Starfleet Is Clueless About the Military

[A Little Otter]

Here's an article that proposes that Starfleet has no idea how a military actually operates (assuming of course that Starfleet is military):

Starfleet Is Clueless About the Military

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Gene Roddenberry said that Starfleet is not a military organization.

You can argue with that as much as you want, go right ahead - everyone else does. That fact does, however, constitute a fig leaf for every occasion on which the Franchise violates military common sense.

It's been an effective escape clause for decades now.

 

[ngc7293]

Here's an idea hundreds of years into the future, the way we do thing change. Military isn't the factor it was 300 years ago. A young man 300 years ago who couldn't drive a car can now "pilot" a starship. Some things don't change. A ship becomes a museum piece 300 years ago. In the Future, the E-A can too.

And, if you don't like the results, blame it on writer error!

 

[sojourner]

The writer of that blog got so many facts wrong it's pitiful.

 

[SchwEnt]

I suppose that is the best answer/excuse/rationale.

Starfleet is the military, but the military centuries from now is not the same as the military today is not the same as the military centuries ago.

 

[Caliburn24]

That article is picking on easy targets, which is fine, but nothing particularly revelatory.

Having served in the US Army in combat I can tell you that there are larger systemic issues that Starfleet, as depicted in Trek, has with military reality, whether it is real world or Trek reality. Heck, the US military has problems with reality, that cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives every year.

Organization, doctrine, mindset, institutional values, recruitment, equipment and everything else we have seen in Starfleet is totally wrong for fighting the fictional wars in Trek.

 

[captcalhoun]

Kirk: I'm a soldier not a diplomat.

i think Starfleet's military. it's just not militant.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Starfleet's a pseudo-military "humanitarian and peacekeeping armada" with a boner for exploration and cataloguing stuff.

That Captain Archer had to bring a platoon of MACOs (explicitly described as military) on board the Enterprise when things got rough ("The Expanse" etc) is pretty much an admission that Starfleet isn't really cut out for that kind of thing.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

I agree with many of the prior replies--Starfleet is not supposed to be the military and even if it was, its set in the future so it would be absurd to think nothing would change.

300 years ago: Colonels owned their own regiments--as in they recruited the men, found supplies for them, and then received bulk pay for the amount of men they claimed on the rolls from the local general;The commander of the English army was able to keep his job because his wife was the queen's girlfriend and lobbied for him. Imagine the scandal that would cause today. That's just off the top of my head.

Now for the points raised in that article:
1. If the United States was invaded today, how many of our troops would be in the U.S. ready to go into battle on the beaches within a week?

2. In WWII, the Soviets needed to keep large numbers of troops in Siberia to guard against Japan until the Japanese basically admitted they weren't going to attack. The British needed to do the same in Asia because the Japanese actually did attack. If Picard can't be trusted, why not use him to guard against a race that might use the Borg as an excuse to invade a weakened Federation. I don't necessarily say that Starfleet was right not to trust Picard.

3. Is frankly stupid. But considering how long Kirk and Picard kept their crews together and how easily Sisko rounded up the old gang when they retook DS9, Starfleet doesn't seem to have the same "if you're not promoted, you're clearly incompetent" theory that a lot of modern day everything has. But then again...a cadet?

4. Yeah, I can't really defend that one. Though field commissions on a extended mission that was truly far from Federation space could be plausible, was the Enterprise ever more than a day from the Federation?

5. I can live with Roddenberry's everyone in Starfleet is an officer thing. Today, how many people on a space shuttle mission would be considered "enlisted?" If Starfleet started out small and only had officers, I can see them expanding that as they got bigger and bigger. I would however like a little bit of consistency. All officers is one thing, but it seems that Starfleet is almost all officers with a few enlisted people thrown in for the really menial jobs and Chief O'Brien.

6. Could a U.S. Naval captain decide today to randomly invade The People's Democratic Jamboree of Upper Lower Riverland because he didn't like their new President-for-Life? Why should a Starfleet captain? We sort of have the prime directive today, only the preisdent and congress can choose to break it as often as they like.

7. Was the Enterprise-A supposed to be a new ship? Plus it was damaged somewhat by Chang.

 

[USS KG5]

5. I can live with Roddenberry's everyone in Starfleet is an officer thing. Today, how many people on a space shuttle mission would be considered "enlisted?" If Starfleet started out small and only had officers, I can see them expanding that as they got bigger and bigger. I would however like a little bit of consistency. All officers is one thing, but it seems that Starfleet is almost all officers with a few enlisted people thrown in for the really menial jobs and Chief O'Brien.

