UFP vs USA

[sunnyside]

No I don't mean in a fight.


I could be wrong. But I'm getting the impression some people have almost a split personality when the shift from, say, the VOY or DS9 board to the political one.

In Trek they laud the Federation for militarizing more in DS9 and generally think they should take the trend further. When arguing specific episodes typically they favor more of a combat oriented response. But the opposite in the political board.

Anyway I'm just curious what people think about the UFP and the USA in regards to being militaristic etc and are your positions different and why.

[Duskofdead]

No I don't mean in a fight.


I could be wrong. But I'm getting the impression some people have almost a split personality when the shift from, say, the VOY or DS9 board to the political one.

In Trek they laud the Federation for militarizing more in DS9 and generally think they should take the trend further. When arguing specific episodes typically they favor more of a combat oriented response. But the opposite in the political board.

Anyway I'm just curious what people think about the UFP and the USA in regards to being militaristic etc and are your positions different and why.

I agree with what you are saying. It's really odd to see for instance Rochey Seafort and Kendall go off about what stout liberals they are in the political thread and then come over here and talk about how Trek ships should fire transphasic torpedoes at anything that twitches in a way the Captain's eye doesn't like.

Can't really speculate or explain it, because my values are pretty consistent across military, fiction and political topics.

[Teaos]

I'm one of the few people here who can say they like the soft Federation who never fights

I don't think the members like Rochey and Seafort want a more militery Federation so much as they just want the military and science departments split.

Its not about more and bigger military so much as smarter.

[Duskofdead]

I'm one of the few people here who can say they like the soft Federation who never fights

I don't think the members like Rochey and Seafort want a more militery Federation so much as they just want the military and science departments split.

Its not about more and bigger military so much as smarter.

I don't want a Federation incapable of fighting, but I do want a Federation that is smart, clever, well trained and diplomatic enough that they rarely need to, and when they do, they've prioritized research and technology so much that they don't NEED huge armadas of bristling Star Destroyer esque warships to comfortably cope with any plausible threat.

I'm VERY much an espouser of the belief that if you prioritize the use of force as a primary consideration, it will become a self fulfilling prophecy where the use of force will become your primary mode of responding to any conflict. In other words I think if the Federation became what the Battle Bargers would like it to become, it wouldn't be the Federation anymore, it would be the Terran Empire or the Pax Federatiaca. Stroke the back while getting the knife ready to thrust, so to speak.

There's little evidence to believe, based on historical precedent, that anyone who builds up an insurmountably unassailable military force is going to be content to sit back and use that military force with cautious reservation and due forebearance for defense only. On the contrary there's a wealth of evidence that if you have such a military in your possession chances are you're going to get some trigger happy people rushing to grab leadership and make use of it. For the greater good, of course. Why coexist with the Klingons when we can simply obliterate their military capacity and THEN coexist? That sort of thinking becomes increasingly difficult to tamp down the stronger you become, and the more militarized compared to the political community in which you reside.

In short, I don't want Picard replaced with Vader.

[Teaos]

I'm a believer that if you leave everyone alone most people will leave you alone leaving you with no need for a major military.

[Duskofdead]

I know an awful lot of military history buffs who would blast you for being the modern day equivalent of the "appeasement" thinkers in WWII with Hitler, but I agree with you.

I think a big huge burgeoning military power tends to create enemies, whether those targets ever intended to be enemies or not.

[Teaos]

There is a difference between avoiding fighting at all costs and bending over to someone who wants to take you over. If you see an enemy coming thats when you step up and use your superior technology to kick some arse

[Duskofdead]

Here lemme find my military philosophy, yes including for my own country (The U.S.):

Smedley Butler on Interventionism
-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

[Teaos]

I agree with most of that. But I believe you need to add a clear and present danger clause to that. If America had waited for Hitler to attack it may have been to late.

