Thirty or more pages out of eighty-five in a new report from swisspeace discusses private security contracting in Afghanistan.  The report lists its methodologies, which is at least five steps up from the normal analysis. (links below).  Due to its extensiveness and care, the report gives some bona-fide examination of the issues in regard to Afghanistan. 

Paramount to all the contracting arguments currently taking place  is the problem of security versus state capacity–that is true in Iraq as well as Afghanistan.  And not all of the information in this report casts slurs upon private contractors: some of it, in fact, falls under the category of accurate information, which can be used to come to different conclusions.  Other parts of the report give nuance to what Afghanistan watchers have been saying all along–and support our understanding of the primary dilemmas in Afghanistan and the importance of security and the need for a legal economy.

No big surprise
That security contractors are carrying out functions in Afghanistan is an open secret.  All of the aid missions need security; all aid convoys; all of the embassies.  We all know that NATO hasn't sent enough troops, either occupied with other wars or the horrors of confronting the voters back home.  Private security is presumably filling the gap, allowing, for instance, aid workers to do their job with less probability of being kidnapped by the Taliban.  Some of this private security presence is for capacity-building, such as police training or military training of home troops.  But then there are problems–of course there are.

Categories and economics
The report lists three different kinds of security contracting firms: international firms from visiting states such as NATO countries; third-party national companies or groups; and Afghanistan-owned and operated firms.  There's some talk about “colonial-model pay scales”, where NATO-state-based contractors pull in more money than locals, but this is to some degree nonsense.  Different prices reflect different market prices for labor in these states as well as the differential in opportunity cost.  The real problem is that Afghanistan doesn't have any industry that would present a viable alternative to security contracting.  Only a viable economy with varieties of jobs are going to drive local security prices up.  On the other hand, a dangerous job that doesn't pay enough to cover basic economic needs (and higher security risks) only leads to corruption. 

Weak national government.
By definition, the state is the arbiter of security within its territory. Afghanistan's displacement of state authority began before the Taliban, who rushed into a vacuum.  The Taliban ruled, with a kind of draconian, particularized justice system and security apparatus.  But they did not govern the region–they dispensed with the economy and included no social services for its people.  Nor did these rulers have regular congress with other state governments, ignoring diplomatic and consular immunity, et cetera. 

After the entrance of U.S. forces, a government was set up.  However, steps to restore government by ousting the Taliban are somewhat stuck, as US/NATO becomes one authority while national, provincial and local authority become another.  Afghanistan's government is not strong enough to stand alone, but by providing security, occupying forces tend to displace governmental authority.  This dilemma also plays out in the realm of security services in at least three ways:

1. Ultimate authority. 
Afghanistan has not been able to sufficiently regulate the activities of private contractors, through the issuance of licenses, background checks, and bonds for good behavior deposited in the Afghanistan National Bank.  However, background checks are hard to get, especially for Afghanistan nationals.  Third-party firms and international firms have also not been quite forthcoming. (pp. 22-24).  Weapons should be registered as well, in order to track their loss or use, but this has not occurred–and in the weapon-trafficking environment of Afghanistan, this is nothing but a reasonable requirement. 

Afghanistan has not been able to pass a law with sufficient regulations through their jirga.  After several bank robberies (thought to be inside jobs), new impetus was given to pass a meaningful law, with ISAF, UN, and Afghanistan input into its draft.  The draft of February 2007 has yet to be passed.

2. Weapons, transparency. 
Weapons used by security staff are frequently bought on the illegal arms market, particularly by companies which do not have recourse to more modern armaments from their home states.  Likewise, at the dissolution of a company, these arms make it back into the illegal arms market via theft, or, Ministry of the Interior corruption.  Transparency of both firm and government continue to be a problem.

3. Lots of groups with guns and attitude.
According to this report, there is an unspecified number of private security contractors, but somewhere around seventy in number.  For the average, security-less Afghan citizen, it's hard to keep track of who did what or who has what.  A number of firms do not wear uniforms–but of course have firearms–an average of over three per security contractor, and of varied make, model, and vintage. 

The result is that security contractors, drug-runners, Taliban, other armed groups, all look somewhat the same.  If you are being accosted by someone with a large weapon, on what side are they?  It's got to be frightening in the extreme. 

On the other hand, it's the small, local company that (reading between the lines of this report) is the one that's the most trouble for locals, registration efforts, weapons procurement, and corruption.  So is this a barrier to entry for local firms, or a problem of professionalization?  According to this report, many of the foreign security firms are making efforts to professionalize the Afghan industry.  (Would that also be the colonializing mentality?  Or would it be capacity building?  At least this report notes the effort.)

In the meantime, the dilemmas continue to spin out between state power and state incapacity, the need for security in the short term versus the long term, the role of weapons in the drug wars, and all of the others. 

This report gives a lot of information, but I’m not with them concerning all of their conclusions.  I find it reliable, though, in terms of its painstaking approach.  I encourage everyone to read through it.

Here is the swisspeace report.
Here is the article that leads to the swisspeace report, reporting the conclusions but not the data– the best part.