They fix a lot of this in DS9 as well, and to a lesser extent Voyager with lots of "crewmen" and other enlisted engineers etc. Also a lot of enlisted crew show up in TNG (like Crewman Tarses) but are very much the minority of who we see on screen. That said, we never see large chunks of the ship and crew and that could be huge areas with few officers.

The idea of dozens of officers with no-one to command is a bit daft in the context of a modern military, but Starfleet seems to have a more relaxed attitude to rank. This is no bad thing if the chain of command holds together.

7. Was the Enterprise-A supposed to be a new ship? Plus it was damaged somewhat by Chang.

Plus who says it wasn't just mothballed? The peace treaty with the Klingons no doubt called for large reductions in fleet size, Starfleet probably mothballed the Constitution class so they could keep upgrading to Excelsiors.

The thing the article really misses compared to the real military I've always found funny is that pretty much everyone we see commanding a ship holds the rank of Captain. The commander of the most lowly frigate or science ship has a rank equal to Picard!

You are left to wonder how on Earth do officers get command experience? When the Captain is on holiday and no other time? Though I guess as Starfleet has enough ships that they are happy enough to promote a precocious cadet to Captain after one heroic mission, it isn't an issue!

 

[Count Zero]

Though I guess as Starfleet has enough ships that they are happy enough to promote a precocious cadet to Captain after one heroic mission, it isn't an issue!

Hehe. Well, they also lost nearly all of the current academy graduates in the movie and a substantial part of their officer corps. So, I guess the directive was promote them while you can.

 

[T'Girl]

If Starfleet isn't the federation's "military," they are certainly assigned to that role. Waging war, performing patrols, exploration, protecting civilians, responding to natural disasters.

Starfleet Leaves Its Base of Operations Unprotected.
Washington DC is protected by the 1st fighter wing, base in nearby Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, the "First Fighters." In 2005 they were the first operational wing equipped with the F-22A Raptor air superiority stealth fighter. In 1976, they were the first operation wing of the then brand new F-15A Eagle.

Why do they get the newest, best, fighters? Because they protect the nation's capital. Starfleet sends it best ships out to the frontier.

... worried about [Picard] allegiance to Starfleet, they temporarily relieve him of command and place him in a position where he can advise without possibly doing harm. This makes a lot of sense, sending Picard to the RNZ deprived Starfleet of a powerful Starship. And with Picard in a advisory position, how much sooner could his strategy of "concentrate all fire here" been implemented, if he had been stand at the side of the admiral in command of the fleet? Hours previously?

Promoting a Disobedient Cadet with Three Years Experience to Captain.
Covered in depth in multiple threads. Two and a half years later it still is a meaningless and stupid idea.

Wesley.
***sigh***

Over all, the article was fifty/fifty. Starfleet did have other enlisted personnel, not just O"Brien. I never felt that the Enterprise A was removed from service when Kirk and crew left her. Kirk's final log entry said that the ship was getting a new crew. The author was basically correct, if short, on the Prime Directive.

o

 

[Anwar]

Everyone keeps forgetting that Trek is centuries in the future is isn't just "America in Space", they've co-existed with aliens who have their own ideas about things as well in equal partnerships.

Is it really so hard to believe that after 300 years of that, the future idea of what their military should be would be somewhat different than ours?

 

[EmperorTiberius]

That article is idiotic. Anyone who has watched enough Trek can easily debunk most of that nonsense.

 

[Deks]

Is it really so hard to believe that after 300 years of that, the future idea of what their military should be would be somewhat different than ours?

Apparently it is... along with the premise that money doesn't exist for Humanity and the Federation (since it's inception - except when dealing with cultures that still use it or individuals that live outside the system as the Feds established it).

People apparently are having issues accepting the premise that things change.
Humanity certainly has the capacity for rapid change in a relatively small amount of time.

I enjoy the prospect of having as little as possible of things that in Trek 'relate to how things are done in real life', because it's absurd to think that things WOULD be the same.
We don't know.
I agreed with Roddenberry's 'extreme' ideas that went as far away from what has been established in real life.
That was actually a realistic interpretation of one possible future in my opinion.
Of course, numerous people will oppose this because they 'need' something to 'relate to'.
Lol... I find it completely needless and idiotic for a setting that's over a century ahead of ours (with plenty of in-between that would facilitate the NEED for the aforementioned change).

 

[EmperorTiberius]

Is it really so hard to believe that after 300 years of that, the future idea of what their military should be would be somewhat different than ours?

