That with in-depth knowledge of the Afghan theatre from tours of duty lasting two to four years, PMC personnel have unrivaled experience of local conditions. Their experience is a vital asset to the inter-allied staff officers whose tours of duty are rarely longer than six months. It allows them to co-ordinate, regulate and even promote the involvement of other PMCs and to steer the perceptions of the military in direction that suits them.
According to official sources in the French ministry of defense, the budget allocated to MPRI for drafting the ANA’s military doctrine is some $200 million; the training of ANA troops will cost nearly $1.7 billion. So the PMCs have no interest in stabilizing the situation or in the successful Afghanization of the ANA. That would lessen the need for contractors, which would be against their financial interests. So they take great care not to pass on their knowledge, and prefer to deputize for Afghan organizations rather than giving them useful advice.
“General” Gulbahar, in charge of doctrine at the Afghan National Army Training Command’s doctrine office, says he has been given no target date for the handover of the drafting of ANA military doctrine to Afghan control. Gulbahar is not unhappy to be supervised: He is in fact a colonel serving in a position normally occupied by a general and has everything to lose by questioning the status quo.
MPRI, therefore, has what amounts to a monopoly on the drafting of Afghan army doctrine, which allows it to justify the prolongation of its assisting role. But MPRI also shows solidarity with other PMCs: The ANA’s logistical doctrine, drafted by MPRI, names DynCorp as the organization responsible for providing logistics support to the ANA’s air corps, without specifying any restrictions or limitations on the duration of this role.
The “training” element is highly profitable. The PMCs are recruiting and training 800 instructors as part of a program to combat illiteracy in the ANA, but their determination to secure the greatest possible return on investment has encouraged them to extend the duration of the training provided. It would seem that fostering the ANA’s own training capabilities is not a priority. The same applies to logistics (currently provided by RM Asia), another key element of the PMC monopoly: no deadlines have been set for the training of Afghan technicians.