"The Special-Purpose Army" by Russian Gazeta.ru web site on 11 March
In the very near future, a new combat arm may appear in the army in Russia - the Special-Purpose Forces [Russian: sily spetsialnogo naznacheniya, SSN], which will include the special-purpose units of the military districts and fleets. They will be subordinate to the minister of defence and the president personally and perhaps will be able to start wars outside Russia's borders without the authorization of the Federation Council.
The decision to create the Special-Purpose Forces may be made at the next session of the Security Council, where continuing the reform of the armed forces - creating a qualitatively new look to the Russian army and optimizing its structure, fighting complement, and numbers - will be discussed. The question of the creation of the Special-Purpose Forces is being reviewed within the framework of the new plan for building the armed forces in the period 2006-2010.
"An independent combat arm - the Special-Purpose Forces (SSN) - is to be created on the basis of special-purpose brigades and units of districts and fleets," a high-ranking source in the Ministry of Defence said on Friday. "They are supposed to include three components: the air, land, and sea components. Their main missions are to include participating in special operations, including operations to prevent terrorist acts. A single body for controlling the troops, the Special-Purpose Forces command, directly subordinate to the armed forces leadership, will be created to organize combat training and plan special operations."
At the present time, the Russian army's structure consists of three branches of the service: the Ground Troops, the air force, and the navy. There are also several combat arms: the Strategic Missile Troops (RVSN), the Space Troops (KV), and the Airborne Troops. Until quite recently the RVSN and the KV were a single structure and represented an independent branch of the service. But within the framework of the military reform that Sergey Ivanov is conducting, they were separated out and reduced to combat arms. Against this background the creation of a new, fourth combat arm - the Special-Purpose Forces - seems to be an extremely bold decision.
For the first time in domestic practice, the most important aspect of the combat arm is not its equipment and the possibility of its geographic application - which used to be the principal reason for singling out combat arms in the military department's structure - it is the missions that this combat arm accomplishes.
Moreover, the new troops will to a certain degree compete with or even duplicate the VDV [Airborne Troops]. The Security Council is also supposed to make the question of their zones of responsibility clearer.
All seven military districts and all four Russian fleets have these special-purpose subunits. At this point they are directly subordinate to the leadership of these districts and fleets. And until recently the idea of combining them under a single command had not occurred to anyone. Why? Above all because of the small size and specific nature of these subunits. The special-purpose forces are an elite part of the army intended to perform local missions during military operations. That means above all conducting reconnaissance and sabotage actions in the rear of the enemy and capturing infrastructure facilities or beachheads for deploying the main forces.
But during the first Chechen campaign, these postulates were revised. During combat operations it became clear that the special-purpose subunits were the only truly battle-worthy part of the Russian Army - ready to perform any mission proposed, often one very far removed from their real designation. In the end the special forces stormed cities and villages and conducted defensive actions at checkpoints, on a par with infantry subunits. That is the reason for the significant loss of human life that generally speaking is not typical of such units, where every soldier, because of his level of training, is an individual and so is very much valued.
In this connection the appearance of the new combat arm will make it possible to more efficiently carry out general planning of the application of special-purpose troops and will create a single centre for controlling them and coordinating actions with other branches of the service and combat arms. That in turn will have an extremely radical effect on Russia's military doctrine.
Already today experts are predicting the need to revise Russian legislation with respect to the use of these troops.
It is perfectly possible, they say, that the SSN will be directly subordinate to the Supreme Commander Vladimir Putin. He is the one who will have the authority, on his own, to use them in any region of the world without the consent of the Federation Council. In the end Russia will have powerful, mobile strike forces ready to respond quickly to events anywhere in the world, which is fully in keeping with contemporary ideas of the nature of contemporary warfare and the response time to military challenges.

Source: Gazeta.ru web site, Moscow
BBC Monitoring