Modern militaries engage in considerable scientific and exploratory duties, as we have covered to death.
Why is there resistance to the idea of Starfleet being military?
- Thread starter The Wormhole
- Start date
- Status
Modern militaries engage in considerable scientific and exploratory duties, as we have covered to death.
And as I and others have pointed out, the purpose of those scientific and exploration (???) duties is for defense purposes, not for its own sake. If there were a show about the modern US Navy, you'd never see an episode like "Explorers" where Sisko decides to build an ancient Bajoran solar-sailor and when asked why not just use computer models his response is "because it'll be fun." It's that kind of scientific inquiry on Star Trek that makes Starfleet seem very much not a military.
I really don't think there's an objective answer to this question. I think it depends on the viewer, the writer that day, the needs of the story, etc. If anything, Starfleet is a very touchy-feely, science/exploration-focused, pseudo-military.
You're referring to this one, unusual case and taking it as a standard. That is just not the case. Growing up in a Navy family I can tell you that exploration was not on those people's minds. They are defending the country, not exploring.
That's because modern navies are, by their own definition and by the laws of their home countries, military organizations. Those countries define them as "military" because of the need to have a highly professional maritime combat force capable of defending their sovereign waters foreign aggression.
Starfleet, on the other hand, is not a military organization, it is a scientific research and diplomatic body whose mission includes some military and law enforcement obligations.
For one thing, "exploration" has never been the goal or purpose of an archetypical military. It's a secondary mission they can carry out in peace time, just like combat is a secondary mission a police department can carry out in war time.
But it doesn't matter whether some individual somewhere comes up with a definition of "military" that Starfleet happens to fit. It's a matter of whether or not Starfleet fits THE FEDERATION'S definition of what a military is.
This is pretty much the Ralph Offenhouse debate ad infinitum. You can compare the Enterprise to all kinds of things, but it's not the 20th century anymore and most of your comparisons are rendered invalid by our staggering ignorance of everything that's happened in the last 300 years.
No, it's a strawman. No one in history has EVER claimed that Navies engage "purely" in defensive and enforcement operations. But that is the PRIMARY PURPOSE of a naval force; it is what all of their ships are designed for, it is what all of their personnel are primarily trained for.
You might as well be claiming that the U.S. Marine Corps is America's largest space program. It isn't: lots of Marines become (and historically, have been) astronauts, but every Marine is, first and foremost, a rifleman.
This is probably a stronger argument than mine, which essentially boils down to, it kinda depends I guess but not really.
There are definitely examples to be found of Starfleet likening itself to a military, but I do agree their primary purpose for existing, according to Starfleet itself and the Federation, is diplomacy, science, and exploration, which they go out of their way to emphasize.
If they were sending Janeway into the Badlands to conduct a scientific survey, it would have made more sense.
You want to flush out the Marquis, use a ship more suited for combat and Intel gathering, commanded by someone with that type of experience.
Unless you are an incompetent military organization with poor assets.
You want to flush out the Marquis, use a ship more suited for combat and Intel gathering, commanded by someone with that type of experience.
Unless you are an incompetent military organization with poor assets.
Well, the Federation hadn't fought a large-scale war for quite a long time before that. Obviously, the tactical experience & military preformance... degraded over this time. The mere existense of "Galaxy"-class is the indication that pure military logic wasn't considered - making what essentially is a mobile space colony for a role of forward-exploration ship & major capital ship.
P.S. I knew about Federation-Cardassian war, but this conflict quite ill-defined in canon, and considering relative military weakness of Cardassians, this probably wasn't anything more than a series of border skrimishes.
Well, they weren't even trying to "flush out" the Maquis ship. Janeway was looking for Tuvok, who was on an undercover mission when the Val'Jean vanished. I kind of think it was more of a rescue mission than anything else, probably similar to what Picard might have ended up doing later on if Ro Laren hadn't turned on him.
Of course, the fact that Janeway switched from science officer to command is worth remembering too. "Science officer" is not an existing position on modern naval vessels, as its closest modern equivalent would probably be some kind of civilian consultant or research contractor. It's certainly not something that would eventually (if not immediately) lead to that officer getting her own command of a major vessel.
They wouldn't send a "ship built for combat"?
This would probably go round and round until some iteration of ST canon would finally establish the existence of a Federation military forces, separate from Starfleet.
Probably, of course the problem really is that there is no answer, everyone looks at the show slightly differently, everyone draws from subtly different versions of what constitutes a military.
What I don't get is how invested people seem to get in such a petty question.
You are my new favorite.
I think, this question is pretty far from petty. Basically, it's the question of thought patterns; how should the members of Starfleet (mainly captains) think? More as scientists and explorers, or as soldiers and defenders? How willingly should the Starfleet captains use the force, or threat of force to do things?
OUR interpretation is irrelevant. The FEDERATION'S interpretation is that Starfleet is not a military organization. That tells us quite a bit about the limitations of our interpretations, even without any other context.
Which basically led to the question: why the protection of Federation is left in the hands of non-professionals, which tactical decisions are always impared by some sort of contradicting directives, or high moral standards, or scientific interests?
I fully agree, that military isn't the best force for exploration and first contact missions - but the defense of Federation space hardly would require a lot of scientific traits or pose a lot of moral dillemas.
IMHO, of course, but the most logical solution is to separate Starfleet (which is NOT military) from the Federation military forces. This would explain quite a lot of things; for example, the existence of dreadnought-class ships & destroyers (which are hardly suited for exploration missions), or the increasingly growing number of "Constitution"-class cruisers (which were intially stated as "just twelve units"; it could be easily retconned as "just twelve units on Starfleet service - and dozens more in defense forces"), and the existence of General Order 24 (which basically justify indiscriminate bombardment - clearly, something more for military, than for explorers!)
- Status