Apparently it is... along with the premise that money doesn't exist for Humanity and the Federation (since it's inception - except when dealing with cultures that still use it or individuals that live outside the system as the Feds established it).

People apparently are having issues accepting the premise that things change.
Humanity certainly has the capacity for rapid change in a relatively small amount of time.

I enjoy the prospect of having as little as possible of things that in Trek 'relate to how things are done in real life', because it's absurd to think that things WOULD be the same.
We don't know.
I agreed with Roddenberry's 'extreme' ideas that went as far away from what has been established in real life.
That was actually a realistic interpretation of one possible future in my opinion.
Of course, numerous people will oppose this because they 'need' something to 'relate to'.
Lol... I find it completely needless and idiotic for a setting that's over a century ahead of ours (with plenty of in-between that would facilitate the NEED for the aforementioned change).

Whenever I was a kid watching TNG, I loved it because it felt so futuristic. It was so strange, like an alien culture, but these were obviously humans I saw on screen. It really felt like you were in the 24th century.

 

[T'Girl]

Is it really so hard to believe that after 300 years of that, the future idea of what their military should be would be somewhat different than ours?

Somewhat different like leaving your capital undefended, even through you have the obvious capacity to defend it? Even during times of war, a sizable portion of the British navy was kept in home waters.

So different that when the Captain of your newest flagship is disabled, you don't simply reassign a experienced captain or first officer from the fleet in the Laurentian system to take command? When Captain Honors of the (real) USS Enterprise was fired this past January, the US Navy installed Captain Mewbourne, chief of staff for Cyber Command. They didn't give command of the USS Enterpise to a third year cadet.

People apparently are having issues accepting the premise that things change.

Well certainly trouble accepting that things change to the point that they wouldn't work. You don't design your defenses around requiring a "miracle save" whenever your capital is attacked.

Of course, numerous people will oppose this because they 'need' something to 'relate to'.

Would that "something" be the reality of their own life experiences and thousands of years of history as to what actual works?

(incidentally ... money work)

If the United States was invaded today, how many of our troops would be in the U.S. ready to go into battle on the beaches within a week?

Of the one and a quarter million people in the active US military, one million are in the "lower forty-eight." forty thousand are in Hawaii, twenty thousand in Alaska. The remainder are out of county. So to answer your question ... most.

Plus, reserves, guard, militias, police, and the most heavily armed civilian population in the world.

how many people on a space shuttle mission would be considered "enlisted"

The shuttle is basically a high flying plane, however the mission commander and the shuttle pilot are the "officers" (usually actually are), and the various mission specialists would be the "enlisted," in terms of division of command authority.

Could a U.S. Naval captain decide today to randomly invade ...

Depending on his (hers) mission orders and rules of engagement, yes they might have that discretion. Certainly to enter another countries air space, or territorial waters. Even land troops on foreign soil by their own orders (say a aircrew was down) without needing to check "upstairs".

and a substantial part of their officer corps.

If you lose ten percent of your ships with all their officers, the ratio of officers to ships increases, because in any (modern admittedly) service, the majority of your officers aren't on ships at any given time. The fleet being decimated over Vulcan would have made it less likely that Kirk would have gotten a command, not increased it.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Everyone keeps forgetting that Trek is centuries in the future is isn't just "America in Space", they've co-existed with aliens who have their own ideas about things as well in equal partnerships.

Is it really so hard to believe that after 300 years of that, the future idea of what their military should be would be somewhat different than ours?

There's no evidence that Starfleet got its notions of how to operate from aliens. How Starfleet became "Jacques Cousteau with photon torpedos" is still unexplained. (ENT would have been a great opportunity for an explanation, but no such luck...)

However, there is some evidence that the Starfleet of the 23rd C was more military-oriented than in the 24th, at least during peacetime. The bigger difference is that in the 23rd C, they seemed to be more of a police force for the Federation and that dropped off the radar in the 24th C.

 

[Anwar]

TOS' idea was that the Federation was the "Earth Federation" and that instead of outright conquering aliens they offered them limited partnerships. It was all a benign Terran Empire, but that doesn't really excuse their laziness in how things were otherwise 100% the same in human society.

TNG+, the idea was that the Federation really was a multi-species cooperative and not human-dominated and we only saw so many humans for expense-related reasons.

 

[YARN]

Starfleet is not supposed to be the military and even if it was, its set in the future so it would be absurd to think nothing would change.

Whether or not something is military has nothing to do with

1. Level of Technology.

2. Whether or not an organization self-avows that it is a military.