In February, the Air and Space Forces announced two dozen service-wide changes at the AFA Warfare Symposium. One change is the Air Force’s decision to bring back the “warrant officer” rank. The decision was motivated by the increasing threat of cyber attacks from China and Russia.
The rank of warrant officer is a way to recognize soldiers or sailors with extensive experience and seniority — a position earned by warrant rather than commission. This places the recipient between the commission officer and the non-commissioned officer ranks.
The practice can be traced back to medieval England, finding its way into the Royal Navy in the 1500s. The rank of warrant officers found its way into the American military as well, where it still exists today — except for in the Air Force. The Air Force phased out the position in the late 1950s, with the last active duty warrant officer retiring in 1980.
“We’re gonna engage in developing a warrant officer program specifically for cyber and IT professionals to be able to ensure that we have that technical talent now and into the future,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Alvin said.
Now, 44 years later, Air Force leadership is bringing the rank back as a way of attracting people with specialized skills who want to serve, but hadn’t considered doing so previously.
“There’s something specific about this career field, why it’s attractive and it’s a nice match for a warrant officer program,” Alvin said. “The pace of change of the cyber world, the coding world, software world, it is so rapidly advancing. We need those airmen to be on the cutting edge and stay on the cutting edge, so we’re gonna pursue that, all those in the area of developing our people.”
What was previously an arms race has been shifted into the digital world.
“Both China and Russia are actively developing and fielding more advanced capabilities designed to defeat U.S. power projection,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. “The need for modernization against capable, well-resourced strategic adversaries never stops.”
The threat of international cyber attacks is also concerning people not in uniform. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., voiced his concerns after a nationwide outage of AT&T’s services.
“I don’t know the cause of the AT&T outage,” Rubio posted. “But I do know it will be 100 times worse when China launches a cyber attack on America on the eve of a Taiwan invasion. And it won’t be just cell service they hit, it will be your power, your water and your bank.”
Air Force leaders are working to find ways from preventing those types of attacks from happening. As threats from countries with vast resources grow, the leaders are also looking for ways to expand and strengthen defenses.
“So it gets back to how do we maintain our competitive advantage,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Joanne Bass said. “Airmen and guardians want different pathways to serve, and we are in a organization that we’ve got to keep some of our technical expertise, deep technical expertise, and that’s all we need them to focus on.”
It is unclear when the reintroduction will occur, however, the rank of warrant officers comes with more status and higher pay.
“We want to retain people, particularly enlisted who might go out into the commercial world now instead of staying in the Air Force,” Kendall said. “So we’re gonna give them a little more pay, a little more status, and let them do what they want to do. So hopefully that’ll be helpful for retention.”
Access the full Weapons and Warfare episode here.
Access all Weapons and Warfare podcast episodes here.
