OFFICER

An officer is a member of an armed force who holds a position of authority. 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 environment, able to act as the commanding officer (according to the most technical definition of the word) of a military unit.Non-commissioned officers (NCOs) 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 (cf., e.g., the battlefield commission). Many advanced militaries require university degrees as a prerequisite for commissioning, even from the enlisted ranks.

The Australian Defence Force, the British Armed Forces, the Pakistan Army and Navy (though not Air Force), the Swiss Army, the Singapore 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 in these militaries are now graduates. In the Pakistani Army all officers are by definition graduates, since officer training is recognized as the equivalent of a bachelor's degree.

In the U.S. military, officers without a university degree may under certain circumstances be commissioned, but are required to earn one within a time limit. Roughly half of all active-duty U.S. military officers are commissioned through the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which is composed of small training programs at several hundred American universities. Officers may also be commissioned at federal or state based Officer Candidate Schools. The various Officer Candidate Schools commission approximately 700 second lieutenants and ensigns each year during peacetime. Another route to becoming a commissioned officer is through direct commission. Graduates from the service academies are commissioned immediately upon graduation; credentialed civilian professionals such as scientists, nurses, doctors and lawyers are also directly commissioned upon entry into the military or another federal uniformed service