Is Starfleet a military or not?

[J.T.B.]

To break down the question a little: Is Starfleet what would be considered a military service in our time? I think unquestionably yes. No matter what else it does, it fights wars. Pretty clear-cut.

Is it what would be considered a military in its own time? Maybe ideally a more nuanced answer would apply, depending on how that society has evolved and how it sees its institutions, but in the end the depictions often end up based on real-world models so I still say yes, a military service.

One thing that I always point out in these discussions is that there aren't an exact real-world comparisons for Sarfleet, because its most formidable threats can be encountered unforeseen in the course of its exploration. If the minor warships the Royal Navy sent on scientific and survey missions in the 18th-19th centuries kept being destroyed by previously-unknown bigger ships -- or sea monsters -- they would probably begin giving the scientists rides on ships with close-to-maximum fighting power, and exploration (assuming they chose to keep doing it at all) would take on a more "military" tone.

IIRC, in TOS, everyone had officer ranks. Sure, they had "Transporter Chief" or "Security Chief" or "Yeoman", but those seemed to be more titles than ranks or grades. Everyone seemed to be out of Starfleet Academy.

Well there were Technicians First Class Thule and Harrison mentioned in "Space Seed" and Yeoman Third Class Lawton in "Charlie X." The bad thing was that the officer rank of ensign and everyone below seemed to wear the same rank insignia: none.

 

[Christopher]

IIRC, in TOS, everyone had officer ranks. Sure, they had "Transporter Chief" or "Security Chief" or "Yeoman", but those seemed to be more titles than ranks or grades. Everyone seemed to be out of Starfleet Academy.

No, there were actually quite a lot of crewmen and petty officers in TOS, such as CPO Garison from "The Cage" and the ill-fated Crewman Green in "The Man Trap." And yeoman is an enlisted rating; none of the yeomen in the show had any rank stripes on their uniforms.

 

[The Colonel]

I think it is useful to ask yourself "If Starfleet isn't the military arm of the Federation than what it is?" There is no other organization shown on screen or mentioned that could fulfill the role of a military for the Federation. Starfleet is shown to be primarily responsible for the defense of the Federation and a main tool of its foreign policy. The fact that it preforms additional missions, such as diplomacy, exploration and humanitarian assistance should not be viewed as evidence that Starfleet is not a military organization. There is historical precedence for militaries undertaking these roles. Naval vessels in the age of sail were often were tasked with exploration and their Captains often made treaties with native tribes and foreign powers. In 1853 US Commodore Mathew Perry sailed with a task force to Japan to open diplomatic and trade relations. The Russian Navy was instrumental in the exploration of the Pacific coast of Asia and modern day Alaska as well establishing relations with natives to further the fur trade. The modern US military engages in humanitarian missions and efforts to support US political engagement in foreign countries at a far greater rate than it participates in actual combat. It also supports large scientific expeditions in the Antarctic and efforts to explore and map the ocean floor.

The primary focus of any military is to maintain the capability to effectively engage in warfare in the defense of the state. But it is also a general tool of foreign policy and its unique capabilities are often employed in diverse ways to support the political goals and general welfare of the state. So I don't find Starfleet's diverse set of missions to be incongruous to its on screen establishment as a military organization.

Some fans on this thread and elsewhere like to use the term "paramilitary" to describe Starfleet, but this term is problematic in this context. In political science it is used to refer to organizations that have military like command structure and equipment but have either sprung informally from civil society (such as the Shia militias in Iraq) or are internal police forces not involved in international affairs (such as Egypt's Central Security Forces). Now this definition sometimes becomes hazy. Often, when a state is dominated by a single political party there is a paramilitary force that is sponsored by that party and made up exclusively of its members. These often exist in parallel with the formal military, carry out similar functions and sometimes even match or overtake the military in size and power which is the case with the Revolutionary Guards in Iran. These organizations are still called paramilitary because in a strict legal sense they are an arm of a political party not part of the state itself, even though in practice the state and the party are one and the same, there is a veneer of law that separates them.

Starfleet doesn't fit any of the conditions to which we could reasonably apply the term paramilitary. It is neither an internal police force, an informal militia, the armed wing of a political party nor does it exist in parallel to a more formal Federation military.

 

[Christopher]

I think it is useful to ask yourself "If Starfleet isn't the military arm of the Federation than what it is?" There is no other organization shown on screen or mentioned that could fulfill the role of a military for the Federation. Starfleet is shown to be primarily responsible for the defense of the Federation and a main tool of its foreign policy. The fact that it preforms additional missions, such as diplomacy, exploration and humanitarian assistance should not be viewed as evidence that Starfleet is not a military organization....

Excellent analysis.

However, things do get a little different when we look back at Earth Starfleet in the Enterprise era. Although that version of Starfleet did have a military rank structure, Enterprise was initially not a well-armed ship and had no defensive or security purpose to its initially defined mission. More importantly, it was established that, at the time, there was a distinct military organization, the MACOs (basically space Marines), that had a contingent assigned aboard ship when it was sent on a clearly defined military mission in the third season. Later, in season 4, Captain Hernandez expressed unease at the suggestion of having "military" personnel such as MACOs as part of her crew.