[Sionnach Glic]

Anyway I'm just curious what people think about the UFP and the USA in regards to being militaristic etc and are your positions different and why.

The UFP has a detrimental lack of focus on anything military. Regardless of how you feel Starfleet should be run, I think we all agree that stuff like not teaching captains tactics when they're expected to serve on the front lines, and the total lack of any ground army are major oversights that need to be corrected.

I hear some people say "But they can take on any race and beat them already, they don't need further militarization". Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, the Feds could probably wipe the floor with their neighbours. But can you imagine the loss of life? With the Feds' lack of sane design practices and the total disregard for anything military it would be a complete bloodbath, won only by the Feds' technical superiority.

The best way to rectify this is to hand over the responsibility of defending the Federation from external threats to a completely new organisation, leaving the old Starfleet to focus on scientific and civilian endevours. This would allow military Starfleet to focus purely on defence and constructing dedicated warships. With such a split, and wars the Federation may have in the future would result in a quicker victory, with less loss of life and assets. This also has the bonus of making military matters and decisions quicker. With no mass of civilian beurocracy to wade through, the commanders can focus purely on the military forces while not being burdened or distracted by the civilian fleet. The civilian fleet now has the advantage of not being thrown into the frontlines the moment a war starts.

Put it this way: the USA has superiority over every military on the planet in terms of technology. They could use this advanced technology to completely flatten any country that they went to war with. Does this mean they no longer need to teach officers tactics? Does this mean they can give the USN control of the merchant fleet as well? Does this mean they can build tanks and warships from an aesthetic point of view rather than a practical one? Does this mean they can disband the Army entirely, just keeping the Navy and Airforce?
No, obviously it can't. To do so would turn any war the US gets into into a complete bloodbath. Can you imagine the death toll the Iraq War would have had on US troops if they'd taken the Feds lead and relied purely on their technology to win?

[Teaos]

If they'd taken the Feds lead they wouldnt have gone to war.

[Sionnach Glic]

The Iraq bit was just an analogy as to how a war would go.
You're correct that wars are less likely, but the power difference between the Feds and their larger neighbours is nowhere near as large as the difference in power between the USA and other countries. For the Federation, wars aren't exactly unheard of.

[sunnyside]

Actually Feds and their neighbors (Excluding the Dominion or Borg) seems fair equitable to the current world situation. I think deliberatly actually.

However Iraq isn't the Klingons. I don't know if Iraq is even enough to be the Cardassians. Maybe the Breen without their little energy drain thing.

No it's more like the Klingons and Romulans are Russia and China. They're big and a little behind the curve tech wise, but they must be respected, an invasion is pretty much out of the question, and if they attacked a neighbor (Russia hits Georgia), it's debatable if anything could really be done about it.

Also the US military does, to a degree, the civilian thing Rochey doesn't like. And deliberatly. Currently our armed forces are supposed to be structured so that if they want to roll out for a larger engagement they have to use National Guard people even if they could in theory meet the force requirements without them. The idea being in part that it makes it harder to launch a quite or unjust war when you're pulling out teachers and the like. Also congress can get into the affairs of the military when it feels like it.

The pure military vs multipurpose ship part of it doesn't carry across as an analogy really because there aren't oceans we haven't sailed yet or stuff out there to study. I'd just consider it part of the funding split. I.e. where the Feds might have to choose between Nebulas and Akiras the US would have to choose between DARPA funding or F-22's.

[Sionnach Glic]

Actually Feds and their neighbors (Excluding the Dominion or Borg) seems fair equitable to the current world situation. I think deliberatly actually.

However Iraq isn't the Klingons. I don't know if Iraq is even enough to be the Cardassians. Maybe the Breen without their little energy drain thing.

No it's more like the Klingons and Romulans are Russia and China. They're big and a little behind the curve tech wise, but they must be respected, an invasion is pretty much out of the question, and if they attacked a neighbor (Russia hits Georgia), it's debatable if anything could really be done about it.

