Russia just got yet another security service. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the creation of a Russian national guard. Officially, the new national guard will combat terrorism and organized crime and will take over riot and SWAT duties from the Interior Ministry's troops. But more than law enforcement or security concerns, the surprise announcement signals that the Putin administration is worried about instability, in Russia as well as the Kremlin itself. Putin is not the first Russian president to propose the creation of a national guard. His predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, floated the idea in a 1991 New Year's Eve address. At the time, Yeltsin was a new president with a shallow political base and little loyalty among security circles. After 1993's so-called constitutional crisis, a failed coup attempt by the Russian parliament, Yeltsin revisited the proposition.