Officer (armed forces)

An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Used without further detail, the term "officer" almost always refers to commissioned officers, the most senior portion of a force who derive authority from a commission from a state. In its broadest sense, the term "officer" also includes lower level leaders who are referred to as non-commissioned officers.

Numbers

The proportion of officers varies greatly. Officers typically make up between an eighth and a fifth of modern armed forces personnel. In 2013, officers were the senior 17% of the British armed forces, and the senior 13.7% of the French armed forces. In 2012, officers made up about 18% of the German armed forces, and about 17.2% of the United States armed forces.

Historically, however, armed forces have generally had much lower proportions of officers. During the First World War, fewer than 5% of British soldiers were officers (partly because World War One junior officers suffered very high casualty rates, which were even higher in the British Army because officers' different headgear made them obvious targets). In the early twentieth century, the Spanish army had the highest proportion of officers of any European army, at 12.5%, which was considered unreasonably high by both foreign observers and many Spanish politicians.