I know. Bringing up Iraq was just an example of what a bloodbath even an easily won war would be if modern militaries went "well, we have better tech, so we don't need to worry about anything else", as the Feds seem to do.

Also the US military does, to a degree, the civilian thing Rochey doesn't like. And deliberatly. Currently our armed forces are supposed to be structured so that if they want to roll out for a larger engagement they have to use National Guard people even if they could in theory meet the force requirements without them. The idea being in part that it makes it harder to launch a quite or unjust war when you're pulling out teachers and the like. Also congress can get into the affairs of the military when it feels like it.

Does the NG really count as civilian, though? I think they'd be more equitable to some form of reserve force. I think it would be more analogous if the USN operated fishing vessels, or the Army dealt in trading with other nations.
And of course Congress can get involved; they're the government. It'd be a dangerous military if it wasn't controled by a government.

The pure military vs multipurpose ship part of it doesn't carry across as an analogy really because there aren't oceans we haven't sailed yet or stuff out there to study.

Then look back to an era where there were. Was Columbus given a fleet of warships to search for a new route to India? Did the military oversee his mission? No. Even back then there was a clear divide between military and civilian matters.

I'd just consider it part of the funding split. I.e. where the Feds might have to choose between Nebulas and Akiras the US would have to choose between DARPA funding or F-22's.

The problem doesn't appear to be from funding. It seems to stem from their own mindset.
Until they ran into an enemy they couldn't simply beat back with their technology, they gave seemingly no thought at all to any form of military matters. They didn't even bother to teach the captains of their front-line ships tactics.
When they did run into the Borg, and later the Dominion, they began churning out new types of ships that were dedicated to combat with no apparent problems. Even their hand weapons became of a saner design.

[sunnyside]

I know. Bringing up Iraq was just an example of what a bloodbath even an easily won war would be if modern militaries went "well, we have better tech, so we don't need to worry about anything else", as the Feds seem to do.

Still we're straying a bit. The point in regards to that stuff would be more like foreign policy. I.e. if there were some Iran style aliens, maybe they could be Cardassians, and they were making some superweapon I get the feeling in trek you'd be down with laying some smack or section 31 action. Whereas I think you feel differently in real life.

Does the NG really count as civilian, though? I think they'd be more equitable to some form of reserve force. I think it would be more analogous if the USN operated fishing vessels, or the Army dealt in trading with other nations.

Er. I meant reserve there (though NG is technically a reserve force too). And the reserves(and even NG really) are roughly as civilian as the crew on a Galaxy I'd think.

The fishing boat thing again comes down to the age of tech we're in. See below.

Then look back to an era where there were. Was Columbus given a fleet of warships to search for a new route to India? Did the military oversee his mission? No. Even back then there was a clear divide between military and civilian matters.

Well a little hard to compare with the US but I'll bite.

While he was operating outside of the military he could have used his ships as warships. They were armed with cannon and small arms. The Santa Maria in particular was ready to rumble (though exact details are scetchy I believe). Ships of the same build were used to put down smack on countries that lacked bigger or better warships and their built up superstructure notably hurt their sailing abilityl, but was there for close in fighting against ships attempting to board. So it was a fighting design.

So I think those ships were very "federation".

The problem doesn't appear to be from funding. It seems to stem from their own mindset.
Until they ran into an enemy they couldn't simply beat back with their technology, they gave seemingly no thought at all to any form of military matters. They didn't even bother to teach the captains of their front-line ships tactics.
When they did run into the Borg, and later the Dominion, they began churning out new types of ships that were dedicated to combat with no apparent problems. Even their hand weapons became of a saner design.

That can pretty directly correlate to the real world. It would be like if advanced weapon systems are developed and could be put into production but weren't built in numbers. i.e. if the US runs 11 carriers. We could have just made one or two and still had the same tech development and experience.

It's a question of if you support high military spending.