Special Purpose Forces

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SPECIAL PURPOSE FORCES

The twentieth century saw a great upsurge in the interest in and use of military special forces, both in war and for peacekeeping, antiterrorist, and other missions. The Soviets were ardent advocates of such forces, and created many, tasked with a large and varied array of missions. This reflected three main considerations. First of all, small, highly motivated and well-trained units were vital to carry out operations beyond the capabilities of the USSR's mass conscript army, which demanded speed, precision, or finesse. Secondly, the Soviets approached warfare in an intensely political way, seeing the aim as being not necessarily to win on the battlefield, but to destroy the enemy's will and ability to fight in the first place. Special forces could play a key role in this. Thirdly, the Soviets regarded their armed forces also as integrated elements of their apparatus of rule, and specialized forces emerged to meet particular needs that had less to do with war-fighting but political control. The post-Soviet regime has upheld this tradition. Indeed, the proportion of special purpose units within the Russian military actually increased, not least because at a time when the majority of the armed forces were virtually unusable, at least these elements retained the discipline, training, and morale to fight.

Special forces of a fashion had existed during the civil war (1918–1921), including the elite Latvian Rifles who guarded Vladimir Lenin, but these units tended to be essentially ad hoc elements of Bolshevik militants and Cossack horsemen. They subsequently either dissolved or were incorporated into the Red Army or police, losing their identity and élan in the process. The true genesis of Soviet special purpose forces took place in 1930, when the USSR became only the second nation in history to experiment with a military parachute drop. Excited by the possibilities, the Soviet high command immediately began training paratroop units: The first battalions were formed a year later.

This was the genesis of the Air Assault Troops, this also led to the rise of true special purpose forces. After all, while the paratroopers and other formations such as the Naval Infantry (marines) were a cut above the regular conscript infantry, they could hardly be considered "special forces" in the modern sense of the term. As the army began raising its paratroop forces, so too smaller, more specialized units began to be created within them, given the name Special Designation forces (Spetsialnogo naznacheniya, Spetsnaz for short). Elite units were also formed by the NKVD, the political police force (which had a sizable parallel army of paramilitaries), that instead called its forces Osnaz, for Osobennogo naznachneniya, or Specialized Designation. During World War II, these forces would see extensive action. Army and navy reconnaissance commandos penetrated German lines and, along with NKVD Osnaz saboteurs and infiltrators, organized partisan units, targeted collaborators and attacked supply routes.

This duality continued after the war and into the post-Soviet era. The armed forces maintain substantial Spetsnaz forces under the overall command of the GRU, military intelligence. Their main roles are to operate behind enemy lines gathering intelligence and launching surprise attacks on strategic assets such as headquarters and nuclear weapons. There are eight brigades of regular Spetsnaz and four of Naval Spetsnaz. However, most of these ostensibly elite units are still largely manned by conscripts, albeit the pick of the draft. There is thus an elite within the elite, largely made up of professional soldiers. Generally a single company within each brigade is kept at this standard, as well as a company in each of the paratroop divisions. These elements include athletes and linguists trained to pass themselves off as nationals of target nations and are genuinely comparable to such units as the U.S. Green Berets or British SAS.

Meanwhile, the security apparatus also retains its own smaller Osnaz elements. The KGB created several specialized teams, including Alfa (an anti-terrorist strike force), Zenit and Vympel (trained for secret missions abroad), and Kaskad (a covert intelligence team). All served during the war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and all survived the end of the USSR and the dismemberment of the KGB, being attached to new, Russian security agencies. The same is true of the Osnaz elements within the Interior Troops and the security arm of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as the Border Troops. Indeed, it has become almost a mark of institutional prestige to have such units, so they have also been joined by such new units as the Justice Ministry's Fakel commando team (which specializes in breaking prison sieges). Thus, if anything, special purpose forces are becoming even more important in the post-Soviet era.

See also: military intelligence; state security, or gans of