Military Professionalism,Power,and the Division of Labor: The Case of the Reintroduction of NCOs in the Swedish Armed Forces

The Noncommissioned Officer (NCO), Professionalism, and Power—A Hiatus in the Literature

A key trend in the history of armed forces and society over the past four centuries has been the evolution of its bureaucratic command-and-control structures. These are based on a division of labor and integration of enlisted volunteer and/or conscripted personnel at the base of the organization, the officer corps, the NCOs and, at the apex, the defense headquarters (HQ), and civil–political control mechanisms. This structure has become a generalized feature of the modern state and has been influential on the evolution of nonmilitary organizations—not least the business enterprise (Dandeker, 1990). This is not to forget that NCOs have been part of premodern state forms, not least in Antiquity, the key example being the Roman Army (Goldsworthy, 2011).

The role of NCOs in delivering military effectiveness was strikingly illustrated in the early 20th century, by the most preeminent army in the world was that of imperial Germany, whose conscripted army of 3.8 million men depended on not just the officer corps, the general staff, and the ordinary, private soldier but also the technical competence of about 122,000 NCOs (Howard, 1961). Indeed, relative to other armies of that time, the technical expertise of the German NCOs was unmatched for two reasons: first the educational standards of the personnel, reflecting those of wider society and the extraordinary technological progress of Germany from 1870 to 1914; and second, the command and leadership system of the German army based on Auftragstaktik (“mission command” or the decentralization of command). This meant that, should a unit lose some of its key officers in battle, the NCOs would be able to carry on the unit’s task until reorganized or reordered into the chain of command. Personnel without leaders become a disorderly rabble in battle but the key point is the extent to which the provision of leadership is shared by officers and NCOs. In the case of Germany, this was more the case than in other armies including the British. ¹ Thus, with Germany pioneering and perfecting the mass armed force in the 19th and early 20th centuries and integrating reserves into a mobilized army, it is here that we can find the origin of the idea of the NCOs as the backbone of the military.

Both then and since, many military personnel have acknowledged the key role played by NCOs in assisting the officer corps to deliver military effect—the platoon sergeant facilitating the actions of a relatively inexperienced platoon commander; the captain of a ship and his or her dependence on the technical specialist “chiefs” or heads of the various compartments. ² In the Air Force, specialized NCOs serve as helicopter pilots or technicians, among others. NCOs fill dozens of different roles, ranging from leading troops to operating technological systems. NCOs can act collectively to facilitate military reform—as, for example, in the successful introduction of women at sea in the Royal Navy during the 1990s or, by contrast, block reform as in the halting of President Clinton’s first administration’s attempt to remove the ban on gay personnel serving in the U.S. armed forces (Bland, 2000).

In both military and academic circles, it has become a cliché to say, following Kipling, that noncommissioned officers [NCOs] are the “backbone” of the world’s armies and armed forces. Yet, paradoxically, compared with the officer corps—often equated with the military profession—relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to the NCO as a perusal of bibliographies in military sociology confirms. ³

There are some historical accounts of the NCO in regimental settings. ⁴ Some research on NCOs has been conducted within and for the military profession and related audiences, such as military academies, think tanks such as the RAND corporation, and among the senior NCOs themselves. ⁵ With regard to NCO professional thinking some interesting comparative work has been done, for example, on the Russian military. ⁶ Notwithstanding these exceptions, it is remarkable that not only have NCOs been at the margins of social scientific literature but also the military profession itself has tended to exclude NCOs from a sense of shared professional community—at least until relatively recently. ⁷

How might we explain this paradox and what can be done to establish a persuasive account of how NCOs contribute to the functioning of the military? These questions provide the theme of this article, which seeks to place NCOs more center-stage in military sociology. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the officer–NCO relationship is a functional, timeless universal in military organizations. For example, Sweden provides a rare case of a military that once relied on an NCO and Officer system, abolished it in 1983, only to revive it in an updated version in 2009. This shows that NCOs, as with other elements of military organization, develop in the context of the armed forces’ responses to their operational needs as well as wider social and cultural factors, known, respectively, as “functional” and sociopolitical imperatives (Boene, 1990; Huntington, 1957).

Our main empirical focus will be the Swedish Armed Forces 2009 officer system reform, (re)introducing NCO-style “Specialist Officers.” As will become evident in the discussion, the reform is currently entering what has become rather a contentious concluding phase after a protracted organizational transition. The Swedish military reform is interesting because it can be viewed as an exceptional or anomalous case. It offers an example of a country that, for a variety of functional and socio-political reasons, abolished the traditional and seemingly universal division of labor between officers and NCOs—what is known as the “differentiated system”—and introduced a unitary (one-tier) officer corps. It subsequently reversed this policy and developed a new differentiated (two-tier) system, although the implementation has been hampered by a long period of defense policy reorientations and geopolitical turbulence. How the changes occurred and what the prospects are for the Swedish system are key concerns for this paper. In other words, how and why has the anomalous case ceased to be an anomaly? In studying this case it is interesting to ask to what extent the Swedish military will, as it were, revert to type or shape its adjustment in a peculiarly Swedish way.

