Well, after carefully reviewing the FAQ, I've decided that this does not
fall within the realm of a technical discussion, and is in fact allowed
under this provision.
Discussions of controversial topics like religion, politics,
etc. when not directly related to a particular posted fic.
Remember that the list serves people with a wide variety of
beliefs and nationalities. One person's honored leader is
probably someone else's rotten scoundrel, and what you think
is an inspirational message may be a declaration of war to the
next person.
C&C is always welcome; I'm particularly interested in comments from reviewers
with some background or serious interest in politics, military issues
(particularly general purpose forces), etc...
-The Reverend Prez
* * *
1. Organization of the United Planetary Defense Forces
The United Planetary Defense Forces embodies a bureaucratic organization
typical in interstellar societies that grow to include to include a
similarly broad and numerous membership as the Confederation's constituent
star-nations. Although bureaucratic ambiguity often proves problematic to
the slow evolution of the Confederation's fledgling federalist character,
the UPDF represents one of the strongest federalized standing militaries in
the history of the First Quadrant. The Corron Empire currently stands as
the only power that actually absolutely supercedes the UPDF in terms of raw
magnitude (Navy hulls, tonnage, and associated personnel; planetary force
divisions and associated equipment; etc). The Empire, however, relies on a
small federal military that takes commanding precedence over a massive
reserve carved out of the private militaries of major Imperial clans. While
the Imperial system has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years and is
still fraught with a variety of deeply disturbing institutional problems,
the Confederation--hosting the talents of hundreds of member worlds--has
successfully integrated both various time-proven military philosophies and
technologies from thousands of cultures. Furthermore, the general
efficiency of the system after three interstellar war seems to bespeak
against the criticism of the UPDF's seemingly convoluted hierarchy system.
While a detailed history of individual units would further serve to
emphasize the smooth integration of both the standing military, planetary
militaries and colonial militias, as well as the Selective Service
situations into an efficient military bureaucracy, the constraints mandated
by this compedium preclude such an investigative report. Instead, a
detailed summary will adequately describe the command structures and force
organization of the UPDF. First, an organizational chart based on raw
hierarchy will discuss the missions and roles of different units.
Supplementing this, an flow chart detailing the theater organization of
forces is also provided.
* * *
THE COMMAND ECHELON: THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SECRETARIAT AND THE DEFENSE
COUNCIL
The necessity of maintaining a unified military command for the entirety of
the Confederation arose from the flaws of the previous system, in which
local militias and sovereign militaries were hastily constructed and
ineffectively deployed to deal with hostile situations. The key historical
example to the failure of the previous system was exemplified at the First
Battle of Yamin Maxia during the Marduk War, when the two carrier and four
line action task forces of the Terran Nineth Fleet (Inner World Command)
faced four-to-one odds against a Marduk Imperial flotilla. The nearby
Marcuip Hegemony, boasting the fourth largest navy in the Confederation,
failed to respond to the requests from the Nineth Fleet for assistance, and
held their forces in reserve. After-engagement campaign analysis suggested
that reinforcement by the Marcuip navy may have altered the bloody ratio
sufficiently to grant the Terrans the necessary defensive advantage to hold
their ground. However, the Marduk would eventually push the Terran Presence
out of Yamin Maxia with almost eighty-five percent losses, and then proceed
to reinforce for the remainder of the year. In January of 2089, the Marduk
sent an emboldened, reinvigorated task force and annihilated the Marcuip
navy and bombarded two of the Hegemony's homeworlds.
Reconsidering Yamin Maxia, further evidence of the unilateral
contribution to the war effort by Terrans arises in the fierce planetary
battles that ensued the defeat of the Nineth Fleet. The sense of the
Confederation at the time indicated an enormous bias for space-borne
warfare. The same line of thought had given rise to the political entity of
the UN Spacy a quarter-century before and at the time deprived the UN Army
and Marine Corps of the necessary funds to produce a competitive
planetary-capable fighting force. Poorly trained Terran and Karbarran
Marines--far too limited in both human resources and equipment to hold
against even a minor invasion--were ultimately massacred by first Marduk
bombardments and then planetary assault forces. The on-site commander's
request for reinforcements and support encountered a "governor-general veto"
issued by Theater Commander S'tam, who held back all non-Terran units in an
attempt to "blind" Marduk attention towards his nearby sector command.
Disaster was ultimately diverted in Earthspace, where the combined--and
lone--might of the Terran Home Fleet managed to destroy the command net of
the Marduk mothership and send the enemy forces into a communicationless
disarray.
Realizing the all-too-real danger of maintaining such a weakly organized
defensive profile (an offensive doctrine would remain a disputed subject
until the beginning of the Fourth Robotech war), the United Planetary
Council, with the full support of President Maria Redes and president
emeritus the Honorable H'thl-a Mur, enacted three resolutions calling for
the complete restructuring of the Ministry of Security. First, the
Ministry--along with every other ministerial post of the "executive"
branch--renamed itself the Department of Defense. With the addition of
broad, federal powers to the executive, the ministerial posts transitioned
into the modern secretariat--with the Cabinet and the chief executive devoid
of voting powers.
