A Week in the War: Afghanistan, March 15-21, 2011

Private Security Firms

The contentious issue of private security contractors (PSCs) returned to the fore March 15
when the Afghan government issued a directive to immediately dissolve seven PSCs and called
for most or all of the remaining licensed operators to shut down within 12 months. They are to
be replaced by the fledgling Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF), which is under the control
of the Afghan government. The 12-month deadline is intended to provide the APPF time to
gain the capacity to meet the large demand for PSCs to protect diplomats and embassies, escort
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) supplies, and provide security for aid and
development workers, among other roles.

With regard to PSCs¶ providing security to diplomats and diplomatic facilities, the March 15
announcement is said to be consistent with the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic
Relations, though this merely means that Kabul has agreed, for the moment, to observe the
convention. It still has to approve every individual request for a foreign national to serve a
diplomatic security function before they are able to enter the country.

This is a longstanding issue for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. As in Iraq, PSCs are deeply
unpopular with the locals, in part because of actual and perceived abuses by PSCs in the course
of their duties. This makes PSCs a powerful domestic political issue, regardless of the accuracy
of allegations leveled against them. Aside from these charges, other aspects of the PSCs¶
presence in the country also irritate Kabul. It has been a monumental task for the Afghan
government simply to attempt to track down, register and license the field. There are also
accusations, likely not unfounded, that some of the best-trained Afghan soldiers are recruited
away by better pay and better conditions to work for PSCs, which exacerbates the already
profound problem of attrition by denying Kabul both rare, high-quality soldiers and ones in
whom they have already heavily invested.
There are political and financial considerations as well. In a country where so much is dictated
by force rather than the letter of the law, having armed groups, particularly well-trained and
well-paid armed groups, outside the aegis of the government results in de facto fiefdoms
beyond Kabul¶s control or influence. Kabul has an interest in consolidating its control over
these entities because this goes hand-in-hand with the ability to enforce its writ across the
country. The PSC business also represents an enormous amount of annual income and will
continue to do so, so long as Western forces are operating in the country and as long as aid and
development work continues. Even as the ISAF footprint begins to shrink in the years ahead,
there is enormous potential for a long-term revenue stream tied to the need for contracted
security work, particularly for a country that is slated to have military and security forces that
will cost some $6 billion to sustain annually, far in excess of government revenues.

Though the Afghan government sees providing this security itself through the APPF as a
potential windfall, there are considerable challenges. The first is that the PSC business is
booming and firms, in some cases more akin to warlord militias, are unlikely to be eager to part
with their income stream. There have been cases of contractors responsible for guarding supply
convoys along certain stretches of the critical Ring Road, for example, paying the local Taliban
to prevent attacks altogether, essentially becoming a middle man in funding the insurgency
with ISAF money. When threatened with closure or the loss of their contract in the past, they
not only stopped these payments, but also encouraged the local Taliban elements to attack
supply convoys until their contract was reinstated. Establishing a deadline for ending the PSCs¶
role in Afghanistan is one thing, enforcing it will be another.
 This is a significant longer-term problem both for Kabul¶s efforts to establish its writ across the
country and for the basic rule of law. As the ISAF prepares to begin its drawdown in July, the
services that PSCs provide will continue to be important to free up combat forces to
concentrate on the larger operational effort to weaken the Taliban. The ISAF does not have
spare forces to dedicate additional combat troops to route security and certainly not to deal with
flare-ups of irate, armed PSCs along its lines of supply when they are perfectly willing to
maintain the status quo for cash.

In addition, not all development and aid workers and other visitors are going to be satisfied
with the skills the APPF has to offer. At the moment, the APPF lacks either the capacity or
capability to take over from PSCs in all cases, much less the confidence of clientele that has
come to understand what various PSCs can and cannot provide. Indeed, there are risks that an
inadequately prepared APPF could give rise to a black or gray market for protective services,
undermining what regulation Kabul has put in place. And there is the related concern that a
lack of good options for protective services could have a chilling effect on the scale and scope
of the deployment of international aid and development-community workers so critical to
economic development in the country ² not to mention the corporate and business
communities that will be necessary if Afghanistan is ever to progress toward economic
viability.

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