Is Starfleet a military or not?

[Hypaspist]

To me it seems pretty obvious that it is, but there are some inconsistencies in various plots that make it kind of a fuzzy issue. It's mostly early TNG, so I dismiss it out of hand, but lets look at it a little more closely.

I look at Starfleet as pretty much being THE military of the Federation, but that doesn't make the Federation militaristic. It doesn't make Starfleet's mission any more belligerent. It is there not to impose its will, unlike most militaries in history. That is why the Prime Directive establishes its character. It still exists for defensive purposes just as much as for discovery, and sometimes these things coincide. I would also think that, with its mission and humanity's evolved sensibilities, that there isn't a stigma about the military itself. I think the best thing about Starfleet is that it is a place where everyone works together, so that there are A type personalities to command the ships, while they work with and encourage the scientists they have with them.

I think that keeping other powers from interfering with the Prime Directive in Federation territory is one of the primary defensive missions of Starfleet. I also think that the rationale for the non-military professions inside of Starfleet is not as great as in the real world. In a United Federation that is led by high ideals, it comes down to a simple acceptance of all these things for those that choose to go into Starfleet. So basically I think that if we assume that disease, poverty, and domestic strife have all gone away, it isn't that much of a leap to assume that the Starfleet is overwhelmingly in support of whatever mission it is required to do.

 

[BigJake]

Starfleet is a military ideologically compelled to pretend it isn't one. Kinda like Japan's Self Defence Forces.

 

[Christopher]

Yes, it certainly is a military. It has a rank structure, it has a chain of command, and it holds courts-martial, so what else could it possibly be except a military?

The problem is that many people assume that a military's only function is combat, so they confuse Starfleet's non-combat-oriented mission statement with a non-military nature. But there are such things as military bodies that aren't oriented toward combat, such as the US Coast Guard (or the Japanese SDF, as mentioned above). And militaries that do engage in combat when necessary also do plenty of other stuff in peacetime, like large-scale engineering projects, humanitarian relief, even pure scientific research and exploration. In short, everything Starfleet does.

 

[Mojochi]

Starfleet does exist as the authoritative force of the Federation. It polices. It defends. It wars. So clearly it's got military. The question is, is Starfleet ONLY a military? Of course not. A military doesn't have botanists, xenobiologists, stellar cartographers, & ambassadors in its ranks. It's supposed to be an evolution of our societal structure such that all their institutions exist under one umbrella. A unity of advancement

The whole point is that we evolved to a level where we decided that it would be best to have one primary institution for advancement & preservation, like if one day we all just decided it would be best to combine the U.N, the CDC, NASA, FEMA, & INTERPOL

 

[JeffinOakland]

Gene "the god of all things Star Trek" Roddenberry insisted Starfleet wasn't a military organization but it obviously is. Go figure.

 

[BigJake]

The GBOTG's original idea for Starfleet was that it should effectively be a navy but with the authoritarian features toned down to make it sympathetic to a television audience.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Jake is spot on.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I've always seen it being a military as its secondary purpose, like a role it steps into when the necessity arises.

 

[Hypaspist]

I don't think they are pretending that they aren't a military at all, but it's more like the 'not strictly a political tool' military. NASA itself has a hand in glove relationship with the different military branches.

I like the idea of Starfleet and that it is ready for any sort of mission.

 

[Christopher]

The question is, is Starfleet ONLY a military? Of course not. A military doesn't have botanists, xenobiologists, stellar cartographers, & ambassadors in its ranks.

Actually there are plenty of people in the military who do scientific work.

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.or...s_issues/articles/2011_12_02/caredit.a1100135

Over 4 years, military academy students absorb a core curriculum of engineering, natural sciences, mathematics, social sciences, and humanities. Particularly at Annapolis and West Point, students can choose from an array of scientific disciplines such as molecular biology, environmental chemistry, ecology, polar oceanography, climate change, remote sensing, and astronomy. “We believe a well-rounded science and technology curriculum is based on a broad spectrum of study, including fields not traditionally linked with the military,” Marks says. In return for Army, Navy, or Air Force funding, graduates from the military academies can expect a minimum requirement of 5 years of active service.

And there have been times in the past when military organizations have been at the vanguard of exploration. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British Royal Navy sent out ships on a number of exploration missions; Charles Darwin's famous expedition aboard HMS Beagle was one.

And, in fact, there are military personnel who engage in diplomatic work. In the US military, they're called foreign area officers.

Roles and responsibilities of FAOs are extensive and varied. They advise senior leaders on political-military operations and relations with other nations, provide cultural expertise to forward-deployed commands conducting military operations, build and maintain long-term relationships with foreign leaders, develop and coordinate security cooperation, execute security assistance programs with host nations, and develop reports on diplomatic, information, military, and economic activities.

