All in all I think this a fascinating thread and it brings to mind an idea I once floated concerning the structure of the Army National Guard (of which I am a member).

Most of you may recall the strange days following Hurricane Katrina in which no one could fix the blame for a poor/late NG response. Political hay-makers tried to say it was the "Back Door Draft" had taken the NG away from the states (a bogus issue). Others blamed the loss of equipment to the war effort (a real issue). At the same time US ground forces are using their units well outside described doctrine, training, and TO&E capabilities. I propose that both items could be solved by restructuring the reserve forces (USAR/ARNG) as follows:

1. eliminate USAR, roll soldiers into ARNG
2. eliminate existing force structure of BCT's, MEB's, Sustainment BDE's and so forth
3. have each state establish a number of "Peace Enforcement Regiments" based on their available manpower with small states like New Hampshire providing something like three battalions to the structure and larger states providing multiple regiments.

The structure of each regiment/battalion would be MOS skill based, but the unit would not be branch based. Thus, a PEB would look something like this:

HHC - HQ Plt - Sig Plt - Lift Plt (helos) - Med Plt - Log Plt - Civil Affairs Plt
A Co - Infantry
B Co - MP
C Co - Engineer
D Co - Transport

Every battalion would have the same TO&E thus avoiding the current structure that has artillery units in some states with no ranges and heavy truck units in major urban areas that don't have motor pool space.

The end product would be an element that could function in both local emergency stabilization situations like Katrina and overseas in the post-combat stabilization stage. Imagine if the force planners could reach into a pool of over 400 "peace enforcement battalions" for duty in places like Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and so on. More over, they would be able to do so without the requirement of re-tooling the unit training. ARNG training could then focus on a stabilization/COIN/enforcement operations training cycle that would continuously feed into real world missions be it fighting fires in California, rescuing stranded flood victims in Louisiana, or providing stabilization in Iraq.

I recognize that that many "branch disciples" would be aghast at the type of force mixing I am recommending here, but I believe it brings the strength of branch training and a unit mission-focused training cycle together in the positive way. On my last Iraq tour I can’t tell you how many ersatz units I encountered that were made up of armor, engineers, infantry, MPs, artillery, and ADA (just to name a few) – most of whom spoke a common language separated by branch dogma and doctrine.

I say leave artillery to their mission. Leave infantry and armor to theirs. The same goes for ADA and MP. In short, create a force you can use in multiple ways (and at necessary times) while maintaining army for the bigger fight.