Is Starfleet Military?

[Kor]

I haven't kept up with this thread at all until now. But going back to the Japan Self-Defense Forces parallel a couple pages back (I've mentioned it in past threads on this very topic as well)... much like with Picard's views on Starfleet, the Japanese public largely believes that the SDF is not a military. Recruitment materials only highlight stuff like disaster relief, medical assistance and the like. If you know anyone from Japan, they will likely react with surprise and be quick to correct you if you suggest that it is a military/army.

Perhaps Starfleet's PR and recruitment materials are likewise silent on anything that could be perceived as militaristic.

Kor

 

[BillJ]

I think the better question is: does the Federation use its military (Starfleet) more wisely than other large nations of the past that we can compare it to?

 

[fireproof78]

Recruitment materials only highlight stuff like disaster relief, medical assistance and the like.

Funny enough, so does the local National Guard and Air National Guard ads.

 

[BillJ]

I haven't kept up with this thread at all until now. But going back to the Japan Self-Defense Forces parallel a couple pages back (I've mentioned it in past threads on this very topic as well)... much like with Picard's views on Starfleet, the Japanese public largely believes that the SDF is not a military. Recruitment materials only highlight stuff like disaster relief, medical assistance and the like. If you know anyone from Japan, they will likely react with surprise and be quick to correct you if you suggest that it is a military/army.

Perhaps Starfleet's PR and recruitment materials are likewise silent on anything that could be perceived as militaristic.

Kor

I think the Japanese probably have a view of their armed forces that really isn't applicable anywhere else in the world, as they have little to no offensive capabilities and the US is charged with much of its national defense.

The Federation clearly uses Starfleet as its primary defensive and offensive force, there is no one else (that we've ever seen across nearly 60 years) that is that defensive arm.

 

[Citiprime]

Here's something to ponder about this: Do people think Starfleet would have something akin to a special operations command? If there was a sensitive operation that needed the equivalent of SEAL Team 6 operators to pull it off, does Starfleet have a dedicated division that's meant to deal with crises and threats?

The militaries of our world do, whether it be the SEALs, Delta Force, SAS, Spetsnaz, etc., but from what we've seen on-screen, Starfleet doesn't.

When Sisko has to expose the changeling in the Klingon leadership, him and his crew have to improvise a way to make it work. When Picard is sent on the secret mission in "Chain of Command," Beverly and Worf are expected to get the training down for the operation, instead of just sending a Starfleet unit trained in infiltration with Picard.

 

[fireproof78]

Here's something to ponder about this: Do people think Starfleet would have something akin to a special operations command? If there was a sensitive operation that needed the equivalent of SEAL Team 6 operators to pull it off, does Starfleet have a dedicated division that's meant to deal with crises and threats?

I would think that they do, but Starfleet also relies upon people with first hand knowledge, so Kirk and Spock are tapped for infiltrating a Romulan ship; Picard, Worf and Beverly with a Cardassian outpost, etc. So, imagine yes, but Starfleet relies on them less.

 

[Farscape One]

Sisko's undercover operation, I can understand sending him... he had more experience with Changelings than amyone else in Starfleet, a fact Admiral Leyton even said when he arrived on Earth in "HOMEFRONT".

Picard is a little trickier... though he was the only officer still in Starfleet who had extensive knowledge and experience with theta band transmissions.

 

[Citiprime]

I haven't kept up with this thread at all until now. But going back to the Japan Self-Defense Forces parallel a couple pages back (I've mentioned it in past threads on this very topic as well)... much like with Picard's views on Starfleet, the Japanese public largely believes that the SDF is not a military. Recruitment materials only highlight stuff like disaster relief, medical assistance and the like. If you know anyone from Japan, they will likely react with surprise and be quick to correct you if you suggest that it is a military/army.

Perhaps Starfleet's PR and recruitment materials are likewise silent on anything that could be perceived as militaristic.

One important note about the Japanese system: It wasn't exactly their choice. The Japanese constitution (at least the original post-1945 one) was written largely with the influence of the US occupation government and General Douglas MacArthur. It's also largely predicated on the promise that the United States will basically be the thrust of Japan's military if the worst happens.