The dangers of civilian control over the DOD contrasted with the dangers
of fully military control over the secretariat. However, President Redes
perceptively arranged for a dual secretariat, consisting of the civilian
Secretary--currently Heinrich Goer, a veteran of the Harcourt Administration
and now Secretary of Defense under President Hamil Farkash--and his
counterpart, the Chairman of the United Planetary Defense Council. The
Council, however, does NOT have a voting block. Instead, it serves as the
main collaborative command unit that unites both the operational and the
architectural commands of the Defense Forces. The Secretary technically
ranks the Chairman, but the Chairman may appeal to the chief executive for a
final decision--without fear of censure from the civilian Secretariat.
Additionally, the Chairman shares the broad powers of operational approval
and execution that previous secretariats and ministerial posts offered only
to the civilian manager. However, the Secretary retains the privilege of
oversight over the Chairman's activities, and may press for a cessation of
operations with an automatic, yet temporary, presidential confirmation.
Afterwards the Secretary has thirty days to justify his oversight decision
and receive official presidential confirmation. If the deadline passes
without confirmation, the oversight order is voided. Although obvious flaws
exist within such a system, the situations which warrant such actions remain
rare and unusual. In the few cases that have arisen, particularly during
the Fourth Robotech War, the command structure has worked efficiently to
ensure the appropiate deployment of forces.
Breaking down the Defense Council
The Defense Council is the most immaterial organized structure within the
UPDF Order of Battle. Consequently, it can be both the most flexible or the
most hampering unit in the Forces--a dangerous paradox considering the
Council's analogous function as a central nervous system. However,
operational testing in full combat situations has strengthened the standard
operating procedure of the Council; similarly, unplanned tendencies also
contribute to the productive capabilities of Central Command.
Certain posts have traditionally remained consistant since the UPDF's
inaugeration in 2100. They are organized in the following flow-chart:
<to be inserted later>
Outside of what has already been discussed about the Chairman--currently
General Lucien Delaquez--the UPDC post also entails the authority to also
report directly to Congress without prior invitation. Furthermore, the
Chairman has the authority to grant temporary confirmation of field
commissions prior to Congressional confirmation (a routine procedure
conducted at the commencement of daily Congressional sessions). A temporary
confirmation grants complete operational status to a rank with all due
respect and courtesies warranted by that rank. An enumerated text of the
Chairman's duties can be found in Whyler, Funk and Wagnell's Encyclopedia of
the Confederation Civil Government System. A deeper discussion into the
gubernatorial obligations of the Defense Council secretariat is also
available in this text.
The most noted permanent posts directly under the Chairman of the UPDC are
that of the Commander, Armed Space Forces, and Commander, Interfederation
Forces. The approximation is closer to that of the Battle Force and
Ready-Reserve Force of the previous UN Spacy era, where the Interfederation
Forces comprise of a great deal of the Reserves and the Home Defense Forces.
In peacetime, the majority of the Army is retained by the Interfederation
Forces, reverting to police roles amongst member planets. The Spacy
National Guard is the single exception to the Interfederation/ASF mission
statement difference. Serving as an anti-aggression border guard
specifically along the Giovanni Stretch, they are a permanent command unit
within the ASF. Currently, Fleet Admiral Jonathon Brethan heads the ASF;
his counterpart in the Interfederation Forces is Lieutenant General Helmut
Reichman. Like the Chairman, these posts are appointed by the President,
authorized by the Prime Minister and the Committee Cabinet, and approved by
the Senate.
* * *
THE ARMED SPACE FORCES
The Armed Space Forces consist of the Battle Forces of the previous UN Spacy
military organization, although the new structure also assumes the
responsibilities of the Frontier Force, the Civil Assistance Force, and
various other subcommands that often worked autonomously from the original
Battle Force command system. The nature of the Space Forces almost
exclusively honors Terran military history, a cause for great controversy
during the early days of the Confederation. However, the War of 2188-90
(The Marduk War) silenced most opposing viewpoints. Very few star-nations
debated the fact that Terra's independent military force had been largely
responsible for preserving the Confederation's sovereign integrity against
the Marduk onslaught.
As the primary active-force element of the UPDF, the ASF consequently
assumes the missions involved in the preservation of the Confederation's
foreign borders and internal holdings against foreign aggression.
Furthermore, in an overlapping mission statement with the Interfederation's
sole active role, the ASF is also responsible in assisting in maintaining
the integrity of the governments of member roles--a complicated issue that
often brings the policies of directing the ASF under such circumstances into
a rather ambiguous light. Finally, the ASF's Guard Service, in the
tradition of Earth's global military organizations, maintains a last-resort
federal policing mission; serving at the disposal of federal governors,
appointed sector commanders, and the executive branch--all, of course, with
congressional approval. Additionally, the Guard serves as the active
supplement to the Interfederation Forces; serving as an experienced outfit
to assist in the facilitation of the activation and execution of IF mission
statements, equipment and personnel. Considering the Interfederation
Fleet's prerequisite for "full activation" mandates a compromising breach of
Confederation space and security, the last instance in which the Guard
served this function occurred during the onset of the Fourth
Corron-Confederation War .