The research on which this article is based draws mainly on qualitative data although, as Yin (1981) has observed, there is no necessary connection between using case studies and any particular methodology. We chose the case study research strategy to explore the real-life dynamics of the reform reintroducing a two-tier officer system in the Swedish military, thereby affecting formal structures as well as individuals’ sense of professional meaning and worth.

As will be discussed, the new Swedish system is not a copy of any foreign NCO system, nor is it a revival of the system that was abolished in 1983. The new system is a highly context-dependent creation suitable for a case study approach. The data were collected from official documents by interviews with key military and civilian defense HQ personnel involved in designing and implementing the new “differentiated system” as well as interviews with junior officers and NCOs either at military bases or in training at the Military Academy. We also interviewed officers and senior Specialist Officers responsible for Specialist Officer training. ⁸ A similar case study was conducted by one of the authors to investigate another issue in military sociology, the dynamics of gender integration (Dandeker & Wechsler Segal, 1996).

The interviews with personnel were organized vertically by rank and organizational location (HQ or field) and horizontally by service and/or branch to gain a reasonably representative sample as follows: at the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) HQ, Commander (Navy); Brigadier (Army); Civilian Director of Personnel R&D. In the field, Army: two Colonels, four Lieutenant Colonels (two of which female), one Command Sergeant Major, three Sergeant Majors, three Master Sergeants, three Staff Sergeants, three Majors, three Captains. In the Navy, one Captain, two Commanders, two Lieutenant Commanders, two Lieutenants, one Command Sergeant Major, two Sergeant Majors (one of which female). In the Air Force, one General (retired), one Colonel (female), two Lieutenant Colonels (one of which female), one Major, three Captains, three Lieutenants (one of which female), one Command Sergeant Major, one Sergeant Major, one Master Sergeant, two Staff Sergeants, and two Sergeants (one of which female).

Access to personnel was gained principally through the help of HQ staff. Our question headings were sent to interviewees beforehand. The interviews, each of which lasted for approximately 1 hr, were conducted by one or both writers with handwritten notes taken during the sessions. Interviewees were very forthcoming in their responses to our questions with the proviso that their anonymity be respected where possible. The interviews were mainly conducted between 2016 and the end of 2019 at the SAF HQ in Stockholm, the Military Academy Halmstad (the main site for junior and senior NCO training) and Army regiments. Six interviews with Air Force officers were conducted at an Air Force base, and four interviews with Navy officers were conducted at a Navy base, all during 2020.

The design of this article is as follows: In the next section, we consider two issues: first, why has there been a general neglect of the study of NCOs, the short answer is in Huntington’s influential (in academic debates and the military’s own self-understanding of its identity) concept of military professionalism. Second, we then focus on how organizational and technological factors have eroded the historically sharp division of labor between officers and NCOs, a process that has been reinforced by wider social structural change. In the third section, we turn to the Swedish case, looking at the historical context of the abolition and reintroduction of the officer-NCO division. Fourth, and finally, we discuss some of the implications of this analysis for Swedish military policy and our theoretical understanding of this aspect of the armed forces including a call for comparative research efforts in this area of military sociology.

Huntington, Military Professionalism, and the NCO: The Theoretical Context

Our understanding of officer–NCO relations has been shaped by Huntington’s (1957) The Soldier and the State. Huntington influenced academic analysis as well as the self-concept of the military profession itself. Although scholars of civil–military relations acknowledge the importance of the Huntington–Janowitz axis of debate, military professionals themselves have tended to identify Huntington’s Soldier and the State as the text that speaks to and celebrates their professional status. Unsurprisingly, Janowitz’s (1960) constabulary concept—with its echo of ‘policing’—was less attractive to them. This was ironic as the concept, rooted in pragmatic, rather than Huntington’s absolutist, war-fighting ideas, was in fact much more relevant to and illuminating of their professional work in the nuclear age than Huntington’s was; and, as we shall see, this included his analysis of the military profession and NCOs.

Huntington developed what can be termed an exclusionary, officer-centric concept of the military profession. It excluded the auxiliary professions within the military, for example, the medical and the legal as well as all sorts of reservists. Huntington’s concept was based on a sharp division of roles—the concept of profession excluded NCOs and soldiers.