Gene "the god of all things Star Trek" Roddenberry insisted Starfleet wasn't a military organization but it obviously is. Go figure.

The aged, ailing, TNG-era Roddenberry who'd bought into his own reputation as a visionary futurist claimed that Starfleet wasn't military. But the Roddenberry who created the series in the 1960s was himself a military veteran who chose to create a series revolving around a military crew and a captain who considered himself a soldier first and foremost. It's important not to confuse the attitudes of the late-1980s Roddenberry with those of the 1960s Roddenberry. He changed his mind about a lot of things.

I've always seen it being a military as its secondary purpose, like a role it steps into when the necessity arises.

You mean that combat is its secondary purpose. As I said, it's a mistake to assume that the only intrinsic function of a military is combat. Modern military organizations do much more than that, though admittedly it is more central to their function than it is to Starfleet's. But that's just a difference of emphasis, not fundamental nature.

 

[JeffinOakland]

My dad was in the military (Navy) for 20 years. I doubt he was ever "trained for combat" and he served only a few briefs stints aboard any ships. He was a physician. As a physician he performed hundreds, probably thousands, of hours of study, research and experiments. He retired a Captain.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Your dad sounds pretty cool.

 

[JeffinOakland]

Your dad sounds pretty cool.

Thanks! He operated on President Reagan.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Whether or not Starfleet is a military depends on the iteration and the story. In Nick Meyer's Star Trek, Starfleet is military. In Roddenberry's original Star Trek, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

 

[Hypaspist]

The aged, ailing, TNG-era Roddenberry who'd bought into his own reputation as a visionary futurist claimed that Starfleet wasn't military. But the Roddenberry who created the series in the 1960s was himself a military veteran who chose to create a series revolving around a military crew and a captain who considered himself a soldier first and foremost. It's important not to confuse the attitudes of the late-1980s Roddenberry with those of the 1960s Roddenberry. He changed his mind about a lot of things.

That's the way I look at it. As much as 1960's Star Trek is always said to be groundbreaking, I think that it really represented the best of that era. It was optimistic, but also saw challenges ahead. It saw American ideals and the military as being noble, but futuristic and more advanced than at the time. Also, wasn't Koon himself a Marine and heavily involved in Star Trek as much as Gene himself?

The first two TNG seasons were just really bad in so many ways, and they are more dated. I'm thinking specifically of how, in the 1980s, everyone assumed that the more spectacular and ridiculous martial arts were, the more effective they were. That's why you had so many corny fights involving people doing high kicks and mystical aikido chi throws. Facepalms all around.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Star Fleet is a military. Captain Pike's line in ST09 is a good description of what Star Fleet is; "A peace keeping and humanitarian Armada".

 

[Christopher]

My dad was in the military (Navy) for 20 years. I doubt he was ever "trained for combat" and he served only a few briefs stints aboard any ships. He was a physician. As a physician he performed hundreds, probably thousands, of hours of study, research and experiments. He retired a Captain.

My father was drafted into the Navy during peacetime in the '50s. He served his entire term as a Musician Third Class on a naval base near Havre de Grace, Maryland, and he never once set foot on a ship. The closest thing to a naval vessel in his stories about his tenure in the Navy was this really great submarine-sandwich place he liked to visit.

Whether or not Starfleet is a military depends on the iteration and the story. In Nick Meyer's Star Trek, Starfleet is military. In Roddenberry's original Star Trek, sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

I think it's more a matter of how much the combat element is emphasized, rather than whether it's military or not. Again, just because an organization doesn't fight wars, that doesn't mean it isn't military. The US Coast Guard is military, in that it's an armed force empowered by the government to act in the interests of the nation's security. It just does so in a way that focuses on law enforcement, regulation, and public safety rather than combat. Starfleet is very much like the Coast Guard, if it were combined with NASA.

The only onscreen statement I'm aware of asserting that the Federation Starfleet was not a military organization was in TNG's "Peak Performance," a late second-season episode. At that point, Roddenberry had stepped back somewhat and Maurice Hurley was the showrunner, so I don't think that can be attributed to Roddenberry. There was Jaeger's line in "The Squire of Gothos" that "I'm a scientist, not a military man," but he was speaking of himself specifically, not the whole organization.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Earth Starfleet was not a military, but the Federation Starfleet is.

Right?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yes, period.

Starfleet is an armed force, authorized by the Federation to use force as an instrument of Federation policy. That doesn't imply that all missions involve strikes against Federation enemies. Plenty of missions have other objectives besides attacking enemies (e.g., exploration, research, rendering aid), though all Starfleet missions are undertaken to benefit the Federation, not necessarily to the exclusion of benefiting non-Federation members.

 

[C.E. Evans]

"We're a combined service..."
--Captain J.T. Kirk

For me, that covers all the bases and allows Starfleet to be whatever it wants to be depending on whatever mission its carrying out.

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