Russia may create National Guard

Russia may soon have a new power agency, the National Guard, to fight internal and external threats, Russia Today reports. It will be created on the base of the internal troops of the Interior Affairs Ministry and other power structures, including the airborne troops, Air Force, Navy, military police of the Defense Ministry and divisions of the EMERCOM. The prime goal of the National Guard will be to ensure security for the country and defend the constitutional order, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta wrote. For the time being, the Defense Ministry, the Security Council and the presidential administration are working on a new plan for Russia's defense. The officials proceed from the goals, which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin set in his article about the guarantees of national security for Russia. The plan stipulates the creation of a program for the training of the Armed Forces, special services and other defense structures to show fast and efficient reactions to new threats. It remains unknown whether the plan stipulates the creation of a new power agency in the military organization of the country. However, changes will obviously take place. For example, the internal security troops and the troops of the Russian EMERCOM could be united taking into consideration the fact that EMERCOM Minister Sergei Shoigu has agreed to become the governor of the Moscow region. The creation of the National Guard is not a new idea in Russia's history. Boris Yeltsin was obsessed with the idea during the time of his struggle for power in 1991-1992. Experts and scientists of politics believed that the National Guard could be created in Russia on the threshold of reforms in the Interior Ministry in 2009-2010. There are several reasons for the National Guard to be created in Russia. First and foremost, it goes about the color revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, the armed conflict in Libya and the civil war in Syria. All these events prove that a country needs to have a sufficient quantity of special troops to defend its constitutional order. Such troops must subordinate to the head of state. Secondly, it goes about the events in the country on the threshold of the presidential election. There is also the instability in the Northern Caucasus, which shows that there may not be enough forces and troops to ensure public safety and to conduct anti-terrorist operations. Russia needs the troops of special kind that would be more powerful, efficient and mobile. Interior troops and other forces of the Interior Ministry can meet those requirements only partially. Finally, in spite of the fact that the reforms of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are about to finish, the military organization of the country is still unable to show adequate reactions to new challenges and threats to the national security. It is only the internal troops (182,000 servicemen) that can execute the goals successfully. This is nearly 1.5 times less than the ground troops that do not execute any combat tasks at all. The National Guard may have 350-400 thousand servicemen. Most of them - up to 80% - will be contract soldiers.