The enlisted men subordinate to the officer corps are a part of the organizational bureaucracy but not of the professional bureaucracy. The enlisted personnel have neither the intellectual skills nor the professional responsibility of the officer. They are specialists in the application of violence not the management of violence. Their vocation is a trade not a profession. This fundamental difference between the officer corps and the enlisted corps is reflected in the sharp line which is universally drawn between the two in all the military forces of the world. . . .. [Emphasis added]

The ranks which exist in the enlisted corps do not constitute a professional hierarchy. They reflect varying aptitudes, abilities, and offices within the trade of a soldier, and movement up and down them is much more fluid than in the officer corps. The difference between the officer and enlisted vocations precludes any general progression from one to the other. Individual enlisted men do become officers, but this is the exception rather than the rule. The education and training necessary for officer ship are normally incompatible with prolonged service as an enlisted man (Huntington, 1957, pp. 16–17, emphasis added).

Interestingly, for Huntington, even the platoon commander is very nearly not a military professional as this person is too close to the application rather than the management of violence. The larger and more complex the organizations of violence that an officer is capable of directing, and the greater number of situations and conditions under which he can be employed, the higher is his professional competence. A man who is capable of directing only the activities of an infantry squad has such a low level of professional ability as to be almost on the border line. A man who can manage the operations of an airborne division or a carrier task force is a highly competent professional. The officer who can direct the complex activities of a combined operation involving large-scale sea, air, and land forces is at the top of his vocation (Huntington, 1957, p. 12, emphasis added).

Arising from this analysis we can draw out three aspects of the division of labor between officers and NCOs. ⁹ First there is a status distinction rooted historically in traditional social class differentiation and aristocratic proximity to monarchical authority. Second, there is a distinction in terms of legal authority and power of command—the scope of decisions and the extent of their reach over personnel. And third, there is a division in terms of the kind of professional knowledge and competence attached to each role. The officer’s professional competence is rooted in the career trajectory of becoming a manager of the means of violence and the strategic direction of the organization—even if only a minority will make it to the top and many will leave before they do so.

For the officer in a typical, successful military career, the priority is being a generalist: not to acquire in-depth knowledge of a particular area but to move from assignment to assignment to earn the credentials to move onwards and upward. This means that the core of the officer’s competence lies in “command”: framing the action of subordinates in light of the decisions taken by superior levels of command; defining the mission; and taking decisions in the light of information and circumstances reported by subordinates. These officer skills can be transferred through different assignments and refined with upward movement in the career, but it is the NCOs that make all this possible. ¹⁰

A recent commentary on this treatment of the Officer-NCO division of labor has been provided by Anthony King (2013):

Huntington’s division between the officer corps and the enlisted ranks has validity, especially at the level of general officers and their staffs. Indeed, there is a great distinction between officers and enlisted ranks in terms of the work performed by officers in headquarters, their skills and their career structures. Staff officers are not so very different from civilian managers and executives in many respects. For Huntington, only officers are able to display a genuinely corporate identity and can, therefore, be truly described as professionals: he regarded enlisted men as the equivalent of technicians or artisans. (p. 343)

Huntington, King points out, thought that enlisted personnel (including NCOs) despite often being skillful did work that “does not usually involve an intellectual, analytical or critical dimension, which typifies a profession” (King, 2013, p. 343). However, King (2013) claims that Huntington overstates this division—especially within the infantry; here he argues as follows:

At the battalion and especially at the company and platoon level, the divide between the enlisted soldiers [especially the senior non-commissioned officers) and the field officers, namely lieutenants, captains and majors, is not nearly so clear. Field officers manage violence directly but they, like their subordinates, may be called upon to engage the enemy with their weapons, they also apply violence. Similarly, corporals and sergeants do not simply apply violence but also play an important role in managing it; they command their soldiers, instructing them how and when to fire their weapons. In the case of an incompetent platoon commander, sergeants and corporals will often take over the supposedly distinct function of the officer. At this level, the divide between professional and technical expertise is not clear. (p. 343)

Echoing Morris Janowitz’s (1960) concept of the professional soldier:

The armed forces as a whole are united by their specialism in the prosecution of violence—rather than divided by those who manage and who apply this violence; “the military profession” (not just the officer corps) are “managers of the instruments of violence” [Janowitz, Professional Soldier, Free Press, 1960, x x]. Notwithstanding the differences between officers and enlisted soldiers, it seems plausible to claim, against Huntington, that professional soldiers across the ranks share a corporate identity. (p. 244)