Wild guessing trying to apply something like this to Starfleet and the Federation: maybe the treaty which ended the Earth-Romulan War and created the neutral zone entailed a compromise in which the Romulans agreed to retreat their side of the galaxy if the races that comprise the Federation promised never to amass a standing military force. And maybe the Federation sidesteps that condition by claiming Starfleet vessels are exploratory vessels only with "defensive" weapons.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Here's something to ponder about this: Do people think Starfleet would have something akin to a special operations command? If there was a sensitive operation that needed the equivalent of SEAL Team 6 operators to pull it off, does Starfleet have a dedicated division that's meant to deal with crises and threats?

I'm not clear on the JSDF (though they appear to have recently established an amphibious warfare unit), but the US Coast Guard do have various unit for specialist security/counter-terrorism work (PSUs, TACLET, MSST, MSRT) and various non-military operations (National Strike Force).

 

[The Wormhole]

Do people think Starfleet would have something akin to a special operations command?

Logically, you'd think they would. Even if there's no mention of one onscreen, the tie-ins do mention them all the time. There's there generically named Starfleet Special Ops in the Litverse, a group called Starfleet Rangers in Jeri Taylor's novel Mosaic, and I think STO had the MACOs revived in the 25th century to function as Starfleet's special ops.

 

[Oddish]

At some point in time the Federation would be reasonable in creating a military because they are at near constant war.

Or reinterpreting Starfleet's mission. Just tell everyone: "you're in the space navy now!"

The organisation that would take the place of the US Navy if it didn't exist is the US Coast Guard, an organisation which already has military status legally (and vessels comparable or upgradable to the smaller warships (patrol boats, corvettes and even frigates) of several second-tier countries), but operates as a de jure non-military force in piece time due to not being under the Department of Defence so that it can carry out its law enforcement operations without violating Posse Comitatus or related policies.

Sounds like "neither fish nor fowl". Maybe a bit like Starfleet, which would explain this topic (and its predecessors) reaching an impasse.

The other thing about Starfleet that we've seen in various series is that Starfleet is intended to be a credible deterrent. We've seen Romulans, Klingons, and Cardasians all resorting to suberterfuge rather than a direct confrontation with Starfleet.

Either these powers are far friendlier and / or weaker than we've been given reason to believe or they take the threat of

Maybe their tech base is sufficiently inferior that they have similar capabilities, even if their warships are built as warships and Starfleet's are not. After all, Starfleet had to agree not to develop cloaking tech, when doing so would have given them a sizable advantage.

 

[Quantum21]

Sorta-kinda?

I would say organizationally it may be but protocol-wise less so.

We also can't expect strict adherence to 21-century traditions in something 300 years hence.

 

[Tallguy]

We also can't expect strict adherence to 21-century traditions in something 300 years hence.

It's not this tradition or that tradition or this rank or that rank. It's "Hey, this is the organization that defends the Federation" and hopefully (over the objections of Old Baldy) trains and is equipped to do so. If they want to do it in bunk beds and metal floors or with spacious quarters and Hyatt Regency carpeting, it doesn't matter.

For instance I never saw the uniforms in TOS or TMP as "less military" than the Monster Maroons from The Wrath of Khan. For one thing, at the same time that Starfleet was wearing "70's hippie pajamas" was also when the Enterprise got a dedicated weapons console. The uniforms changed but the crews still acted the same.

BTW, there has been some discussion about Starfleet's capabilities compared with neighbor states. Here's what The Great Bird had to say about it:

"In the past, Starfleet’s best had proved only marginally superior to earlier Klingon designs and these K’t’inga class heavies could signal new problems for Starfleet’s present starships."

So 1) a reasonable parity and 2) Starfleet was concerned about Klingon advances and their future mission of having to deal with those advances. And given that we know that the Enterprise refit had improved shields and increased phaser power they were doing something about it.

 

[The Wormhole]

I would say organizationally it may be but protocol-wise less so.

"Protocol-wise less so"? If anything, protocol-wise Starfleet is even more. We see a lot of military protocols, particularly naval protocols being adhered to in Starfleet throughout all the series. Things like Bosun's whistles to announce a ranking officer arriving on the ship, to having an officer state "Captain on the bridge" when the ship's CO arrives. Even the wording for a Captain being assigned command of a ship "You are hereby requested and required to assume command USS ______ effective immediately" is based on 18th century naval traditions. Starfleet adheres rather faithfully to military protocols for a allegedly non-military organization.

 

[Oddish]

Sorta-kinda?

Probably the best answer to the question anyone here's given. Myself included. Well done.

