New Century & LEGACY - A Success Story

One of the best success stories to come out of the many training endeavors in Afghanistan is the result of a United Kingdom firm - New Century. This firm has been providing intelligence training to the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Afghan National Police (ANP) for quite a few years. Their employees have served as trainers, mentors, and advisors to the ANA and ANP and were located in almost all provinces. One of their most successful programs was called LEGACY. The police training program involved working with the Afghan National Police intelligence officers at provincial level. The New Century firm deployed small teams of former UK Special Branch, special forces, and defense intelligence operatives to train up the ANP. LEGACY trainers were also attached to the Military Intelligence Kandaks and companies of the ANA Corps. Almost all of these trainers were retired from their respective careers in the UK defense or police organizations. Many served in the same province in Afghanistan for two to four years. As a result they became very knowledgeable of the terrain, personalities, insurgents, politics, and all other aspects of the province. They developed extremely good relationships with their Afghan counterparts because of this continuity. In my travels over the past four years in Afghanistan I visited many COPs and FOBs throughout the Kabul, 201st, 203rd, and 209th Corps areas - one of the first stops I would make was the LEGACY guys - because they had the in-depth knowledge and ground truth of what was going on in their area. The LEGACY program and New Century's work is "What Right Looks Like" and should be a lesson learned for intelligence support to a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and future conflicts.

View the New Century website.
www.newcentcorp.com