Does The Spetsnaz Train The Best Troops In The World?

The Spetsnaz patch

A Spetsnaz hatchet attack

Spetsnaz training one of its guard dogs

The Russian Spetsnaz (Special Purpose Forces) are some of the best, most highly-trained troops in the world. They are in the same tier as the United States Special Forces, likely most similar to Delta Force because of their versatility and high level of proficiency.

Having learned about Spetsnaz training practices while reading the book The Great Gamble by Gregory Feifer, I discovered that their training is shorn of practically all safety concerns that exist in a Western military. While the United States military strives to avoid serious injuries and deaths in training while viewing such incidents from the standpoint of "What went wrong here?", the Spetsnaz consider deaths during training an expected part of the process and question whether the training is difficult enough if it is not rough enough to cause a loss of life.

The question on my column today is this: does the Spetsnaz's lack of concern for avoiding training deaths and resultant pushing of Spetsnaz recruits further because of it result in better-trained troops? Or are Spetsnaz troops no better-trained and simply have the bad luck to fall under a military command that considers training deaths acceptable?

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