This shared “sense of belonging” underpins the organizational coherence and solidarity that unites military experts—both enlisted and officers—gives them a sense of identity and purpose that adds to their fighting power and distinguishes them from civilians. King’s discussion of the military division of labor takes Durkheim and social solidarity as its point of departure—the central idea is professionalism rather than nationalism is the more important basis of modern military cohesion. Professionalism underpins the various groups within the military united in a common enterprise/purpose; it is about the blurring of boundaries, especially in the infantry. But, at least so far as NCOs are concerned, there is not that much explicit discussion by King on how their contribution delivers military effect, except in the example of how an experienced, senior and competent NCO can support and even supplant an incompetent platoon commander. King accepts that NCOs and officers are both professional experts but have different functions in the army:

they have a slight discrete role at sergeant and above level—it is not or should not really be executive combat decisions but administration and discipline. They are effectively given the unpleasant jobs which would diminish the role of officer as leader. (Personal communication, August 2019)

King does not focus directly on what we term the NCO-officer producer-consumer interaction: that in today’s military this interaction or partnership is, increasingly, reproduced throughout the military system, including at the staff and headquarters. This phenomenon is not just for legitimacy reasons, such as the democratic notion that “officers should listen to their soldiers” but out of functional necessity in today’s operating conditions. This aspect of the military division of labor needs a more detailed analysis of the production of organizational effect not just of solidarity and this article seeks to supplement the discussion provided by King in his seminal work on the combat soldier.

The starting point for our own analysis is that officers and NCOs are both professional experts, albeit of different kinds, within the same community. As mentioned earlier, there is symmetry in Huntington’s account of the officer–NCO divide and that relates to the connection between the military profession and the political order of the state. In both settings, by his account, the division is ostensibly sharp and instrumental but is blurred. The NCOs execute the commands in detail issued by the managers of the means of violence. NCOs are construed as mechanics in trade—cogs in the military machine that receive and carry out orders but have no role in delivering advice upward to the military profession. Yet, as we shall see, this account does not recognize the ways in which the NCOs do not simply execute orders but supply the competence of other NCOs and soldiers to be used by the military profession. Here there are important processes in the production and consumption of military competence in which both NCOs and officers are engaged and in relation to which a concept of a sharp division between them is misleading.

The idea of the military professionals using the “trade” of NCOs, as an instrument, obscures the interactions between officers as command consumers and specialist NCO producers of different kinds of professional expertise. These interactions increasingly occur at all levels of the military, including strategic HQs. Consequently, from an analytical point of view, the hierarchical relationship between officers and NCOs needs to be complemented by the horizontal integration of expertise at these different levels. This is a process that is being accelerated by technology (as is always the case, a main driver of military organizational developments and change) and social norms that give emphasis to empowered networks. The professional solidarity of military personnel is thus reinforced because empowerment makes NCOs active providers of advice and expertise on technical and administrative “how” questions to aid commanders to do their work of command and leadership.

Military hierarchies have been altered to consider and capitalize on the revolution in communications within organizations and in wider society. We know that ostensibly relatively minor acts by very junior personnel (e.g., a mistake at a checkpoint and the killing of a noncombatant) can have major consequences at the strategic level and, as a result, the levels of command have become compressed. Errors at low levels can be magnified by what Shaw (2005) has called “global surveillance” with the result that such acts can damage the reputation of the organization and undercut its legitimacy on a mission and more generally. Consequently, the need to disperse authority in military hierarchies can be countered by the need to control to manage these issues arising from the compression of command. One of the authors has discussed these dynamics in terms of the concept of the “dialectic of control.” ¹¹ Furthermore, technological change has altered the balance and boundaries between different elements of professional groups: One example is the relationship between doctors and nurses in the division of medical labor, which offers some fruitful comparisons for analysts of the military professions. ¹²

How the vertical and horizontal integration of expertise are combined depends on technological factors; organizational culture, including professional norms and command styles; and wider social values concerning inclusion and empowerment. Officers and NCOs refract these social forces and affect how organizations adopt and adapt innovations. On the matter of empowerment, King suggests that “British NCOs are far more empowered than German or French ones with the US—a middle case” (personal communication, August 2019). It is important to recognize that in general, the interactions between NCOs and officers are to some extent about status and competition for status and rewards and self-identity. Such considerations often connect with differences of view about jurisdiction as Abbot (2002) and Burk (2002) have argued. We now turn to the Swedish case.

The New Swedish Officer System

After more than two decades of deliberation, Sweden decided to develop a one-tier (or unified) officers corps, which characterized the SAF from 1983 to 2008. The system eliminated the rank differences between commissioned and NCO ranks who managed and supervised the conscript force. All military professionals became 2nd Lieutenants upon graduation from Junior Officer Training. In this unified officer system, an army officer would typically progress from 2nd Lieutenant to Major in 10 to 12 years. Starting as a 2nd Lieutenant Platoon instructor, the officer would typically progress to Platoon Leader, Company Commander and Battalion Commander, rising in the ranks as well as in hierarchical organizational levels. Similar progression was possible in the Navy and Air Force. Most officers went up the ranks this way, but there was no formal structure for specialist, “horizontal” careers. Army, Air Force, and Navy technical (or other) specialists were regularly stuck as 2nd Lieutenants or 1st Lieutenants, as the career system rewarded serving in command positions, not developing specialized professional expertise (Ydén, 2008).