So while the Federation Starfleet of the 23rd and 24th centuries is undeniably a military despite the occasional misleading line in episodes like "Peak Performance," it seems pretty clear that the Earth Starfleet of the 2150s was considered more an exploratory service, more NASA than the Navy. Perhaps there was some earlier defense organization from which the early Earth Starfleet drew its personnel, much as NASA drew its astronauts from the Air Force and the like, hence the use of a rank structure despite the lack of a dedicated combat/defense role.

 

[The Colonel]

I think it is useful to ask yourself "If Starfleet isn't the military arm of the Federation than what it is?" There is no other organization shown on screen or mentioned that could fulfill the role of a military for the Federation. Starfleet is shown to be primarily responsible for the defense of the Federation and a main tool of its foreign policy. The fact that it preforms additional missions, such as diplomacy, exploration and humanitarian assistance should not be viewed as evidence that Starfleet is not a military organization....

Excellent analysis.

However, things do get a little different when we look back at Earth Starfleet in the Enterprise era. Although that version of Starfleet did have a military rank structure, Enterprise was initially not a well-armed ship and had no defensive or security purpose to its initially defined mission. More importantly, it was established that, at the time, there was a distinct military organization, the MACOs (basically space Marines), that had a contingent assigned aboard ship when it was sent on a clearly defined military mission in the third season. Later, in season 4, Captain Hernandez expressed unease at the suggestion of having "military" personnel such as MACOs as part of her crew.

So while the Federation Starfleet of the 23rd and 24th centuries is undeniably a military despite the occasional misleading line in episodes like "Peak Performance," it seems pretty clear that the Earth Starfleet of the 2150s was considered more an exploratory service, more NASA than the Navy. Perhaps there was some earlier defense organization from which the early Earth Starfleet drew its personnel, much as NASA drew its astronauts from the Air Force and the like, hence the use of a rank structure despite the lack of a dedicated combat/defense role.

You're absolutely correct about the early Earth Starfleet. The MACO's definitely came from a separate United Earth military and Starfleet was more like a futuristic NASA. I think ENT was starting to show how the two were becoming integrated out of necessity. I assume that after the founding of the Federation, Starfleet formally took on a military role.

 

[Christopher]

^In my Rise of the Federation novels, I've assumed that the MACOs became Starfleet Security once the Federation was founded and the services integrated.

 

[Timo]

the Enterprise era. Although that version of Starfleet did have a military rank structure, Enterprise was initially not a well-armed ship and had no defensive or security purpose to its initially defined mission. More importantly, it was established that, at the time, there was a distinct military organization, the MACOs (basically space Marines), that had a contingent assigned aboard ship when it was sent on a clearly defined military mission in the third season.

That's having it backward, I think. By all appearances, NX-01 was Starfleet's first-ever deep space exploration vessel, its crew quite untried and untrained in the art of exploring. Yet Starfleet prior to the creation of NX-01 had existed for decades at least; had officers much senior to Archer in service; and (as seen in "The Expanse") operated plenty of other stargoing vessels, armed to the teeth and capable of fending off a Klingon warship.

In ENT, Starfleet was a combat organization that dabbled in doing some exploration. After ENT, it became a more diverse organization in many respects, perhaps losing some of its martial character in the process. That Starfleet was a combat-dedicated force does not mean Earth wouldn't have been teeming with other such forces, though. In parallel with Starfleet Command, there would be Military Command; in parallel with Starfleet Assault Command, the Military Assault Command; in parallel with Starfleet Logistics Command, the Military Logistics Command. Further combat forces could be postulated as well, for the various other realms of warfare - atmospheric combat forces, undersea combat forces, cyberspace combat forces, what-have-you.

It doesn't stop there, even. "Earth" had Starfleet, but on Earth there also existed the Royal Navy, at least briefly in parallel. Was the latter an arm of the United Earth, or of the United Kingdom? For all we know, old nation-states and new corporations alike had their own armies at least until the 2150 unification, and possibly beyond it.

As for Military Assault Command being somehow more militant than Starfleet Command, there's no physical evidence on that. Archer's gunmen were no different from Hayes' gunmen, save for the color of uniform they wore; if anything, Archer in S1-2 had heavier infantry weaponry aboard than Hayes in S3. Archer's folks fired the phase cannon and the photonic torpedoes quite independently, even if Hayes' folks also showed competence and clearance (or at least gall amounting to those).

In terms of what we see on screen, Earth simply had (at least) two branches of combat forces, with historical "territories" that would go into turmoil with the Xindi attack and apparently be significantly changed if not completely forgotten with the founding of the Federation and its own armed forces.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Last Redshirt]

Yes, and I really don't understand arguments which say it isn't. It has military ranks, use military equipment, protect and defend the Federation, and fight for it in times of war. I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a military. I'd be tempted to call Starfleet, if we were to drag in modern-day equivalences, a mix of the Navy, the Coast Guard, the NOAA, NASA, and a couple of other agencies like that.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

In my Rise of the Federation novels, I've assumed that the MACOs became Starfleet Security once the Federation was founded and the services integrated.

