Utopia takes a back seat when all hell breaks loose. Two hundred years of on and off fighting (interspersed with several pan-galactic wars) will militarize just about anything.
The Federation is an exploratory coalition with ships happening to be outfitted with weapons for defense. It doesn't need a marine force.
You're arguing semantics.
The Defense of an organization, or government such as the UFP... is considered a military.
Its even spelled out in the opening paragraph on Memory Alpha.
"Starfleet was the deep-space exploratory and defense service maintained by the United Federation of Planets. Its principal functions included the advancement of Federation knowledge about the galaxy and its inhabitants, the advancement of Federation science and technology, the military defense of the Federation, and the practice of Federation diplomacy."
So it is in fact safe to assume that Starfleet is indeed the "Navy" of the Federation.
A military of sorts can be seen in DS9: Nor the Battle to the Strong. The "soldiers" seen in DS9:The Siege of AR-558 are clearly mentioned as Starfleet officers, but not belonging to any specific ship, so there must have been some sort of contingent of ground troops.
Why is it not safe to assume that Starfleet as a Navy, has a ground force... in the Marine Corps?
Surely you don't expect an entire ship of Starfleet officers to beam down to a planet, leaving their ship with the valet to orbit the moon... and fight the Dominion or some other entity?
How logical is it to have small 4 man "security teams" to fight ground wars on multiple fronts?
To say that Starfleet doesn't have a ground force is actually more of a reach than JJ Abrams 'reboot' movies.
The United States Navy also happens to be the world's largest and foremost oceanographic research entity in the world. The United States Army functions as the world's largest humanitarian/disaster relief agency in the world. Gene Roddenberry's vision was grand, but flawed. As Nicholas Meyer once told him "show me proof that war will not exist in 300 years".
Militaries are NOT bad things by nature. Their mission is to DEFEND, just like Starfleet. I think all pretense of not being a military went out the window during the dominion war.
Starfleet Marines make sense. You specialize people within a field, so you have a team of experts instead of a group of individual moderately-talented people in all disciplines. Ground combat is a specialty field. Sailors are not expected to be able to land on the beach and take enemy positions on top of their highly technical shipboard duties. Instead, the Navy uses the Marine Corps as their amphibious assault group.
Starfleet needs Marines, or MACOs, or whatever you want to call them. Simply because humans and their Federation have grown past the need to make war (highly debatable, watch the shows), does not mean the Klingons, Romulans, and others have. Without a strong military presence in Starfleet, the Romulans or Klingons would have conquered the alpha quadrant in the very beginning.
So please stop with the hippie peace and love stuff. War happens, and intelligent people prepare themselves for it. Besides, since STO is 97% combat at this point, you are playing the wrong game if you want to hold hands and sing kumbaya.
Nothing breaks the tension better than a tankard of warnog - except maybe a good brawl...
Comments
You're arguing semantics.
The Defense of an organization, or government such as the UFP... is considered a military.
Its even spelled out in the opening paragraph on Memory Alpha.
"Starfleet was the deep-space exploratory and defense service maintained by the United Federation of Planets. Its principal functions included the advancement of Federation knowledge about the galaxy and its inhabitants, the advancement of Federation science and technology, the military defense of the Federation, and the practice of Federation diplomacy."
So it is in fact safe to assume that Starfleet is indeed the "Navy" of the Federation.
A military of sorts can be seen in DS9: Nor the Battle to the Strong. The "soldiers" seen in DS9:The Siege of AR-558 are clearly mentioned as Starfleet officers, but not belonging to any specific ship, so there must have been some sort of contingent of ground troops.
Why is it not safe to assume that Starfleet as a Navy, has a ground force... in the Marine Corps?
Surely you don't expect an entire ship of Starfleet officers to beam down to a planet, leaving their ship with the valet to orbit the moon... and fight the Dominion or some other entity?
How logical is it to have small 4 man "security teams" to fight ground wars on multiple fronts?
To say that Starfleet doesn't have a ground force is actually more of a reach than JJ Abrams 'reboot' movies.
Militaries are NOT bad things by nature. Their mission is to DEFEND, just like Starfleet. I think all pretense of not being a military went out the window during the dominion war.
Starfleet Marines make sense. You specialize people within a field, so you have a team of experts instead of a group of individual moderately-talented people in all disciplines. Ground combat is a specialty field. Sailors are not expected to be able to land on the beach and take enemy positions on top of their highly technical shipboard duties. Instead, the Navy uses the Marine Corps as their amphibious assault group.
Starfleet needs Marines, or MACOs, or whatever you want to call them. Simply because humans and their Federation have grown past the need to make war (highly debatable, watch the shows), does not mean the Klingons, Romulans, and others have. Without a strong military presence in Starfleet, the Romulans or Klingons would have conquered the alpha quadrant in the very beginning.
So please stop with the hippie peace and love stuff. War happens, and intelligent people prepare themselves for it. Besides, since STO is 97% combat at this point, you are playing the wrong game if you want to hold hands and sing kumbaya.