There is a debate on the reasons why Sweden designed the unified officer system. For example, Aselius (2007) argues, a “confluence of Swedish cultural and political phenomenon, a popular defense and broad democratic participation, initiated the reconfiguration of its military that merged the enlisted and the officer corps” (pp. 27–51). ¹³ However, even if the 1983 reform does appear to reflect 1970s Social Democratic political ideas about social equality, its origins go back to the mid-1950s and persistent military recruitment problems, especially in infantry units. The post–World War II Swedish export industry enjoyed record economic growth during the 1950s and 1960s. Employment numbers were soaring, and ambitious welfare reforms were implemented. In this context, the Swedish military was not competitive in terms of attractiveness and monetary compensation. A unified officer career path was designed primarily to improve recruitment among suitable conscripts (Bergström et al., 2020). A case in point: the unified officer system government bill was presented by a Right-of-Centre Swedish government with a Conservative Party Defence Minister, not by a Social Democratic Party government.

Sweden’s 2009 reintroduction of a two-tier (differentiated) officer system was decided on during an era of several rapid changes in defense policy, notably a refocus towards expeditionary missions (e.g., Afghanistan) and the continued dismantling of what was, at the time, regarded as obsolete Cold War structures for territorial defence. The new officer system would, it was held, reduce training times and costs while also creating a better personnel age distribution and improved interoperability for the post–Cold War expeditionary era.

At the heart of the reformed personnel system is a fundamental concept: the production of professional competence by the Officer-Specialist Officer partnership. In Sweden, officers and Specialist Officers are commissioned under the same state regulation (and both career paths require a high school diploma). Thus, Sweden does thus not have NCOs but rather two different categories of officers who both have lifetime employment. ¹⁴ The officer is focused on career progression and command from junior to senior levels. As the senior “partner,” the officer should develop expertise in leading and taking command decisions. Therefore, the officer is at the heart of the military profession but so, too, is the other element in the competence system: the Specialist Officer (in most other countries this would be the NCO).

The initial training to become a Specialist Officer is currently three semesters, the first of which is general (fulfilling legal requirements for military foremanship) and the following two semesters consisting of specialized training. ¹⁵ In total, there are more than 60 different fields of specialization for Specialist Officers across the services. Upon successful completion of the training, the rank of sergeant is awarded. For comparison, the Officer Programme takes 3 years after which the rank of 2nd Lieutenant is awarded.

Officers provide command decisions and leadership, with their decisions based on technical and professional advice from subordinate Specialist Officers, whose expertise is based on experience and knowledge of how the various military systems work. The career trajectory of the officer is to move quickly up the command hierarchy from a junior officer in command of a platoon to more senior levels, while Specialist Officers are more focused on deepening their knowledge in their specialist areas. The movement of officers through command levels is only possible because of the provision of specialist competence at each of the levels at which that command is exercised, including the most senior HQ level.

Although the Specialist Officer expertise is primarily vocationally based while officers are equipped with academic education, both are defined by the SAF as part of the military profession. Indeed, unlike, say, the British Army, these two professional elements are much more similar in status and overlapping in their expertise. ¹⁶ This, what we term the “horizontal integration of parallel professional elements,” is in contrast with the more vertical one pertaining to the British system. It reflects Swedish military culture—the heritage of the 1983–2009 system—and wider social values of equality, reflected in the civilian system of education. The Swedish system is, arguably, more aligned with the American than the British. Logically, this means that the education and training of Specialist Officers and officers can no longer be based on the sharp (Huntington-based) and outdated division between the academic and the vocational.

After more than a decade, however, there are valid reasons to doubt how successful the Swedish reform implementation has been. First, there is a question about whether a clear enough vision was initially developed and applied systematically from the top, or whether the concept of the new system lacked focus and momentum because it was initially largely devolved to middle management, with units being allowed to develop their own arrangements to suit local needs or the preferences of their commanders. Early on, the then Supreme Commander had indicated that “no one would get hurt” (i.e., switching to Specialist Officer rank would be optional), which in effect meant that there was, according to interviewees, no clear vision developed to underpin implementation and no means of enforcing it even if one had been developed. ¹⁷ There was a hiatus between 2009 and 2016–2017 with no consistent progress in the officer system reform. Specialist Officers’ career paths were unclear or undeveloped, including criteria for promotions. The guidelines for officers switching to Specialist Officer ranks were unclear, resulting in uneven application of the organizational framework that existed. Officers and Specialist Officers sometimes found themselves placed in the same kind of staff positions, making the distinction between the two categories appear muddled and arbitrary. Why then the dramatic change in tempo in late 2016–2017? One answer is that there was discontent from some Specialist Officers about a lack of vision and progress in reform, to which was added questioning from outside the SAF about why, having asked to be the driver of implementation, the organization had appeared to make so little progress after a decade.