So you don't believe in a Starfleet Marine Corps, then?

As for SF Security: I always thought they were just in charge of security on board a ship. They are all the redshirts, as it were. And we all know what always happens to redshirts; somehow I doubt a professional fighting force like the MACOs would be that sloppy.

I mean, I wouldn't think that Starfleet would just pick redshirts, or any other starship crew, and send them to the front lines as ground troops. You can't be both. There must always be specialization. Starfleet has to has some branch of itself which is dedicated solely to ground combat; taking starship crew and turning them into infantry on a whim, would not seem to make a ton of sense. IMHO.

(Now as to what this ground service is actually called? That's anybody's guess. I prefer to believe in a SFMC, since it's most efficient. )

 

[Push The Button]

In my Rise of the Federation novels, I've assumed that the MACOs became Starfleet Security once the Federation was founded and the services integrated.

So you don't believe in a Starfleet Marine Corps, then?

From the halls of Mount Seleya
To the shores of Cestus Three..

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The existence of a COLONEL West would seem to be telling...

 

[Nerys Myk]

The existence of a COLONEL West would seem to be telling...

us that Starfleet had colonels. If he's a Marine, a Security officer or some other "ground pounder" type isn't clear.

 

[fireproof78]

The existence of a COLONEL West would seem to be telling...

In universe, yes it does raise a question, but it could always be viewed as a transition from the "Commodore" rank which was rarely used after TOS

Out of universe, Colonel West was a word play on the RL Colonel Ollie North, famous (in the US) for his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Not fun history there

However, even some of the EU explanations don't necessarily list him as part of the MC but either a high ranking admiral acting as a colonel (i.e. commanding a large ground contingent) or as an honorary title.

If you want an interesting examination in to the early development of Starfleet, from a concept point of view, read Heinlein's "Space Cadet" as the Solar Patrol served as an inspiration for Starfleet

 

[Hypaspist]

The more I think of TUC the more I get annoyed with it. The first time I made the Oliver North connection it was a pretty big face-palm moment. Of course, "West" is probably supposed to also be 'the west,' as in NATO and the US. That and the whole troglodyte characterization of pretty much everybody is pretty much the opposite of what I think Starfleet is supposed to be. It's one of the reasons that I always liked how Star Trek is not like every other show on television. The episodes that age to worst are the ones where they try to make analogies like this.

At least one of the good things about Into Darkness is that the evil admiral is a rogue, sort of like Section 31 is always depicted as. Everybody is concerned about an upcoming war. It is more of conflicting types of loyalty - should we take the extreme measure or not? The plot isn't brilliant or anything, but at least it's not insulting.

 

[wulfio]

What's the connection to Oliver North?

And how does west represent the western world?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What's the connection to Oliver North?

And how does west represent the western world?

To the first, I would say Colonel Compass Direction is your answer.

To the second, when constructing an East-West metaphor, unless you're incompetent, you don't introduce a character named West if you aren't intending to make an editorial comment about the West of some kind.

Beyond the superficial name selection, West being up to subterfuge parallels North having been up to subterfuge.

Good show, Hypaspist, for picking up on this and pointing it out.

 

[Hypaspist]

Thanks

The funny thing is that it's still a pretty good movie overall. There are just some irritating things you have to ignore or it really shows its age. Wrath of Khan, by contrast, has mostly weak special effects, but the story itself doesn't age poorly.

 

[CaptainJohn]

It's important to remember that when the Enterprise D was built the Federation was in a relative state of peace and thus Starfleet ship design reflected this.Had they been in a state of greater conflict the design would have reflected this as is seen in alternate timelines and in future designs as large conflicts with no immediate resolution begin to arise.
Starfleet is the exploration and peacekeeping branch of the Federation. A self defense force is still a military.

 

[Mytran]

Except that when we see the Enterprise-D in Yesterday's Enterprise it is externally identical to the usual one we know, and yet lives in a universe that's been at war with the Klingons for 20 years!

This would suggest that the overall design was pretty well suited for large combat oriented military manoeuvres

 

[Christopher]

In my Rise of the Federation novels, I've assumed that the MACOs became Starfleet Security once the Federation was founded and the services integrated.

So you don't believe in a Starfleet Marine Corps, then?

There's no canonical evidence of one. It's entirely fan conjecture. Besides, the way ENT treated the MACOs in season 4 seemed to suggest that they were intended to be the forerunners of Starfleet Security.

My thinking is that the early Federation Starfleet (in the books) was a blend of existing organizations (including UESPA, the Andorian Guard, the Vulcan Space Council, etc.), and since MACOs had been working closely with Starfleet in space operations ever since the Xindi crisis, it seemed logical that they would be folded in as well.

The existence of a COLONEL West would seem to be telling...

Except that he wore a Starfleet uniform with a vice admiral's rank pin, which would correspond to a lieutenant general. Memory Alpha speculates that he may have been a Starfleet vice admiral with the billet (job title) of colonel.

Anyway, there's nothing to preclude the Federation from creating a new entity to fill the role of ground forces/marines at a later time. They wouldn't have to be a direct continuation of the MACOs.