In military organizations, an officer is a member of the 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 sai ...
The armed forces of a state are its government sponsored defense and fighting forces and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nations armed forces. Armed force is the use of armed forces to achieve political objectives.
The study of the use of Armed Forces is called military science. Broadly speaking, this involves considering offense and defense at three "levels": strategy, operational art, and tactics. All ...
A non-commissioned officer is a military member holding a position of authority who has obtained it by promotion from within the enlisted ranks. They will have received some leadership training, but their function is to serve as leaders within their area of trade speciality and they are not generally considered management generalists.
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 affir ...
Armed forces may be organized as standing forces (e.g. regular army), which describes a professional army that is engaged in no other profession than preparing for and engaging in warfare. In contrast, there is the citizen army. A citizen army (also known as a militia or reserve army) is only mobilised as needed. Its advantage lies in the fact that it is dramatically less expensive (in terms of wealth, manpower, and opportunity cost) for the organizing society to support. The disadvantage is that such a "citizen's army" is less well trained and organized. Historically, professional armies often triumph over much ...
The obvious benefit to a country in maintaining armed forces is in providing protection from foreign threats, and from internal conflict. In recent decades armed forces personnel have also been used as emergency civil support roles in post-disaster situations. On the other hand they may also harm a society by engaging in counter-productive (or merely unsuccessful) warfare.
Expenditure on science and technology to develop weapons and systems sometimes produces side benefits, although some claim that greater ben ...
