"It may seem a subtle distinction, but there is significance to the fact that whereas in the West we tend to talk of ‘special forces,’ the Russians have historically used the term Spetsnaz, a contraction of spetsial’noe naznacheniya, ‘special designation’ or ‘special purpose.’ In other words, what is special is not so much the soldier as the role he is assigned. Reflecting this, Spetsnaz are in the main rather less ‘special’ than their Western counterparts. Even today, almost one in five is a conscript, although the aim is to have the Spetsnaz be all-professional by the end of 2018. They are also trained and configured usually to operate in larger units than their Western counterparts: companies, even battalions.
After all, while they have antecedents in the early Bolshevik Red Army, and even in the various reconnaissance and sabotage units of the Second World War, their real genesis was in the Cold War, as units able to penetrate deep into NATO territory to disrupt command and control and, above all, neutralise the tactical nuclear weapons on which the West depended to balance Warsaw Pact numerical superiority. As such, they were expeditionary forces rather than classic commandos, most analogous to US Rangers and the British Parachute Regiment."
In poche parole Forze per Operazioni Speciali (TIER 2)