 

[XCV330]

NOAA and NASA are uniformed services, not armed services. The former's ships have small arms lockers, but that's mainly for piracy or mutiny. And I doubt anyone's taking any guns on the space shuttle.

NASA is not a uniformed service. There are military personnel who may be on temporary assignment with NASA but they maintain their own rank and uniform. Astronaut attire is no more a uniform than the bunny suits worn in the clean room or the overalls on the cleaning staff.

 

[Paul Weaver]

I suspect you are looking at only the US’s definition, and I fear that is where so much of the disagreement stems from. The USians think the federation and starfleet is analogous to modern day america and there’s fore use modern day definitions to fill in the blanks from the on screen evidence.

For what it’s worth, Wikipedia specifically lists the merchant navy of my country as a uniformed service, as well as the coastguard, the rnli, air ambulance, boy scouts, mountain rescue etc, as well as the usual police, fire etc.

 

[XCV330]

I suspect you are looking at only the US’s definition, and I fear that is where so much of the disagreement stems from. The USians think the federation and starfleet is analogous to modern day america and there’s fore use modern day definitions to fill in the blanks from the on screen evidence.

For what it’s worth, Wikipedia specifically lists the merchant navy of my country as a uniformed service, as well as the coastguard, the rnli, air ambulance, boy scouts, mountain rescue etc, as well as the usual police, fire etc.

Even in a non-American context, NASA is still not a uniformed service. And the US Merchant Marine is a uniformed service inasmuch as all officers within the USMM are also US Naval Reserve Officers. And we have non-military uniform services, though they are rare, the one that comes to mind is the US Coast Guard Auxiliary, which I believe is analogous to the UK's Lifeboat service. You do have to wear a uniform and return all salutes (Though I never was given a salute when I was in the Aux<thank goodness>)., but you don't fall under a code of military conduct or justice. The fact that NASA has a few uniforms certain people where makes it a uniformed service in the same way McDonald's is.

 

[Sci]

Here's something to ponder about this: Do people think Starfleet would have something akin to a special operations command? If there was a sensitive operation that needed the equivalent of SEAL Team 6 operators to pull it off, does Starfleet have a dedicated division that's meant to deal with crises and threats?

The militaries of our world do, whether it be the SEALs, Delta Force, SAS, Spetsnaz, etc., but from what we've seen on-screen, Starfleet doesn't.

When Sisko has to expose the changeling in the Klingon leadership, him and his crew have to improvise a way to make it work. When Picard is sent on the secret mission in "Chain of Command," Beverly and Worf are expected to get the training down for the operation, instead of just sending a Starfleet unit trained in infiltration with Picard.

Realistically, there would almost certainly be a Starfleet Special Operations division. In the canon, there is something called Starfleet Tactical, but we don't know much about what they do. Ro Laren graduated from a program called Advanced Tactical Training before returning to the Enterprise-D and then defecting to the Maquis; it's possible this might be a special operations division a la the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six or the U.K. Royal Navy's Special Boat Service.

I suspect you are looking at only the US’s definition, and I fear that is where so much of the disagreement stems from. The USians think the federation and starfleet is analogous to modern day america and there’s fore use modern day definitions to fill in the blanks from the on screen evidence.

To be clear, I don't think the Federation and Starfleet are analogous to modern-day America. The United States is a white supremacist settler colonial society whose constituent polities only sometimes map onto the real and meaningful divergent cultures that comprise its federation.

I do, however, contend that the United Federation of Planets is a sovereign federal state and that the Federation Starfleet is clearly its military, since the Federation Starfleet is the uniformed service of the Federation government charged with defending the state in times of war, which is legally obliged to obey orders from the democratically-elected head of state, and whose members are subject to a special set of binding laws that are enforced through a system of courts-martial and a special system of imprisonment exclusively for members of that uniformed service found to have violated that special set of laws by said courts-martial.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

The Department of Health's Public Service Commissioned Corps and the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps are both considered to be non-military members of the Uniformed Services of the United States.

The military status of the Active and Reserve elements of the Coast Guard are... complicated... as they are both military and not-military, but the Coast Guard Auxiliary is an explicitly civilian affiliate* of the USCG as their members lack both primary Title 14 authority as a federal law enforcement organisation (all USCG officers and petty officers are considered armed officers with full arrest powers) or their supplementary Title 10 and 14 authority as a military organisation.

* Members of Civil Air Patrol have a similar relationship with the Department of the Air Force, and like USCGA members typically use private civilian vehicles for official purposes.