One important explanation for the limited progress was the 2010 suspension of conscription and the switch to an All-Volunteer Force (AVF) model. The AVF reform meant that an inflow of new recruits was no longer a given, which made HQ “think only about recruiting soldiers” (Fredén, 2020, p. 83), resulting in a neglect of the further development of the Specialist Officer system. There was clearly a disconnect between strategic direction and operational leadership for a period of time. But with the increased pressures from within and outside the system, the Specialist Officer reform process was given a greater impetus. A “blueprint group” within the HQ made the most of that opportunity. In building stakeholder support and developing a blueprint and principles, a fund of legitimacy was built as a basis for action. This was in contrast with the perceived earlier lack of executive courage and determination. Thus, not until 2017 was major work conducted on implementation. This required a vision—and that vision was based on the blueprint group’s system description of the roles in military units—for example, a mechanized battalion—what roles/billets were entailed and a set of principles to establish which roles would be officer and which would be Specialist Officer. Reformers had to deal with 9,000 posts and with the heritage of a top-heavy system because of the previous one-tier model. The system description and the principles were used to reorganize the restructure of the rank system and the numbers of people within it and the career paths to be followed through the system. It was accepted that there would be overlaps and gray areas in terms of which roles should be occupied by officers and which by Specialist Officers. One frequent dilemma is reportedly succession. One example is in a technical component of a mechanized battalion there are four senior Specialist Officer positions but one of these was made into an officer role—not because it could not be performed by a Specialist Officer but because an officer on his or her way up the career ladder needs experience in that role to equip them with the knowledge and skills required at that level and later on. Again, this was the result of systemic thinking, not random reform (corresponding dynamics are reported within the Air Force among technical specialists).

The critical point here was that it was affirmed that system descriptions and principles should be used to make decisions about roles and billets not relying on local judgments about individuals and who liked or did not like whom. System descriptions and principles meant that the reorganization acquired legitimacy, and this was a clear intention and why the reform plan involved consultation and engagement with the key stakeholders. With reform, approximately 1,000 officers voluntarily switched to Specialist Officer ranks. The debate then focused on whether (apparently like Norway) the remaining 2,500 officers of the old system occupying Specialist Officer posts in the new one would be allowed to keep their officer rank and fade away or whether they should be coerced into rank change. In 2021, the latter path was chosen, a decision that set up a timeline for a “final implementation” of the new officer system. The forced rank change decision has proved controversial in several camps, and the military union Officersforbundet advised against it. In what is effectively a conversion table, many Captains and 1st Lieutenants will instead become Sergeant Majors or Sergeants. Numerous officers object to being deprived of their officer rank, questioning the reasonability and/or legality of retroactively invalidating the formal status of their previous officer training, graduations, and promotions. ¹⁸ Some senior Specialist Officers, on the other hand, while supportive of the new system design, strongly object to a wholesale transition of “old” Captains and/or 1st Lieutenants to senior Specialist Officer ranks, as they feel that some of these officers lack the required specialized expertise. “You have to realize that some captains are in fact unpromotable officers—but they are not competent to be in senior Specialist Officer positions,” as a Company Sergeant Major put it. Junior Specialist Officers tend to share this view and add that their own prospects for promotion could be negatively affected by a substantial inflow of “forced rank change” seniors, clogging up the systems’ higher Specialist Officers positions (Other Ranks Levels 7–9).

A second consideration about reform progress is whether more effort was placed on reorganizing the numbers of personnel—shifting the relative percentages of officers and Specialist Offices (with 3,900 officers, 4900 specialist officers [NCOs] and 6600 enlisted—excluding reservists) rather than on the careers of personnel and their ways of working within this key partnership. Had the career trajectories of the Specialist Officer and officer groups been developed sufficiently? For example, one topic for debate is still whether to develop two tracks for Specialist Officer career development: one would be to go up the chain of command as a supporting Specialist Officer; the other would be to pursue a more specialized route and be attached to systems or to schools—both are forms of career progression; both are equally valuable, and the system would need to recognize this in terms of material and symbolic rewards. Even today some insiders feel that professional specialization is not properly and systematically built into the new system.

