Training
MPRI began by almost exclusively employing retired U.S. military personnel.
It used retired military personnel and current U.S. National Guard or reservists, to run Reserve Officer Training Corps programs at more than 200 universities. Other employees have worked in U.S. Army recruitment centers and trained U.S. soldiers. With offices in other countries, employees also have trained foreign armies at ranges in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq, Kuwait, and South Africa. MPRI reassures their clients with services from teams of military leaders, law enforcement officers, strategic analysts, disaster management experts, and diplomatic and private sector leaders.
In 1995-96 before Operation Storm, there is considerable circumstantial evidence to suggest that MPRI prepared and trained the Croatian Army for its offensive to retake the Krajina region. In April 1995, Democracy Transition Assistance Program (DTAP) training began at the "Petar Zrinski" military school in Zagreb. Deborah Avant discusses the controversy in her book The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security. MPRI provided (along with a French Foreign Legion organized training camp in Šepurine near Zadar) mainly training for commissioned officers, but a 1999 study published in the journal of the U.S. Army War College concluded that the company had no significant intelligence activities or professional influence on senior Croatian military strategy and tactics. Its engagement was approved by the U.S. government.
Local forces in Croatia were referred to MPRI by the United States Department of Defense and used their training. 120 African leaders and more than 5,500 African troops have been trained by MPRI on security issues.
MPRI started training the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina for $140 million, after 1995 when the Dayton Accords were established. On the back of its success in Croatia, MPRI won the approximately $50 million ‘Train and Equip’ contract for the Bosnian Federation army, which ran from July 1996. The training contract was accompanied by an approximately $100 million arms transfer programme. The contract began with restructuring the Ministry of Defence and claimed to create a combined logistics system between the initial separate Muslim and Croat armies. While the contractors claimed they had combined the logistics system, assessments made in the 2000s disagreed: ‘the force integration of the Federation army has been superficial and limited to some cooperation at the HQ level.’ The contract also included development of training policy, assisting with unit training, establishment of a central combat training centre, including a school at Hadzici and a field combat simulation centre at Livno. While the facilities may have been constructed, whether the training and logistics systems changes lasted is uncertain, given Maxwell’s assessment.
MPRI trained security forces used to defeat an attack on the presidential palace of Equatorial Guinea's long-serving dictator Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
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—Maria Montessori (1870–1952)