Is Starfleet a military organization?

Regardless of the objective merits of that argument -- personally I assume they do have enhanced capacity small units (up to DEVGRU/SBS/USCG-DSFs) for short notice combat operations, but have the ability to call up army/aviation formations (infantry, cavalry/armor, fighters) during war via a system similar to the US (Air) National Guard -- lack of standing army is typically step one on the "getting rid of the military" for most nations in the RW.

 

lack of a standing army is normally typically step one on the "getting rid of self governance" for most nations in the rw

see - i fixed it for you

 

You guys are really keeping this alive?

For shame....I expected more.

 

you may try to court martial us for it, sir (i guess i get into trouble if i quote joe haldeman)

 

No court martial....just shame!

 

[insert famous joe haldeman quote]

 

Wow! "What About Bob!!" That just made my entire day!

 

military vs nonmilitary; talk about your Forever War...

 

It could be worse. We could be talking about whether Starfleet is a paid military or not...

 

they are able to play poker ...

 

To be fair, the military wasn't seen in a particularly "good" light in 1966-69.

 

I started the thread because I've never had or heard this discussion and I wanted to see what a bunch of smart, informed, and erudite people thought.

I'm finding it fun and thought-provoking, but don't feel you have to play if you don't want to.

 

LMAO!

 

Not by me. I ain't THAT stupid!

 

Thanks!
I've learned something new today.

 

in correct. paramilitary can be part of government organizations, they just can't be part of the official military/Armed Forces. case in point, the FBI's Hostage Rescue teams, Civil Air Patrol, etc.
which is likely why starfleet maintains that "we're not a military" legalese.. honestly i would not be surprised if the founding of the federation didn't define them as a paramilitary exploration and peacekeeping force and established that the federation as a whole has no military, allowing the member states to maintain official military forces instead. which initially would have been a way to avoid the issue of the long running hostilities three of the four founding members had been engage in less than a generation before. "you can keep your own navies for self defense, but we're going to be setting up this neutral paramilitary force you all are expected to contribute to in order to help prevent those old wars from starting back up"
and then because it was a convenient entity with less political hassle than seconding the member navies to the role, said neutral force wound up fighting most of the federation's armed conflicts with non-federation powers.
(given that ENT establishes that there are still national military's within the United Earth that are separate from Earth Starfleet, i suspect that the United Earth was already using something similar, which might have been the inspiration.)

i will agree though that during some periods of time Starfleet is much more militarized than it nominally is supposed to be.. the 2270's and 2280's of the TMP era for example, and during the Dominion war. of course those are all times of increased conflict, where the paramilitary aspects of the service would have been more vital to the survival of the federation.

 

No matter how you look at that, it doesn't make sense. Even if we entertain the idea Starfleet is a non-military space exploration service, why would space explorers engage in domestic law enforcement on a regular basis?

Defense is never secondary. After all, when the Borg or the Dominion come calling, Starfleet never just sits back and says "Not dealing with that today. Today we're exploring/doing science."

Contrary to popular belief, militaries don't always solve problems by coming in with guns blazing and shooting first and asking questions never. Most militaries will gladly resort to force as a last resort as well.

Indeed, that tends to be a problem with Star Trek's depiction of military, including the intentionally militaristic takes on Starfleet we see in the Mirror Universe or Yesterday's Enterprise. The military are always depicted as bad tempered stern aggressors with uniforms that either have stiff collars, shoulder epaulets, or visible belts that only know violence that can't solve the problems as opposed to Starfleet which tries to avoid violence and find the solution diplomatically or scientifically that turns out to be obvious but the military is too stubborn to see. We see this play out in Disco's third season where Disco arrives in 32nd century Earth to find Starfleet and the Federation have been expelled and Earth is now defended by the United Earth Defense Force which fires on anything that enters Earth orbit and have trouble being harassed by alien raiders. But then the peaceful Starfleet arrives and reveals through diplomacy that the so called alien raiders are actually human refugees from elsewhere in the Sol System. Or then there's 32nd century Starfleet, which has had to abandon science and exploration to focus solely on defending what's left of the Federation and therefore never learned what caused the Burn for an entire century. But then Disco and its crew of explorers from the Federation's halcyon days show up and by disobeying orders they conduct science and learn the cause of the Burn in a matter of months.

In reality, there are situations where the military can find a peaceful solution, just as even on Star Trek there are situations where Starfleet shoots first and asks questions later, despite the franchise's party line to the contrary on both counts.

I meant no disrespect towards you. My comment was in response to MLB wondering why this is still debated in light of a line from Picard, despite the fact that this has been debated before in light of similar lines in the other shows and movies.

 

When has Starfleet ever done that?