A third question about the progress reform relates to the organizational shape of the officer–Specialist Officer relationship. For political and ideological reasons, there has been an attempt to equalize the proportions of officers and Specialist Officers at each of the military levels. Yet, as we observed earlier in our discussion of King’s work, this is where political and functional military logics can clash. One observer has argued that the allocation of Specialist Officer and officer posts in the military system showed that socio-political rather than military functional reasons had been influential, especially in the oversupply of Specialist Officers at the senior levels of the organization. He felt, as King does, that there is, relatively speaking, less relevant work for a Specialist Officer to do in and around HQs. Accordingly, the organizational shape for the officer–Specialist Officer relationship should arguably be more pyramidal than tall and rectangular. However, each country blends functional and socio-political logics in its own way. That having been said, as we shall see below, there is important work for the small number of the most senior Specialist Officers to play at the HQ levels in being the eyes ears and facilitators of strategic action by senior commanders.

This organizational theme relates to a fourth matter: Swedish Specialist Officer perceptions of the current arrangements and the extent to which their views help or hinder the process of reform. Are officers moving as swiftly from junior to more senior commands as the system intends? The results seem to vary. Several regiments and bases have, after trial, concluded that fresh junior officers are not fit to immediately serve as platoon leaders, not even with experienced Specialist Officer support. In some regiments, however, fresh 2nd Lieutenants are made platoon leaders. Some observers have commented that the training structure has serious flaws regarding preparing junior officers for platoon leadership and especially forming partnerships with Specialist Officers.

There is an additional complication: In the SAF, until recently, the mantra was that officers commanded, and Specialist Officers did not—the latter being confined to technical administrative and functional expertise to support commanders and their decisions. Now, mainly because of a shortage of supply of officers—due to rapid expansion in the SAF—Specialist Officers have been scheduled to command 2nd and 3rd line units in the supply/tech and supporting arms (not mechanized infantry or artillery). Two points arise here. First, it is possible that this development may not be temporary but lead to a permanent change in approach to Specialist Officers as providing command. Second, in any case, as we have emphasized, Specialist Officers do command within the framework of command decisions by officers—for example, as deputy company commanders and so on. Thus, the traditional sharp line between those who command—officers—and those who do not—enlisted and Specialist Officers has become blurred. ¹⁹

For now, some Specialist Officers are skeptical of the academic officer: the expressed Specialist Officer preference was for a properly trained militarily competent officer with an academic basis to apply military skills rather than an essentially political science undergraduate dressed up in a military uniform. This was a central and interesting difference of ideas so far as Specialist Officers and the military establishment were concerned and was seen as a weakness of the academization of the officer corps. Considering the above discussion, it is not surprising that there has been some resistance to the idea that the key role of Specialist Officers is to use their technical and “vocational” (but professional nonetheless—see above) expertise to facilitate the career progression of the junior officers up the command hierarchy, that is, to deliver autonomous professional command and leadership.

Instead of the new division of labor between officer and specialist, some—both officers and Specialist Officers—have suggested that the old unified (one-tier) system might be more reliable—partly because of its familiarity—and thus appropriate for the new, larger, and more conscript-based system designed for rebuilding territorial defense for the current strategic environment. The 2009 move to a two-tier system was explained as a necessity for compatibility in multinational operations abroad; it was held that working alongside Americans, Germans, and Brits required a similar personnel structure. With Sweden returning to a focus on territorial defense, that argument is, arguably, no longer as compelling as it was when the decision was made. However, considering the Ukraine war and impending Swedish (and Finnish) membership of NATO, the reasoning might turn again and the principles of commonality and interoperability reaffirmed. Indeed, such pressures to converge with partners is precisely what happened to European militaries in terms of ranks and especially HQ structures during the Cold War. ²⁰

It should be noted that some Specialist Officers have been able to be negative about officers and their military competence at platoon and company level because the organization had yet to experience the expansion that is planned for the next 15 years. In that setting, the proliferation of staff and planning/operational roles for officers would show that officers were doing the military jobs appropriate for them and in ways that Specialist Officers could not see or perhaps fully appreciate. There is arguably some way to go before the size and shape of the SAF are configured appropriately for the new officer–Specialist Officer system to work effectively.

Resistance is not surprising in organizational change processes—it should rather, in fact, be expected. Resistance to the Specialist Officer reform can be found not just in different Services but at different levels within them, including the most senior. For example, resistance has reportedly been encountered at the top of the organization in and around the HQ. The most senior Specialist Officers see their role as influencing the policy level, but this has been constrained and resisted by Lt Colonels currently in staff and advisory positions there, who wish to defend their territory against these unwanted and possibly threatening incursions. Whether the abovementioned problems are simply short-term issues of transition is difficult to tell, but to be fair, it is difficult to implement a major change in personal systems when other changes in technology and strategy and taking place at the same time. Even handling a doubling in size of the SAF between 2017 and 2025 is challenging enough. In any event, without a continued drive from the top coupled with a clear vision of what is required change will be at best incremental.

