding ArmorGroup North America (AGNA), a British PMC who used to protect the U.S. embassy in Kabul. As the decency of AGNA’s personnel was highly questioned by the international media, consequently, AGNA lost their $189 million USD Department of State contract back in December 2009.

The future of the PMC market in Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, the absence of oversight in PMC activities undermines the credibility of the newly established regime in providing public security. As well, the Afghan perception of PMC’s has lead to hostilities from the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, who has declared that PMC’s should leave the country in the coming two years. As PMC’s do represent a cost-effective solution for the stabilization of post-war countries, the problem does not lies within the services they provide, but rather in the lack of the required international legislation and support to normalize their activities.

Juan Héctor Algrávez, School of Economic Warfare