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Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI)
United States
Military Professional Resources Incorporated is one of the largest and most successful private military companies in the world. With headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, it maintains offices in some of the world’s most notorious hotspots, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. Its services include military stabilization (combat duties), training and development programs, threat assessment, and logistical operations in support of national military forces.
MPRI began operations in 1987 with a group of eight former officers of the United States military. In 2000, it was purchased by L-3 Communications, a massive defense corporation which helped it to diversify into a number of complimentary fields. It employs over 10,000 people, including those in subsidiary groups, and has extensive operations (largely in a support or training capacity) in current US combat zones.
It maintains a strong commitment to a set series of ethics, though like all large companies, such noble sentiments don’t always hold up in the details. Nonetheless, with the difficulties experienced by competitors such as Blackwater, its espousal of firm rules of conduct is markedly preferable to the alternative. It does business with established “friendly” governments (i.e., those allied with the United States), advocates strict adherence to national and international law, and maintains a system of “quality control” whereby incidents are catalogued and recorded.
Much of its work comes through contracts with the US Government, and some has fallen under serious criticism. In 1995, it worked to train units in the Croatian army, which later launched Operation Storm that drove the Serb from their Bosnian strongholds and created nearly 300,000 new refugees. MPRI denied many allegations of its involvement in the operation, but many suspect it of facilitating a number of unseemly particulars. Less controversial operations include the training of friendly military units in Africa under the African Crisis Response Initiative (a program initiated by the administration of former US President Bill Clinton to help upgrade the forces of stable African nations) and the administration of various ROTC programs in American universities.
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