Officer (armed forces)
An
officer is a member of a
military or
naval service who holds a position of responsibility.
Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a
sovereign power and, as such, hold a
commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position. Commissioned officers are typically the only persons in a military able to exercise command (according to the most technical definition of the word) over a military unit.
Non-commissioned officers in positions of authority can be said to have control or charge rather than command
per se, although the use of the word "command" to describe any use of authority is widespread and often official.
Having officers is one requirement for
combatant status under the
laws of war, though these officers need not have obtained an official commission or warrant. In such case, those persons holding offices of responsibility within the organization are deemed to be the officers, and the presence of these officers connotes a level of organization sufficient to designate a group as being combatant.
Commissioned officers generally receive training as
leadership and
management generalists, in addition to training relating to their specific
military occupational specialty or function in the military. Most
developed nations have set the goal of having their officer
corps university-educated, although exceptions exist in some nations to accommodate officers who have risen from the non-commissioned ranks. Most advanced militaries, however, require university degrees as a prerequisite for commissioning, even from the enlisted ranks. The
Australian Defence Force, the
British Armed Forces, the
Israel Defense Forces and the
New Zealand Defence Force are different in not requiring a university degree for commissioning. They emphasise military, technical and leadership training and skills over academic qualifications (although a majority of officers are now graduates).
Among the Armed Forces of the United States, only the US Army regularly commissions officers without a university degree from the ranks of enlisted soldiers. These officers must have served on active duty as enlisted soldiers or warrant officers for at least two years, have university credits equivalent to an associates degree [two years of college], and must be selected for and graduate from the US Army Officer Candidate School (OCS) at the Infantry Center, Ft. Benning, Georgia. OCS is maintained to facilitate rapid expansion of the US Army officer corps in the event of war, and commissions approximately 1000 second lieutenants each year during peacetime.
By contrast, non-commissioned members rise from the lowest ranks in most nations. Education standards for non-commissioned members are typically lower than for officers (with the exception of specialised-military and highly-technical trades) and members only receive leadership training as they are promoted to positions of responsibility, or as a prerequisite for such. In the past (and in some countries today but to a lesser extent) non-commissioned members were almost exclusively
conscripts, whereas officers were volunteers.
In some armed forces, a further category of officers under training known as
subordinate officers may also exist. Subordinate officers, though not yet commissioned, are accorded many of the privileges of commissioned officers.
A
non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military member holding a position of authority who has obtained it by promotion from within the non-officer ranks. They usually receive some leadership training, but their function is to serve as leaders within their area of trade speciality and, at lower NCO grades, they are not generally considered management generalists. Senior non-commissioned officers serve as advisers and leaders from the duty section level to the highest levels of the military establishment. The duties of an NCO can vary greatly in scope, so that an NCO in one country may hold almost no authority, while others (such as in the United States) consider their NCOs to be "the backbone of the military."
In many navies, the NCO ranks are called
Petty Officers and
Chief Petty Officers (Chiefs).
In some branches of some militaries there exists a third grade of officer known as a
Warrant Officer. A Warrant Officer may be simply a high-ranking non-commissioned officer whose position has been affirmed by warrant from the
bureaucracy directing the force (as in the navies of the British Commonwealth), or may be a separate grade altogether (as in the United States armed forces). Sometimes a warrant officer will actually hold a commission (known as a "Commissioned Warrant Officer"). In the United States military, Warrant Officers are officers who, instead of being at the command position of a given unit, are usually instead focused on their technical expertise in a given field -
helicopter pilots and
IT specialists, for example. They usually do not exercise the same political power that 'normal' officers do, and are paid somewhat less than commissioned officers, but are given the same military courtesies (such as salutes). There are no Warrant Officers in the U.S. Air Force.
Officers, non-commissioned officers, and junior ranks in almost every country of the world are segregated along the lines of the
Prussian system of messing, where eating facilities, accommodation, and social facilities are kept separate to ensure relations between various ranks stay strictly professional.
*
Comparative military ranks*
Exchange officer*
List of military officers who have led divisions of a civil service*
U.S. DoD Officer Rank Insignia
