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Wraith: It would help if that article had some statistics to back it up. I can't help but take it with a grain of salt since it's on Wikipedia and there are absolutely no citations on it.
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stonebro: Eh. You don't think such statistics are confidential, what with there being an ongoing conflict and all? All I know is Norway has a disproportionate amount of special forces in action in such theatres compared to the overall size of the army.
They must be held high in regard then for NATO to utilize them more than others.

Statistics regarding standard information aren't typically classified, they would typically be promoted highly to trump up the countries special forces.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the Norwegians have an awesome special forces team, but I also know how special forces brag about how awesome they are at all times. I mean, hell, USAF Pararescue would tell you they are the world's best because not only do they have extreme training in combat, they also have to go into extremely dangerous areas to rescue soldiers, and not only US forces either.
I'm just saying it would help to have some information to back it up. I'm sure most of it is true, but there may be one or more exaggeration.
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Krypsyn: As for special forces, I would put up the U.S. Delta Force boys against anything any other country has to offer.
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Wraith: Hard to say. I'd have to say British SAS, as well as a few other European units (German, Dutch, etc) have a bit more discipline, and I'd assume Israeli SF are pretty hardcore what with their having to be trained in an extremely hostile environment with training from some of the top nations special forces.
I've heard personal accounts from the Russian Spetznaz still being insanely good, but I don't know how accurate that is what with some of the absolute failures in anti-terrorism ops conducted there.

Yeah, I said 'put them up against', not 'they would win hands down'. I think that on any given day, depending on many various factors (luck included), any of the top 10 SF units in the world would come out on top. Each is trained a little differently, and specialize in different tactics (else why would they all bother to cross-train with each other). For instance, there are certainly times where the more autonomous nature of Delta would be best, but others where the discipline of other units would win out. That is the reason I was trying to limit my points to just the regular military units (which was epic fail too, so I learned my lesson).
Anyway, I am done beating this dead horse. All I was trying to say at the outset is that an army is only as good as its training. Even the best trained troops in the world, whatever country they hail from, will fall back on their training when the going gets tough. This is by design. However, most militaries focus on the 'shoot them before they shoot you' philosophy of warfare, not the 'hold their hands until they love you' school of warfare. Hence, soldiers will tend to err on the side of training and shoot people with the get nervous. This is why I don't believe that military forces should ever be used as a peacekeeping force; that is what police are for.
They were just showing this video on japanese TV. Pretty shocking stuff.
Then they interviewed the kid who was shot (and had his father killed for trying to help a wounded Reuters journalist). And the US soldier who carried the wounded kid to an APC, and then got reprimanded by his commanders for being a big girl.
By the end of the piece half the people in the studio were crying, and i think anyone who watched it would be now totally against the US army. Public relations disaster. Not to mention a total waste of innocent human lives.
Luckily for the US army it seems like Tiger Woods got a lot more front pages than this did, so very few people heard about it.
Anyone want to put money on that kid blowing up a few dozen US soldiers in 5-10 years?
Guys in the chopper = idiots. Soldier who saved the kid = good guy. imho.