Ken:

I don't know if any sociological benefits from such units would appear. It is only my opinion that they would. That is based on my reading that in the past that form of service was on the whole beneficial and human nature hasn't changed so I think it could be beneficial again. That personal opinion holds despite the culture being very different as you note.

You are right of course about the importance of training. It would not work if the training was inferior. But I am thinking that if a unit was only going to be used for one purpose, small war in Afghanistan, training could be specifically tailored for that and that alone. All other things would be disregarded so training might actually be better for the things that only applied to the specific purpose for which the unit was raised.

The other thing that I think would be critical for this type of unit would be that it would go to one place and stay there for three years. Even if it started off with slightly inferior training by the time it had been there for a year or two it would be extremely good at what it was doing in that particular place. It might be completely lost if called upon to repel a North Korean combined arms attack but that would not be why it was created. And these would not be "for the duration" units. Specific term lengths would apply, say 6 months training then 3 years deployed in the same place with say 30 days leave once a year.

Like I said, I know the personnel bureaucracy will never let this come to be. But some way some how has got to be found to break that bureaucracy.