Krypsyn: As for special forces, I would put up the
U.S. Delta Force boys against anything any other country has to offer.
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.