Longinus wrote:
I really don't like the idea of either Starfleet Marines or an unified Federation Army, both seem too militaristic.
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No such thing as "too militaristic" when it comes to the
existence of a force, only in
how it's employed.
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Technology has rendered large scale ground combats mostly irrelevant anyway, and for small assaults Starfleet has their security teams.
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Read Starship Troopers, Heinlein argues that there will always be a need for the poor, bloody infantry to actually be on the ground.
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Member planets can possibly have their own ground forces for peacekeeping and to defend against an unlikely ground invasion, but these forces would be more like US National Guard. If there really was need Federation could form peacekeeper units out of volunteers from these planetary defence forces to be send to where needed.
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The US experience with that showed that an overall organization was needed, or they wouldn't work together and coordinate well. It's part of why we no longer raise a unit and leave it at home. We raise a unit, station it, then rotate the personnel between units for turnover and to cross-pollinate. Everyone gets the same training and keep levelling out local ideas so all units are more or less on the same page. I'd argue that an army would prove necessary just so different worlds didn't have better or worse local defenders, and so that those troops would be loyal to the whole UFP, not the local gov't, and therefore less likely to seem a potential threat to other member worlds during tense political crises.