Just saw for the 6th time today, and never noticed this before. In the bar scene, when Pike talks to a battered Kirk, he asks Kirk if he knows how important the Federation is, that it's a peace keeping armada. Now I would have thought the line should read, You know how important Star Fleet is, that it's a peace keeping armada. Mistake?
here is the previous thread you might find part of it interesting. and it was a little way back and easy to miss.
No biggie. We've had them mixed up before. In TOS they couldn't decide if it was Space Fleet, Starfleet, or UESPA (these could be different organisations, though). And whether it was a military or not (TWOK).
Kirk is a born Federation citizen. It's like asking an American if he knows how important the United States are.
And how many American kids today would carelessly shrug if you asked them what they thought of the US? In some modern day military recruitment drives, you'll hear things like "America *is* the Army" or t"he Marines Make America." It's not unusual to combine patriotism with service in order to further a point to an otherwise apathetic youth.
This movie's Kirk is rebellious, crashing cars, flirting with chicks, getting in fights, and more intelligent than he initially looks like. He's anything BUT apathetic. And "Federation is Starfleet", "Starfleet makes the Federation" are certainly not slogans you'd expect to hear in the Star Trek universe. Starfleet is exploration first, defense second, war last.
Apathetic to the nation definitely. If that wasn't the case, then Pike wouldn't need to introduce/convince some focus into Kirk's life. If anything, Kirk would have entered the Academy four years earlier like his Prime counterpart did. Case in point, a specific tactic by military recruitment is to target kids and young people who otherwise have no discernible or chosen future but otherwise have no real patriotic allegiance. Or many recruits join not out of love of country first but for the promise of ensured college education. This Kirk seemed to fall into both camps. My friend is currently an art student at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He's a 23 yr old freshman. He joined the Marines at 18 but in high school he was pretty nu-Kirk like himself. He complained about post 9-11 military jingoism and American propoganda, did drugs, sold stolen merchandise on the black market, and constantly fought with his father. But he needed focus and he always had an art career in mind, just no means or access (or discipline) to achieve it just yet. Hence the Marines.
No, Starfleet is exploration and defense co-equally. And do bear in mind that Pike specifically cited peacekeeping and humanitarianism in his description of Starfleet -- not exactly the same as saying that Starfleet is all about kicking some Klingon and Romulan ass. And, yeah, "the Federation is Starfleet" is not something you'd normally hear, but obviously Pike has a particular POV that he was imparting to Kirk in an attempt to get him to join Starfleet. Not everyone in the future, even a utopian future, is going to be politically correct in their opinions. It's really not a big deal. How could you say that about nuKirk after seeing him ponder his father's fate (when holding the Kelvin salt shaker) and then pondering his own potential (when looking at the Enterprise under construction)? Kirk rather obviously joined Starfleet because he realized it was a way to improve himself, to become a better person and a good leader. To command a starship. In other words -- the same reasons Prime Kirk joined Starfleet.
I say that b/c it took him so long to realize his own potential (the salt shaker and the Enterprise under construction, IIRC, were both during or after Pike's talk). To improve oneself is philosophically synonymous with college anyway. But I would argue that his mindset was not "Country/Federation First." I could attribute those traits to an older, wiser, more experienced Kirk, but not at this beginning. I didn't mean to imply that becoming a good leader and commanding a starship are mutually exclusive from trying to educate oneself. After all, as Pike noted, his scores were off the charts before the whole talk. But it seemed that the nagging feeling to improve himself took precedent over becoming a captain. Heck, he became captain because he did the right thing, not because he desired it (but he didn't refuse it, either).