The Centrist Party, led by Party Chair Maria Redes, sweeped the
Council's 2098 elections. In 2100, after an exhausting Constitutional
Convention that resulted in the Confederation's first written constitutional
code, the government established an executive post, which Redes ceded her
premiership to Bao Dinh Nguyen to assume, the Centrist-led government
proceeded to examine the standing military. Even after the brutal
near-defeat at the hands of the Marduk, the Armed Space Forces--formerly the
UN Spacy Central Command--retained its pre-war organizational structure; the
UN Spacy and the UN Army its sole constituents. In 2079, the Confederation
Congress and premiership--currently dominated by the Earth-born Democratic
Unificationists--had directed the UN Army to absorbed all tactical,
planetary maneuver outfits, including the UN Air Force and the UN Marine
Corps, and the UN Spacy assumed authority over strategical and space-borne
responsibilities. This bipartite system, although abecedarian outwardly,
actually resembled the half-hearted attempt made by the old Terran defense
outfit--the Army of the Southern Cross--to unify commands by location rather
than by mission. In the end, the administrative appeal of the new structure
faltered as the logistical and operational aspects of the organization
failed the test of war. The UN Army had subdivided itself into equal
subcommands of locale-oriented importance, reducing the ability of already
poorly coordinated ground and aerospace forces deal with the Marduk threat.
Redes, recognizing the problem at the onset of her Administration, quickly
called presented the Nguyen Government with the revamped bureaucracy of the
Department of Defense. The new Secretariat, which--under orders of the
Redes Administration--enacted the UPDF Council, returned the ASF bureacracy
immediately into its pre-2079 and alleviated the internal responsibilities
of the Armed Space Forces--transfering those directives to the
Interfederation Forces. The main operational branches of the ASF--the Navy,
the Army, the Aerospace Force, and the Marine Corps--reassumed their
previous responsibilities. (See The Era of the Allied Earth Federation, B:
The UN Spacy Command 2079-2099).
Although the service branch restructure of 2105 still remains in force,
the ASF has instituted a number of semi-autonomous "sub-branches" that
operate both across and separate of the ranks of the primary ASF components.
Although, for the most part, these sub-branches are primarly administrative,
a few exceptions prove noteworthy to mention. As the Military Assistance
Command for Foreign Operations (MACFO) of the Department of Defense autonomy
doubled during CCW-3 (2015-2034), its integrated modules within separate
service branches began to unify and separate from the ASF's operational
commands. While the branch Personnel Departments of the ASF maintained
strict, bureaucratic segregation of the mixed-service rank and file within
the MACFO, certain elements--General Two (Military Intelligence), for
example--advanced to a level of peerage held only by main branch commands.
The Director of G2 Intelligence is considered the most senior military
member of the Confederation Security Council, ranking behind the Chairman of
the Defense Council only. Even the Bureau of Personnel (BuPers or G3), like
most of MACFO's General Departments, has unofficially evolved into an
independent agency, answering primarily to the Administration's budgeting
agencies and Congress. Similar autonomous units include the Defense
Department's Research and Development Command, which conducts liaisons with
the Robotech Research Consortium as well as its parent secretariats, namely
the Office of Technology Subsidies, the Unified Task Force Command, and the
Diplomatic Security Corps Command. Service branches have, however,
maintained a tight leash on service-segregated military police. Opposition
to a joint-force military police outfit cited failed--and usually
abusive--examples of joint policing efforts. The preliminary arguments
filed to President Redes in 2101 included the Global Military Police of the
2030s and the Global Astro-Police Force's Law Enforcement Command of the
2060s on Earth; the Shr'Ughar Armed Police Corps (translated) on Mutanak;
the Internal Security Office (InSec) of the Katherinian
(Normandy-Meurceurian as of 2168) Forces on 78 Delphanis IV, as well as
other notable examples.
The organization of the Armed Space Forces follows a mission-oriented
formula. The division of the primary mission directives the ASF undertakes
into consumably smaller tasks permits for a calm, rational approach to
problems that may arise in executing primary mission objectives. For
example, the mission for protecting Confederation interests and territories
from foreign incursion demands the assumption of various tasks to see to the
mission's successful completion; one example being the need for system
pickets within Confederation territories along the Fringe border with the
Corron and H'than Empire. This task, consequently, calls for
self-contained, self-sufficient space-born units capable of covering
colossal areas (from cubic light-seconds to cubic parsecs), an intelligence
gathering network, sufficient manpower to assume planetary ground missions
that may arise in defending against foreign incursion, and a proper degree
of weaponry to deal with threats against the sovereign borders of the state.
In this case, the UPDF Navy undertakes the space-oriented aspect of these
responsiblities--namely the picket and the intelligence gathering network
(usually, a sensor net deployed within a star system's boundaries), while
the Marine Corps and the Army assume the planetary defense roles. The
following section will detail the different tasks, the organizational
structure, the history, and the primary mission of the main components of
today's Armed Space Forces; attacking each service branch and command
segment individually.
* * *
+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
| Presley H. | Political Science / Computer Science |
| Cannady II | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+ Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|