Starfleet: Military Or Not?

[WarpGirl]

And I never deined that just the history of TIMING!

[CX]

Prior to 2161, Starfleet was the primary space defense and exploration organization of United Earth in the early-to-mid-22nd century. The primary authority of Starfleet was referred to as either Starfleet Command or UESPA (United Earth Space Probe Agency) under the jurisdiction of the Command Council, and was located in the city of San Francisco, Earth. (ENT: "Broken Bow", "Terra Prime")

Doesn't it just describe it as a military organization? If your primary objective is "defense" that makes you military (since police doesn't have that exact objective.) If to achieve defense (of your planet, in this case) you can use weapons and fire force against your enemies, that makes you even more military.

Indeed, Enterprise herself took a military action in S3 in defense of Earth. Civilian scientific organizations do not wage wars, and it's as simple as that. Starfleet has pretty much always been shown to be a military force through its actions, and even Kirk described himself as a soldier, and you had some like Scotty who thought the best diplomat was a fully charged phaser bank. It really doesn't matter if characters in ENT described Starfleet as a civilian organization or not, actions speak much louder than words.

I've never understood the resistance to Starfleet being a military organization among some in the fandom. Some of the people who don't like that idea come off as anti-military hippy types or something, though others just seem like they're worshipping things GR said a little too much, since at one point he said he doesn't think of Starfleet as a military, hence the lack of any enlisted personnel (which would be more like NOAA Corps). The thing is, such organizations, while a uniformed service, are not warfighters. On the other hand, the military has historically always conducted scientific research on its own, much or which has eventually ended up in civilian use. The military also has done and still is involved in exploration and mapping missions. The Endeavour and the Challenger come to mind just off the top of my head. So it's much more plausible that a military organization would take on more scientific and explorative missions than a civilian organization taking on more military roles.

Only this if we're defining a Military by a chain of command, uniforms, and baring arms... Then what the heack is a police force? Heck most fireman have all three requirements. That confuses me a little. There is a ranking system in both.

Those and organizations like NOAA Corps are referred to as "uniformed services". However, they are not militaries because they do not fight wars or take other military actions. Starfleet does and always has. Think about it.

[CX]

I always thought of Starfleet as a future version of NASA. So just to further confuse things: The astronauts are all members of the military, right? And military structure is used on board the ships and space station, too, yes? But NASA isn't military. How does that work ?

It's missions and who runs the organization. NASA has civilian directors, not military officers who make the decisions, plan missions, etc. Military officers are used because they have the training to operate the equipment, and a lot of them have degrees in scientific fields. There has also been plenty of civilian science specialists on NASA missions. Most importantly, NASA does not fight wars or take military actions (as in shooting/blowing stuff up). The closest they've ever come to that is launching and helping to maintain military satellites, and if you've noticed the Air Force does a lot of its own launches now.

If you honestly believe that Starfleet wasn't a military organization, then you also must believe that Humans at this time were too dumb to exist. Even small countries or prinicipalities have an army or navy or both. They know that if they want to continue to exist, they have to protect themselves.

Except, oficially, Costa Rica.

And there are some other countries that don't own an army. HERE.

Some countries can't afford militaries, or find it cheaper to user mercs.

OK I am getting so freaked out that I am actually sticking with Canon when the canon people are objecting. THIS IS WRONG! I should be denouncing canon at the top of my fingertips!!!! Have I entered an AU??? Really I'm scared.

There's a difference between the canon freaks all the Abrams Trek people like to make fun of and people who just like things to make sense. There is a such thing as middle ground between stubbornly clinging to every little thing GR and the other show-runners said and every little thing that happened in all the episodes and movies, and just throwing everything out because it's apparently too difficult to keep any sense of continuity and to acknowledge that the franchise's problems have been caused by poor writing, poor decisions made by the producers, and interference from the studio and UPN.

[WarpGirl]

OK I was just teasing about the Canon stuff. Really I just like things to make sense myself, if that means usisng Canon, fine. If that means finding another way that's ok too. As for the military thing, I don't object to Starfleet being a military, because well it is. I'm just looking at this from a historical angle. If you remember I did say that Starfleet started to become a true military because of the Xindi. Really I'm just talking about history and paperwork.