This chapter examines the emerging phenomenon of creating educational
institutions via a defense contracting model. This approach has been particularly
prevalent in professional military education projects in the Gulf, including institutions
such as the UAE National Defense College, the Qatari Joint Command and Staff
College, and several cases in Saudi Arabia. In the UAE and Qatar, both states used a
contracting model to develop a degree-granting educational structure based on foreign
models. Contracting agreements were utilized to bring foreign faculty to develop the
curriculum, staff the courses, and largely run the educational components of the
institution, in an approach conceptually similar to contracting foreign personnel and
curriculum for a training course. The chapter will critically evaluate the strengths and
weaknesses of creating an educational institution via contracting, drawing on secondary
literature and the author’s own experience as a contractor in the region. The chapter
argues that while the contracting model has advantages in areas such as pace and
flexibility in hiring, it also poses serious obstacles to the long-term academic goals of
establishing a degree-granting educational institution, particularly in the areas of
academic quality, faculty continuity, and international accreditation. Institutions
considering adopting the contracting model should carefully weigh the implications of
these disadvantages.
Keywords: Arabian gulf, Defense contracting, Education and defense, Foreign military sales, Professional military education, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE.