Concluding Observations and Discussion

All things considered, the reformed, differentiated personnel system means that although the SAF is now more similar to other Western countries, there are some important differences, especially when compared with the United Kingdom and the British Army in particular. Sweden is still dealing with the process of transition from a unified officer system to its own version of a multitiered system as part of the rebuilding of its armed forces. Earlier, we remarked that the reform has been in progress for well more than 10 years, and this has been part of other overlapping sets of processes in technology and strategic direction as well as force design—notably the suspension and then reintroduction of conscription to supplement the volunteer system. A further complication is that there has been a lack of single-mindedness at the top level to push reform to a successful conclusion with one observer commenting that implementation had been rushed, inconsistent, and somewhat chaotic, but the system is at last beginning to function, at least to some extent. It is very likely that the new officer system will evolve and need further adjustments and development as the “new breed” of Specialist Officers progress and make their mark, just like their “new breed” officer counterparts. The history of traditional institutions trying to reinvent themselves offer plenty of reasons why substantial changes are not easy to implement, and the Swedish Armed Forces offer a rare example of an “old-style” officer corps trying to design and develop not just one, but two, reinvented versions of itself. Getting this right is a matter of critical importance as the Swedish Armed Forces must be configured and ready to deal with the palpable threat posed by Russia to Sweden.

At the heart of a successful system is the concept of trust—on the part of Specialist Officers in the competence of their commanders, and on the part of officers in giving responsibility to Specialist Officers regarding matters of the “how” and implementation of command. Not only are there variations among different national armed forces, but there are also inter-service differences too. For example, in Sweden officer resistance to or suspicion of Specialist Officer autonomy and responsibility has reportedly been more pronounced in the Army and less so in the Navy and Air Force where more Specialist Officers are operators/technical specialists and there has been a long-term familiarity with and acceptance of specialists overseeing technical areas and compartments. But this is also ground for the critique of the reform and the friction it has created. One experienced Air Force officer questioned the merits of the new officer system, saying: “The Air Force basically consists of several specialist tribes working together. We did not have any problems with lack of specialization.” There is the old saying that the more technological services such as the “RAF man the equipment and the Army equip the man” (or woman). Of course, this distinction will be less and less applicable as Armies have become more and more technology-based, but old ideas die hard—not least in the infantry and combat arms.

A key trend is the reproduction of officer–Specialist Officer interactions—the production and consumption of professional expertise—at all levels of the system from the platoon up to HQs where the Specialist Officer’s voice can be heard and can exercise influence on matters such as the technical capability of the military, attitudes of personnel, obstacles to successful performance, and so on. The most senior Specialist Officers can be the eyes, ears, and facilitators of strategic actors. At the HQ, some senior officers at the Lieutenant Colonel level seemingly fear that their advisory and administrative roles will be marginalized by the presence of the most senior Specialist Officers of the Services.

Finally, a successful officer-Specialist Officer system hinges on ensuring recruitment and retention problems are kept at bay. One way of doing this is to ensure that attractive career structures are established for both categories of officers. In Sweden, for example, Specialist Officers have been given a slightly extended career ladder, as additional ranks have been introduced or are in the works, allowing for more promotions. This change shows how career structures remain central to the organizational workings. One of the central reasons for the creation of the Specialist Officer category was to retain people working at troop units or with complex equipment—but people still want career development as a motivation. Some Specialist Officers, who are supportive of the new system, hold that the end-product of the new rank structure in terms of professional knowledge/skill has not been sufficiently understood and, therefore, career incentives and functional specialization processes are not necessarily properly aligned. The reason for this is, reportedly, that the officer system designers have not included subject matter experts: “The system reflects a non-expert understanding of the conditions necessary for developing expert knowledge, not the views of actual experts,” as one interviewee in the Swedish Navy put it.

The Swedish empirical case is an obvious outlier, given its unique history and Sweden’s national cultural and structural traits. However, we argue that it nevertheless illustrates some interesting themes that could be explored also within militaries with long-standing and unbroken NCO traditions. So far as future research is concerned, a comparative analysis could focus on how vertical and horizontal integration of expertise are combined and the effects of technological factors; organizational culture, including professional norms and command styles; and wider social norms concerning power distance, inclusion, and empowerment. NCO roles vary greatly across the individual services, as do the forms of interaction with officers and subordinates. A closer integration of NCO and officer professionalism may have as much to do with technology and fighting environment, as with professional self-interest and wider socio-political imperatives. A typology of different types of NCO/Specialist Officer training programs (including eligibility requirements), positions, rank systems, and career trajectories could be developed, as the orientations are already numerous, and they are bound to change because of technological and societal developments as well as due to status competition among the various parties to military professionalism. There is a rich agenda to inform research on a subject that for too long has been neglected in military sociology. The backbone of the armed forces needs fuller comparative analysis while the officers’ supposed monopoly on professional expertise needs to be challenged.