mos.directory

Army MOS · Support

48B Foreign Area Officer, Western Hemisphere

Current service use not established

This code is listed in the directory. Inclusion alone does not confirm current service use.

Browse Army

Overview

The Foreign Area Officer, Western Hemisphere specialty identifies positions that require a foreign area officer with expertise in Latin America. Those positions require regional training and language qualifications for the Latin America region.

Minimum clearance: TS/SCI

Core Skills

  • Latin America regional and cultural assessment
  • Political-military advice for senior leaders
  • Foreign military and interagency liaison

Civilian Career Paths

Career associations are editorial assessments of the cited evidence, not an official crosswalk unless the evidence explicitly says so. O*NET supplies civilian occupation information, not proof of a military match. Related experience does not confer civilian qualifications. Tasks and tools below describe civilian work, not military training.

Foreign Affairs Officer (Federal Civil Service)

For officers with regional advisory assignments, Latin America expertise and political-military advice to commanders or Chiefs of Mission transfer directly to foreign-policy analysis and advice to senior officials.

How to prepare: Build a federal resume mapping your documented regional analysis and advisory work to an open 0130 announcement and an OPM basic qualification route: relevant education, a qualifying education-experience combination, or four years of appropriate foreign-affairs experience, which may include suitable military service. GS-12 and higher also require the specified high-level specialized professional experience or direction and coordination of relevant professional work; check the announcement's grade and hiring-path requirements before applying.

Notes & Sources

  • FAO assignments vary; match applications to your actual regional, language and advisory experience rather than claiming every function in the classification.
  • The representative State Department GS-13 opening requires specialized experience, U.S. citizenship and a Top Secret clearance, and is restricted to its stated State Department employee and career-transition hiring paths, not veterans generally.
  • This is a federal civil-service path, not the Foreign Service selection process.
Evidence for this guidance (4 documents)
  1. Army COOL MOC feed: 48B Foreign Area Officer, Western Hemisphere

    [1] data/authority/army-codes.json entry 48B (OSD COOL feed, fetched 2026-07-25); DB rank officer, authority codeType officer

    Supports: Latin America regional and cultural assessment, Foreign Affairs Officer (Federal Civil Service)

  2. Army officer classification guidance: Foreign Area Officer functional scope

    [2] Section 3-48, version effective 202210, paragraphs a and b; use this version rather than the separately reproduced 201810 version

    Supports: Latin America regional and cultural assessment, Political-military advice for senior leaders, Foreign military and interagency liaison, Foreign Affairs Officer (Federal Civil Service)

  3. OPM: Foreign Affairs Series 0130 qualification requirements

    [3] Basic Requirements and Evaluation of Experience; retrieved September 2026

    Supports: Foreign Affairs Officer (Federal Civil Service)

  4. Department of State: Foreign Affairs Officer, representative federal role

    [4] Duties, qualifications and hiring-path restrictions; announcement P/IO-MPI-2026-0007

    Supports: Foreign Affairs Officer (Federal Civil Service)

Defense contractor jobs for 48B

Descriptions may be summarized for clarity. Verify all information with your branch career counselor or official military documentation before making career decisions.

Report an error on this page